Duncanville, TexasDecember 1957

On the evening of December 12, 1957, a woman in Duncanville, Texas saw a bright object in the night sky. She watched it for two hours, from about 6:15 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. central time. Through binoculars, the object appeared to be shaped like a three-cornered star, roughly the size of a grapefruit. It was white, green, and blue in color. The observer noted that the object seemed to have points like antennas that appeared to extend and retract. During the two-hour sighting, the object moved in an arc from east to west, traveling about 45 degrees across the sky. The woman filmed the sighting on an eight-millimeter color movie camera.

The Air Force received the film for analysis and requested detailed information about the sighting from the observer. Ground observers in the area also reported seeing the bright object. The Air Force noted that a C-46 aircraft was diverted to the area but observed nothing unusual. A weather officer initially suggested the object might be a balloon that had been launched from Vernalis, California on December 13, but this could not be confirmed.

After reviewing the film and the observer's detailed account, the Air Force's Air Technical Intelligence Center concluded that the object was the planet Venus. The analysis noted that Venus was unusually bright and large in December 1957, so much so that major newspapers and scientific journals had published articles about its exceptional brilliance during that month. The observer's report that the object moved from 180 degrees to 270 degrees azimuth (a measure of direction) at an elevation of about 40 degrees matched the precise track and elevation of Venus during that two-hour period. The film appeared to have been taken from a moving platform, which would explain some of the object's apparent motion and appearance. The Air Force returned the film to the observer with an explanation of their findings and provided newspaper clippings from December 1957 describing Venus's unusual brightness that season.

The full case file, which includes detailed UFO report forms, correspondence, film transmittal records, and weather data, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 17 pages of microfilm.