Hillsboro, OregonJune 1949

On June 4, 1949, at 1105 a.m. (Pacific Standard Time), two workers on a hilltop seven miles west of Hillsboro Airport spotted something odd in the sky. The men, both employed by the Wolf Creek Highway Water District near Portland, Oregon, were eating lunch and watching airplanes pass overhead when they noticed an object reflecting sunlight from high above the airport. The object appeared metallic, round, and roughly the size of a three-eighths-inch diameter object held at arm's length. The men could only see it when it flashed or reflected light from the sun.

For about three minutes, the object stayed in one place, wobbling slightly, while the men tried to figure out what they were looking at. The lack of any movement set it apart from ordinary aircraft and made them uncertain about its identity. There was no sound or exhaust trail. The object was positioned about forty-five degrees above the horizon, toward the west-northwest. The men initially guessed it was six or seven thousand feet high, but later said they had no reliable way to estimate altitude because the object's size was unknown and there were no clouds to use as a reference point. They did notice that it appeared to sit above other aircraft they could see below it.

After roughly three minutes, the object moved rapidly to the southwest and vanished. The sky that day was clear with excellent visibility and bright sunshine. An Air Force investigator interviewed the men four days later and checked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, local officials in nearby towns, and the U.S. Weather Bureau. No other sightings in the area were reported. The investigator noted that the witnesses worked for a legitimate government agency, did not wear corrective lenses, seemed trustworthy, and had not sought publicity. The report was forwarded to Air Materiel Command in Dayton, Ohio, with a conclusion of "balloon." The case file also includes an unrelated letter from a woman in Ohio describing a separate sighting from 1950.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 11 pages.