Forland, MissouriAugust 1955

On August 26, 1955, radar operators at Fordland Air Force Station in Missouri detected an unusual target that behaved in ways that puzzled experienced observers. The object first appeared on radar screens at about 1:52 a.m., roughly 220 nautical miles away (about 250 miles). Over the next several hours, the target moved closer to the station, steadily approaching from a bearing of approximately 075 degrees.

What made this target strange was how it moved. The radar operators tracked it getting progressively nearer, but then something odd happened. The target would fade from the radar screen, only to reappear moments later in a different location. This happened repeatedly throughout the incident. When an F-84 jet fighter was scrambled to intercept the object around 2:39 a.m., the pilot reported seeing the target pop up on his radar about 20 miles ahead. He flew toward it, but as he got closer, the target continued to fade and reappear. The pilot never saw it visually and was unable to make contact before returning to base, reporting low fuel. The target finally disappeared from radar around 2:53 a.m., roughly 50 miles away from the air base.

The radar operators who followed this contact were skilled and thorough. They noted that the target's radar signature looked much like a conventional aircraft. However, it showed one particularly puzzling characteristic: unlike normal aircraft, when it faded from the scope, it would reappear not along its expected flight path but in an entirely different location. One radar officer also observed that when he tried to narrow the radar beam from 65 degrees to 35 degrees, the target did not change in brightness or clarity, which was unusual.

The Air Force report examined several possible explanations. Weather records showed that atmospheric conditions at the time included a temperature inversion (a layer of warm air trapping cooler air below it), which can create unusual radar reflections. The Air Force concluded that anomalous propagation, a radar phenomenon caused by layers of different air temperature and moisture, was the most likely explanation. The final evaluation classified the sighting as "probably balloon," though the report indicates that the exact nature of the radar returns remained difficult to pin down. The case file reproduced below consists of 9 pages as held by the National Archives.