Chilton, WisconsinJuly 1956

On July 28, 1956, a bright object appeared in the sky near Chilton, Wisconsin, and was watched for over three hours as dawn approached. A caller reported seeing a solid object about the size of a baseball. It was white in color with a red end and looked like it had an arm protruding from the rear. The observer used binoculars to watch it and saw the object rise higher in the sky until it disappeared as daylight grew brighter. Weather conditions were clear throughout the sighting.

The same morning, police and tourists near Cadillac, Michigan, about 100 miles away, also reported seeing a brilliant white light. Willard Wood called the Cadillac police at 3:30 a.m. and said the light looked like a clear glass light bulb with occasional red flashes inside it. He said it came as close as 300 feet above the ground. Two police officers, John Langley and Merrill Taylor, drove out to look. Langley reported that the object approached and withdrew several times, growing brighter as the stars faded. An F-89 jet interceptor from nearby Wurtsmith Air Force Base made two brief radar contacts lasting three seconds each, but the pilot saw nothing when he made three separate passes at different altitudes.

The Air Force investigated both sightings and considered whether a weather balloon launched on July 27 might explain the Wisconsin sighting. High-altitude winds ruled this out. The officer writing the Cadillac report noted that the pilot's radar contacts were unclear and he believed they picked up something else entirely, such as a bird, cloud, or ground target. The investigating flight commander concluded the Cadillac sighting was definitely caused by the planet Venus. The Wisconsin case was marked "unknown" by the Air Force, though one analyst who observed Venus at the same time and date concluded all points of the sighting fit the Venus hypothesis.

The complete case file, comprising 11 pages held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.