David City, NebraskaAugust 1960

Between late August and early September 1960, twenty-four people in David City, Nebraska, reported seeing a mysterious object in the night sky. The sightings occurred on multiple nights over several days, with some witnesses watching for just a few minutes while others observed for several hours. The object was described differently by various observers, but witnesses generally agreed on several key features: it changed colors, shifting from red to blue to green to yellow and white. All but one observer said the object showed signs of spinning or moving.

The descriptions of the object itself varied widely. Three observers said it was star-shaped when viewed with the naked eye but inverted V-shaped through a telescope. Another observer described it as star-shaped standing on end. One witness said it was ball-shaped. Estimates of size ranged from smaller than a dime to about the size of a grapefruit. Some observers thought the blue color represented exhaust that appeared when the object began to maneuver. The object was observed moving upward in elevation, sometimes performing what witnesses called erratic maneuvers, though one observer reported it moved in a straight line.

Air Force investigators conducted a preliminary study and noted a county fair happening fifteen miles away in Columbus, which led them to briefly consider whether ground lights might have caused the sighting. However, they ruled this out because clear skies would normally be needed for such an effect. The investigators did observe dust in the air during that period. Five of the eighteen people who had reported the sighting were personally interviewed and described as reasonable and truthful.

On the night of September 6, Air Force personnel including Lt. Col. Collins (senior navigator), Major Eddy (command pilot), M/Sgt. Mills (intelligence technician), and five airmen observed the night sky at the original sighting location under identical conditions. They concluded the object was the star Pollux, or was in the vicinity of Pollux. The Air Force's formal evaluation, however, was not that the sighting was a star. Instead, they classified it as "Other" because they believed the cause was atmospheric refraction, a phenomenon where light bends as it passes through layers of atmosphere at different temperatures and densities. The file notes that descriptions of the object fit those of astronomical objects affected by such refraction, and that bright planets and stars occupied positions in the sky that matched the witnesses' reports.

The full case file, comprising 20 pages held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.