Great Falls AFB, MontanaFebruary 1953

Unidentified

Summary

On February 1, 1953, near Great Falls Air Force Base in Montana, a bright white light like a star appeared in the north, turned to the east, and disappeared to the southeast. The object traveled very fast. Two separate sightings occurred. The first lasted approximately five minutes and was observed without aids. The second sighting involved a 29th Air Division blockhouse gate house observer, A/1C Donald Monaco, at Great Falls AFB. The witness had limited aircraft identification training. A second witness, Lieutenant Wayne M. Fonnesbeck, was reliable with interceptor training. Weather conditions were 5,000 feet broken clouds at 22,222 feet altitude, 25 degrees Fahrenheit, 25-degree dew point, and 12-knot south-west wind. The Air Force concluded the sighting was unidentified due to lack of conflicting data with the evaluation.

Reported location

Great Falls AFB, Montana

Date of incident

February 1953

State / country

MT / US

Page count

3 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unidentified

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 17

1. DATE - TIME GROUP 11 Feb 53 12/0[illegible]02 2. LOCATION Great Falls AFB, Montana 3. SOURCE Air crew 4. NUMBER OF OBJECTS One 5. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 5 min. 6. TYPE OF OBSERVATION Ground-Visual 7. COURSE NE 8. PHOTOS Yes No 9. PHYSICAL EVIDENCE Yes No 10. CONCLUSION AIRCRAFT No data suggested conflicting with a/c evaluation. 11. BRIEF SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS Bright white starlike object appeared in the N, turned to E and disappeared to SE at high rate of speed.