Dobbins AFB, GAOctober 1953

On the night of October 13, 1953, a tower operator at Dobbins Air Force Base in Marietta, Georgia noticed something strange in the sky. The object appeared as a round shape that gave off flashes of colored light, had a reddish hue, and seemed to be roughly the size of automobile headlights. It hung stationary in the air about 5 miles away from the base at an altitude of approximately 2,840 feet. Every 6 to 7 minutes, the object emitted a burst of light that witnesses described as a fireball. The observation began around 10:35 p.m. and lasted roughly 2.5 hours.

Because the object appeared on weather radar, the base scrambled an aircraft and sent a truck to investigate. The initial reports indicated that the mystery object was too low to be easily observed from ground level, which prompted the urgent military response. The sighting was reported by an airman at the tower, and the case quickly escalated through Air Force channels as investigators tried to determine what had been observed.

After reviewing the evidence, Air Force officials at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama concluded that the UFO had likely been caused by automobile headlights or a searchlight. This explanation was communicated back to the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. The file notes state that the conclusion was that the object was caused by military tower lights, auto lights, or a searchlight, though the specific reasoning behind this determination is not fully detailed in the available records.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 15 scanned pages.