Eddyville, Broken Bow & Miller, NebraskaOctober 1958

In late October 1958, observers in three Nebraska towns reported seeing strange rotating lights in the night sky. The first sighting occurred around 1500 (3 p.m.) local time on October 29 at Eddyville, when a woman noticed green rotating lights and called them to the attention of neighbors. Through binoculars, the observers saw what they described as approximately twenty red and green lights arranged in a circular pattern like a Ferris wheel. The lights appeared to rotate counter-clockwise while the object itself remained relatively stationary for about three hours. As the night wore on, the object seemed to rise slowly and move eastward and southward before disappearing around 2330 (11:30 p.m.). Later that same night, observers near Miller, Nebraska also reported seeing similar objects, though they described these as leaf-shaped.

The Air Force took the sightings seriously. An F-84D interceptor was diverted from a training flight and vectored by ground control radar to the area around Eddyville. The pilot climbed to 35,000 feet and made two passes over the reported location, but could not see anything with either his eyes or his airborne radar. Ground control personnel had the pilot check his position relative to the moon and determined the object should have been about fifteen nautical miles to the west, but the pilot reported seeing nothing in that area. A temperature inversion (a layer of warmer air trapping cooler air below) existed between 3,000 and 5,500 feet. The pilot checked ground lights to see if what the observers had seen might be light reflected upward from the ground through the inversion layer. Several other aircraft flying through the area at 20,000 and 23,000 feet were asked to report any unusual lights, but all said they saw nothing unusual.

The investigating officer, Lieutenant Joseph P. Brandt, conducted re-interviews with all the original observers. He noted that all were reliable adults with Ground Observer Corps training, that they had been serious and cooperative, and that many stars had been available for comparison on that clear, moonlit night. However, he stated plainly that no explanation could be made for what they had seen. No photographs were obtained. The document notes that after careful study of the several reports received, the conclusion was that the sightings were light reflections on a temperature inversion, visible only with the naked eye for the green lights and only through binoculars for the red lights.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, 16 pages.