ELBERTON ALA, October 1952October 1952

On the evening of October 24, 1952, First Lieutenant Edward J. Rau was flying a T-11 aircraft at 7,500 feet near Elberton, Alabama when he spotted an unidentified object traveling at tremendous speed. The object appeared to his left, slightly above the horizon, and crossed in front of the aircraft before disappearing to the right. The entire sighting lasted roughly five seconds.

Rau described the object as brilliant orange in color, much brighter than a parachute flare seen from ten miles away. It was larger than a star but smaller than the moon when viewed from the ground. The object resembled a plate standing on its edge and appeared to move in the direction of its concave surface. A tail similar to a comet trailed behind it, though Rau suspected this might be an optical illusion caused by the object's extreme speed. The object maintained a perfectly straight flight path with constant acceleration and climbed at approximately five degrees. There were no floating characteristics, no maneuvers, and no sound.

Rau held the rank of navigator with over 700 hours of flying experience, including more than 250 hours of night flying and frequent air-to-air observations of jet aircraft. He stated he had never seen anything resembling this object. The weather conditions at the time included visibility of three miles in smoke haze up to 7,500 feet, with light winds. No physical evidence was recovered, and no interception or identification action was taken.

The Air Force evaluated the sighting as "unknown." The full case file, comprising 11 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.