Hokkaido, Japan, November 1955November 1955

On November 25, 1955, an F-86D fighter pilot named Lieutenant Durfey was flying a night patrol mission over Hokkaido, Japan, when he spotted a bright red glow off the left side of his aircraft. The glow was stationary, positioned roughly 522 miles away at his altitude of 25,000 feet. At first, Durfey thought it might be a reflection from his instrument panel or a nearby aircraft on fire. When he turned to investigate, the glow remained fixed in place, so he ruled out those possibilities.

The glow itself was a deep red with an orange tint. It started out roughly spherical in shape, then flattened and became more oblong, similar to what Durfey called a mushroom shape after an explosion. The light reached its brightest point just before it began to flatten. A dark, elongated object appeared horizontally through the middle of the glow, resembling a cloud formation and blocking roughly one-fifth of the sphere. The entire event lasted about five minutes, with the light fading away gradually over the final thirty seconds.

The Air Force investigated the sighting and considered two main possibilities. Some analysts thought Durfey might have witnessed a distant nuclear explosion. However, the Far East Air Force noted that there was no historical record of nuclear testing in that area, and seismic monitoring detected no explosions. Other Air Force officials concluded that Durfey had observed the refraction of moonlight through a cloud layer. The moon was in its first quarter phase that night and was setting around midnight. Sunlight reflecting off the moon and passing through clouds would have been filtered by the cloud layer, removing the blue wavelengths and leaving a reddish-orange glow visible from high altitude. The moon itself would have been too low on the horizon and obscured by clouds for the pilot to see directly.

The case file shows that investigators disagreed about the exact position of the moon relative to the aircraft, exchanging messages to clarify whether the moon was at 191 degrees or 291 degrees azimuth (bearing from the pilot's location). Despite these technical questions, the Air Force's official evaluation concluded the sighting was most likely a refraction of the setting moon through clouds. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 12 pages of documents.