Dryden, WashingtonJanuary 1959

Insufficient Data

Summary

In January 1959, a person in Dryden, Washington, reported seeing a large silver object hanging motionless in the sky at 0920 (9:20 a.m.). The witness described the object as round and about the size of a silver dollar. After staying still for a while, the object began moving east. Within about 60 seconds, it had shrunk in apparent size until it looked no bigger than a pinhead, before disappearing from view.

The witness believed they had observed a flying saucer. In their report, they made claims about what they called a "magnetic brain" that could pick up a person's mind and warn pilots when they were under observation. These ideas went well beyond describing what was actually seen in the sky.

In February 1959, Major Lawrence J. Tacker from the Air Force's Public Information Division wrote back to the witness. Tacker pointed out some problems with the witness's estimates. If the object was truly the size of a half dollar at four miles away, it would have been much larger in diameter than the witness had calculated. Similarly, the speed required to shrink from half-dollar size to pinhead size in 60 seconds would have been far faster than the witness had estimated. Tacker asked the witness to reconsider these measurements and provide more detailed information through a follow-up questionnaire.

The Air Force's evaluation of this sighting was marked "unknown," meaning they could not determine what the object was. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, spanning 8 pages of microfilm.

Reported location

Dryden, Washington

Date of incident

January 1959

State / country

WA / US

Page count

8 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unknown

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 35

Tm PROJECT 10073 RECORDCARD 1. DATE 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS O Wes Balleon 12 Jan Dryden, Washington a i 14 A 3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4 TYPE OF OBSERVATION w_ VEN Dm—"— 0920 O Was Aircraft REAR RES A Se xX Ground- Visual O Ground-Roador a Probably Aircraft TETRA 0 Air Visvel O Air-Intercept Rador O Possibly Aircraft S. PHO O Was Astronomical O Yes O Probably Astronomicol «x Ne Civilian O Possibly Astronomical 7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE x Other_Llinreljiahle rrd O Insufficient Dato for Eveluotion : 0 Unknown h 00 _S¢ m__one East BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING | | 11. COMMENTS , Large silver obj, hanging motionless, Witness own conclusion of what he had 1 round as a silver dollar and about the observed was a flying saucer. "There same size. Obj started moving Last, and is 2 magnetic brain" "This magnet brafn in about 60 secs was the size of a pinhead. can pick pp a person's mind" "A few secs after one is spotted the M.B. warns the pilot that it is under observation.” "ATIC PORM 339 (REV 26 SEP $2) : y \ * ] LY