Danbury, Conn., October 1961October 1961

In October 1961, a boy and his father observed a glowing object near Danbury, Connecticut. The witnesses described it as round and pinkish-orange in color, roughly five to eight feet in diameter, and visible for about ten minutes before it disappeared. They watched it from an estimated distance of about twenty feet.

The object's behavior struck the witnesses as unusual. It appeared to glow with a soft, diffuse light and lacked sharp edges. As the witnesses stood in the road in front of their home, the object descended toward them at what seemed like a slow speed. As it came lower, it appeared to swell in size to nearly fifteen feet in diameter. The closest it came was about five feet above their heads, at which point the witnesses grew frightened and ran inside. Later, the boy's mother reported seeing the object rise back up into the sky until it resembled the size of the moon, then change color to yellow-white before moving away at high speed.

The younger witness reported having seen a similar phenomenon on a previous occasion. The boy also described the object as having the ability to change colors and lacking any audible sound or visible exhaust.

In its analysis, the Air Force concluded that the phenomenon was probably "ball lightning," a rare atmospheric effect. According to the file, researchers cited a Swedish scientific paper describing how ball lightning can appear in the sizes reported by the witnesses and display reddish coloring. The file notes that sudden temperature changes in ball lightning can cause the sphere to expand or move rapidly in unexpected directions, behavior that matched what the Danbury witnesses described.

The full case file, consisting of 18 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.