Detroit, MichiganJune 1961

Unidentified

Summary

On the night of June 6, 1961, an airman at Selfridge Air Force Base in Detroit watched an object move across the sky at extremely high speed. The object appeared egg-shaped at times and moved from west to east in a straight line. It was visible for three to four minutes. The airman first spotted it at an elevation of ninety degrees directly overhead and watched it disappear over the horizon to the east. The object made no sound and left no trail or exhaust.

A second sighting was reported the same night from the west side of Detroit. The observer, whose name the investigators had difficulty spelling, reported seeing a similar object moving very fast. This sighting occurred at 0245 (12:45 a.m.) on June 6. Investigators tried but failed to contact this witness to gather more details.

At Selfridge, radar operators searched for the object using two radar systems: the AN/FPS-20A search radar and the AN/FPS-6 height finder radar. They found nothing on radar that could not be explained by ordinary aircraft in the Detroit air defense sector. The weather was clear with good visibility, thin high clouds, and no thunderstorms in the area.

In their analysis, investigators concluded that the orbiting decline of the Echo satellite was the only possible explanation for the sightings. The Echo satellite's path crossed the Detroit area between the times of the reported sightings, and it would continue to pass over the region throughout June 1961. The Air Force classified the case as unidentified. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across nine pages.

Reported location

Detroit, Michigan

Date of incident

June 1961

State / country

MI / US

Page count

9 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unidentified

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 42

y PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD | I. DATE 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS 5 Jun 61 Detroit ichigan 1 Was Balloon : « 3 Probably Balloon - en ee et ter et ttt te teeter A en ee Arete - D alk Ball 3. DATZ-TIME GROUP 4 TYPE OF OBSERVATION W. THe Rone ; —s 4 I 0 Was Aircraft i aca rs | &5d - y - yg: Local _ EE I'Geround-Visual 0 Ground-Radar 0 Probably Aircreft i 1 ea be FAYE ARR EN 0 AirVisval O Air-Intarcapt ladar 0 Possibly Aircraft ? 5. PHOTOS 8. SOURCE 0 Was Astronomical { C Yoo 0 Probably Astronomical i © Neo Svilian and Militar 0 Possibly Astronomical : 7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION | 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE ~ | 0” Other abel liibe LUEO | i 0 lasufficient Data for Evaluation ‘ he Bw a3 one Ni E Unknown ; 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11. COMMENTS 7 Sarl AWE tra of baseball hita. Maved Tne reno the duration is verv ZXE4w % . - » . 24L00 VL Ul ON nd LLLUsse 4 ’ i Li A LL Lilo ’ Jit tN v 2 El d extremely fasb, so as to appear almost short and 1s probably in error. An : esi-shaped at times, Followed a straight | \dditional report from the same ars} : path. First observed at 90 deg elevation indicates that ECHO I was over i and disappeared over the horizon to the Selfridge AFB between 0100 and 0300% | ES and was cvaluated as OHO by the ; reporting official, | cl ee a ATIC PORM 3239 (RZV 15 SEP 352) ‘