Creola, AlabamaAugust 1953

On the evening of July 31, 1953, a grocer named Herman Lister was getting into his vehicle near Creola, Alabama, when he spotted an unusual light in the sky. The object appeared to glow with a reddish color on its leading edge and a duller amber glow on its trailing side. It was moving west to southwest at an extremely high speed, traveling in a straight and level path. The entire sighting lasted less than two seconds. Lister heard no sound and saw no aircraft in the area. He could not make out a clear shape, though the object seemed fairly large based on its apparent brightness.

Over the next two weeks, the Air Force received reports of additional sightings near Creola and the nearby town of Satsuma. On August 2 at 12:30 a.m. local time, a Methodist minister reported seeing a bright reddish glow with a curved leading edge moving north to south. The object appeared much faster than any jet aircraft the witness had seen, and the sighting lasted only a few seconds. On August 17 at 8:55 p.m., two more observers in Satsuma reported watching a bright reddish object heading from north to south, parallel to Highway 43. Both witnesses agreed the object far exceeded the speed of any jet aircraft in the area. The sighting lasted roughly three seconds, and no sound accompanied it.

The Air Force investigation notes that all observers were interviewed and assigned reliability ratings. Weather data collected from the time of the sightings showed clear to scattered cloud conditions, with surface temperatures in the low seventies. No interception was attempted because the sightings were reported after the fact. The file does not state a final conclusion about what the objects were.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 11 scanned pages.