Dayton, OhioOctober 1961

Unidentified

Summary

On October 12, 1961, someone in Dayton, Ohio saw a large, bright white object moving very fast across the sky. The sighting lasted about five minutes. The Air Force received the report because of the object's unusual speed.

The witness described the object as appearing like a light. Based on the questionnaire form in the file, the observer noted details about the object's movement and behavior, though much of the handwritten responses are difficult to read in the OCR version.

The Air Force evaluated the sighting as unidentified. In its conclusion, the reviewing officers noted that they could not explain the report due to the range of verifiability, the duration of the sighting, and the object's flight characteristics. The case file mentions a possible drone connection but does not reach a definitive conclusion about what caused the sighting.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consisting of 10 pages.

Reported location

Dayton, Ohio

Date of incident

October 1961

State / country

OH / US

Page count

10 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unidentified

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 44

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 10

View transcribed text

4 \
) Ts. . PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD wl
i 1. DATE 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS iE
: ols 1.2 D Wes Ball
; 12 Oct 61 Dayton, Ohio [2 Prabobly Balloon
E 3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4 TYPE OF OBSERVATION 0. Possibly Balloon
3 025 “8 : I Was Aircraft
| Local ee sor HS ERHRAR Ground-Yisual 0 Grouvnd-Rodar 0 Probobly Aircroft
§ GMT 13035 272 0 AirVisuol 0 Air-Intercept Radar 0 Possibly Aircraft
p 5. PHOTOS . SOURCE 0 Was Astronomical
FE 0 Yes O Probably Astronomical
i vB Ne Civilian O Possibly Astronomical
Rt! 7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE G-cOYRE iC ee Sy
; O Insufficient Data for Evaluation
8 s 4 i 0 Unknown
LE 5 min 1 SN S
4 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING Large bright wiite objt |[V). COMMENTS Dvaluzted as =/~ due to ransu-
4 appearing as light moving very fast. Zouni of verability, duration of sighting, and
4 drone possible associated. Reported beczuse of | flight characteristics.
- excessive speed.
3 ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP $2)
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A J \
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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28995108