Hollywood, CaliforniaSeptember 1951

On the evening of September 6, 1951, a woman standing on a sidewalk in Hollywood, California saw two glowing red objects appear in the southwestern sky near the moon. She watched as they moved toward the moon at high speed, taking only three or four seconds to cross the sky. The objects positioned themselves on either side of the moon, hovering motionless about the size of the moon itself as seen from Earth.

As the witness observed the objects more closely, she noticed they were not actually round like saucers. When the leading object began to turn, she saw a flash of brilliant white light running vertically down its center, revealing that each craft was actually very long and narrow, "at least three times as long as the moon's diameter." The objects then executed a wide turning maneuver and accelerated rapidly back toward the west, shrinking to pinpoints before vanishing into space.

The witness provided detailed astronomical reasoning for her sighting, including a star chart showing planetary positions for that date and time. She theorized that the objects were enormous mother ships from a distant planet, possibly Saturn, Neptune, or an undiscovered planet beyond Neptune. She noted that their ability to hover without sound and their precise, coordinated movements suggested advanced technology far beyond human rockets. The witness also mentioned a similar sighting she had witnessed in the fall of 1948 over Hollywood, when she saw a large red glowing object hanging motionless in the smoggy night sky before flashing away silently.

The Air Force evaluated this case as unidentified. However, the case file record card notes that the observation was "attributed to over active imagination" and suggests the witness "probably saw something such as an a/c meteor or balloon, triggering her report." The full case file, comprising 13 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.