Gonzales, Texas, Summer 1951Circa 1951

In the summer of 1951, several people in and near Gonzales, Texas reported seeing unusual objects in the sky. An Air Force investigation, filed in June 1952, documented the accounts of civilians who said they had witnessed strange aerial phenomena around the town.

The first sighting came in June or July 1951 around noon. A man standing on the sidewalk near his radio and television shop on St. Paul Street looked up at his TV antenna and noticed a shiny aluminum object roughly the size of a fighter plane at three-fourths of a mile away. He described it as egg-shaped, slightly longer than it was round, with four fin-like projections and a rotating band around its center that resembled a water wheel. The object was moving slowly from north-northeast toward the east, covering only five to ten degrees of arc in two or three minutes. It made no sound and eventually disappeared behind a cloud. An airplane came within a quarter mile of the object during the sighting.

A second witness who was with another person on St. Paul Street reported seeing a silver, cylindrical object in May or June 1951 at 1400 hours (2 p.m.). They watched it for ten to twelve seconds as it moved from east to south at high altitude, appearing to have a black smoke trail. A third witness, an Army private, reported seeing a shiny, round object in April 1951 that climbed upward at a sixty-degree angle and disappeared into the distance. The object was bright, with a reflective quality like sunlight bouncing off chrome.

The investigation included interviews with local officials who vouched for most witnesses as honest and reliable. However, one witness was noted as possibly inclined to seek publicity and to supplement facts with imagination. The Air Force concluded the sightings were balloons. The full case file, comprising 15 pages held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.