Project Blue Book Case File
Hickam Fld, HawaiiJanuary 1949
Summary
A pilot at Hickam Field in Hawaii watched an unusual object in the sky on January 4, 1949. Captain Paul Stoney was standing outside the Pacific Air Command Headquarters building when he noticed something at a distance. He spotted it first when it was about 25 miles to the east, at an altitude of around 3,000 feet.
The object appeared to Stoney like a large, flat piece of white cardboard. The underside was extremely bright white and seemed to glow, while the top had a dark, non-reflective surface. Stoney, a twin-engine pilot and Assistant S-3 Officer, watched for about 15 minutes as the object moved. It circled the area at roughly 35 miles per hour, often making wide turns and sometimes climbing. Throughout the sighting, the object's underside flickered regularly with a blinking whitish reflection that came and went with steady rhythm. Stoney noticed that the object seemed to be under control and executing deliberate maneuvers, including 300-degree turns and 90-degree turns. The object made no sound and left no exhaust trail. Eventually, it departed by climbing steeply at about 25 degrees while accelerating, until Stoney lost sight of it at about 50 miles away.
Stoney was considered by his superiors to be an unusually reliable observer. He was a regular Air Force officer with a security clearance, above average intelligence, and a reputation for trustworthiness and sound judgment. He had no camera with him at the time, so no photographs were obtained.
The Air Force investigator assigned to the case noted that while the evidence did not lead to a clear explanation, more detail should have been visible if the object was truly as large as Stoney estimated it to be at the distance and altitude he stated. No conclusion is definitively stated in the file, though the unknown evaluation remains. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 26 pages.
Reported location
Hickam Fld, Hawaii
Date of incident
January 1949
State / country
HI / US
Page count
26 scanned pages
USAF evaluation
unknown
Microfilm
T1206, Roll 4