Elkhart Lake, WisconsinAugust 1960

Insufficient Data

Summary

On the night of August 20, 1960, a resident of Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin reported seeing a shiny, red object in the sky that was about one third the size of the moon. The witness said the object was sharply outlined and disappeared behind some trees.

The Air Force received the witness's initial letter describing the sighting on August 27, 1960. Because the letter did not contain enough information to reach any conclusion, the Air Force sent the witness detailed questionnaires to complete. The witness filled out the forms and returned them for evaluation by the Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

Based on the information provided in the witness statements, the Air Force concluded that all indications suggested the sighting was caused by the navigation light of an aircraft. The evaluation marked the case as "unknown" in its formal classification, though the analysis notes pointed toward a conventional explanation rather than anything unexplained.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, 26 pages.

Reported location

Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin

Date of incident

August 1960

State / country

WI / US

Page count

26 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unknown

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 39

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 26

View transcribed text

| 3 ) |
 eRUNBRNENE $0 PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD
; | 1. DATE 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS |
i OA fe 11 awk Tad teh a 0D Was Balloon
El 20 Aug 20 Blxhart Lake, Wisconsin Q Probably Ballaon
. | 3. DATE-TIME GROUP % TYPE OF OBSERVATION Ww. TWIN Wem
1 2220 O Was Aiveroft
3 SET a Greund- Visual 0 Ground-Rodar Im § Probably Aircraft
Cs PREF Ake] A 0 Air Visvel D Alr-Intercept Radar | 0 Possibly Aircraft
E 5. PHOTOS v + S0URCE 0 Wos Astronomical
3 OQ Yes A O Probably Astronemicol
1 's Civilian : 0 Possibly Astronomical
- 3 Ne
i 7. LENGTH OF OBSERYATION 3. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE CE AR I
3 0 Insufficient Date for Evaluation
1 -- = mino en one TE-SW 0 Unknown
4 ST tT TT ———— EE EEE EERE RRR ER OEE Gl ii]
: 1 BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11. COMMENTS
] shiney, Bil oi red object sharply outlined, All indication is that the sighting was
E ~bout 1/3 size of the moon. Object disappeared | causad by the navigation light of an a/c.
A | senind trees.
¢ | |
|
k | |
5 ATIC 700M 329 (REY 28 3EP 57)
3 :
: ;

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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28988533