Denver, Colo., September 1950September 1950

On the night of September 20, 1950, a B-25 aircraft carrying USAF personnel observed an unusual object near Denver, Colorado. The observers, who were airborne at the time, reported seeing a brilliant white to orange-red light that resembled a landing light. The object was at approximately 8,000 feet altitude, traveling on a course of 154 degrees magnetic (roughly south-southeast), and was visible for between 10 and 30 seconds. According to the report, the object moved slightly faster than an aircraft, at an estimated speed of 700 mph. The most distinctive feature was that the object appeared to emit a string of bright sparks that "burned out" as it was observed.

The sighting sparked additional investigation and corroboration. An official Air Intelligence Report documented the incident and noted that fourteen other persons also reported seeing flying objects in the same general area around the same time. The document discusses September 20, 1950, as a significant date for meteor activity, noting that large fireballs were reported by airplane crews flying over a six-state region including Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. The report mentions the American Meteoritics Society's classification system for meteor sightings and references a major meteor event that occurred earlier that same day in the southeastern United States.

Page 4 of the file became too garbled during OCR scanning to reliably extract specific witness details or investigative conclusions. Pages 5 and 6 are heavily degraded and difficult to parse, though they appear to contain additional witness statements and analysis. Page 7 shows fragments of what may be a summary or conclusion section, but the OCR rendering is too fragmentary to quote accurately. The file does not clearly state a final determination of what the object was.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consisting of 8 pages of microfilm T1206, Roll 7.