Fairborn, OhioAugust 1961

Unidentified

Summary

On August 6, 1961, a civilian in Fairborn, Ohio reported seeing a round, white, shiny object in the sky. The object appeared overhead in the northeast and was larger than a star. The witness watched it for about half an hour as it moved eastward across the sky at a fairly high elevation, following what the Air Force noted as a random path.

The Air Force investigated the sighting and found that the description matched a weather balloon. Balloons were regularly launched from locations just a few miles away from Fairborn. The prevailing winds at the time would have carried a balloon eastward, which matched the direction the object was observed traveling. The Air Force concluded that the balloon launches occurred around the same time as the sighting, making it probable that what the witness saw was a weather balloon rather than an unidentified object.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, 8 pages.

Reported location

Fairborn, Ohio

Date of incident

August 1961

State / country

OH / US

Page count

8 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unidentified

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 43

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 8

View transcribed text

A TR —— ce - :
PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD
1. DATE 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS
by | 0 Was Balloon
6 Aug Ol Fairborn, Ohio OX Probably Balloon
3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4. TYPE OF OBSERVATION OF ENTER Bern
Lewd. 1830 | EX Ground- Visual 0 Ground-Radar 5 foro RY
oMT__ 002 R30, 0 Air Visual O Air-intercept Radar DO Possibly Aircraft
i TEREST TR CT I Se 1 Was Astronomical
Q Yes DO Probably Astronomicol
CO'Ne | Civilian DO Possibly Astronomical
7. LENGTH OF OB3ERVATION | 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE Il i iii
O Insufficient Data for Evaluction
Cf | 3 | ely 0 Urknown
BR iii i ii aint abi End calc rie Map coupon sabia is
3 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING Round white, silvar, 11. COMMENTS Op jt was observed to I at a
i shiny ob jt viewed for 1/2 hr, Larger than rairly high elev, moving E. D=scription
: star. Appearing overhead in Ii. Random path ©o | is characteristic of a weather balloon.
NE. Balloons are launched just a few niles IE
of Fairborn, and prevailing wiads would
3 carry 1 to the E, These balloons are
| launched at aprox time of sighting. Thete-
fore concluded that objt was probably a
; " balloon.
ATIC FORM 329 (RZV 26 SEP 52)
9 :
hin: LS EA SANA en BE TERS 4

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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28993927