Guthrie & Parkersburg, West VirginiaDecember 1957

Insufficient Data

Summary

On December 3, 1957, three F-86L fighter jets from Lockbourne Air Force Base in Ohio picked up an unusual object during a training flight near Parkersburg, West Virginia. The pilots and ground radar operators tracked what they described as a crescent or circular object that glowed orange-red. The object appeared to follow the aircraft for 20 to 40 minutes, moving erratically across radar scopes at an estimated speed of 1.5 Mach (roughly 1,000 miles per hour).

The pilots called it in to ground radar operators at the 783rd Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron in Guthrie, West Virginia, who confirmed they were painting it on their search radar. As the object moved, radar and pilot observations seemed to match up. One pilot said the object appeared to close in range and move away again but did not actually change direction. Another pilot noted that the radar position reports agreed with what he saw. The pilots were careful in their descriptions, one noting that while it might be the moon, it did not behave like the moon.

However, the Air Force investigation reached a skeptical conclusion. The final report noted that the moon was approaching its first quarter on December 14th, and that the visual sighting direction and the moon's position coincided. The investigators suspected a weather inversion, a layer of warm air that can bend light and create false radar images, might have distorted both the pilots' view of the moon and created a radar ghost. The report stated that the radar return was probably caused by inversion effects rather than a physical object. Despite the pilots' protests that what they saw was not the moon, and despite radar confirmation from the ground station, the Air Force classified the case as unknown but with a likely explanation of weather phenomena.

The complete original case file, reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consists of 8 pages.

Reported location

Guthrie & Parkersburg, West Virginia

Date of incident

December 1957

State / country

WV / US

Page count

8 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unknown

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 31

| | ob a ay PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD 1. DATE 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS Guthrie O Wos Balloon | ; arkersbur West Virginia [QO Probably Ballcon 3. DATE-TINE GROUP 4. TYPE OF OBSERVATION 0 Possibly Balloon 2200 Was Aircraft | 5) 7 Pen ao cl O Ground- Visual HXGround-Radar 8x Probably. Aireraf ably Aircraft MT 12/0300Z2 ~~ Xin Visual 0 Air-Intercept Radar O Possibly Aircraft 8 PHOTOS re URGES 0 man aT uoaie Wel Adrenomicel MOOR O Yes O Probably Astronomical XX No Military O Possibly Astronomical 7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE wXorheRadar Inversionm| 2 Paget ent Data for Evaluation 20 - 40 minutes one stationary il / 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11. COMMENTS . A round to crescent shaped object, The. moon. was app xofching 1/4 (firs g quarter) on 14th, sighting on 1llth orange in color, was sighted in the Direction of obj and moon coincide} East just above the horizon, The No witness indicated seeing obj three palots were of the opinion moon at same time. WX inversion object was the moon, However, obj robabl present, Same inversion supposedly picked up on ground distorting moon would cauge spur- : radar alsQ, ious radar returns from WX or groupd objects. The pilots no doubt saw the moon, The radar paint was prob ably caused by effects of inversion | which distorted visual obsvation of x noon, ; { ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP S52) A / | | | : ; FE LTE PR dO Rts: (SE SE A g ERATE Evy ; .