Downey, California, [ILLEGIBLE]Date unknown

On the evening of August 8, 1952, at 7:55 p.m., a retired civilian pilot standing in the front yard of his home in Downey, California, spotted a very small object flying extremely high. At first, he and his companion thought it was a weather balloon. But when he looked through field glasses, he realized the object was traveling far too fast and too high to be a balloon. He kept it in view for about five minutes as it passed nearly overhead.

Then something unusual happened. A second object suddenly emerged from the first one, peeling away at a right angle and slowly picking up speed. This second object was about one quarter the size of the original. Both objects left a thin, barely visible trail behind them. Through the binoculars, the objects appeared slightly golden in color. To the naked eye, they resembled the first bright stars visible in the evening sky, which is why the witnesses initially thought that was what they were seeing.

The observer, who held a civilian pilot's license since 1930 and had spent three years instructing Royal Air Force cadets during World War II, considered two possibilities. Either this was a military aircraft flying at extreme altitude that released a rocket-powered aircraft, a concept he had read about in magazines. Or it was something he could not explain. He noted that the extreme height meant the sun was still illuminating the objects, which would account for their coloring. The observer reported the sighting to the Civilian Saucer Investigation organization in Los Angeles. The file does not indicate what conclusion, if any, the Air Force reached about this incident. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 10 scanned pages.