Hutchinson, KansasJanuary 1955

On the evening of January 21 and early morning of January 22, 1955, military personnel at and near Naval Air Station Hutchinson in Kansas observed unusual lights in the sky. Control tower operators, flight instructors, and aircrews saw what appeared to be four bright white lights and one bright red light arranged in a loose formation roughly 3,500 feet above the ground, located 13 to 15 miles south-southwest of the base.

At first the lights seemed to be hovering with little movement. Then they began traveling northward in a columnar formation, moving at a moderate speed estimated at 150 knots and climbing steadily. The lights passed about three miles east of the airbase and continued on a northerly heading, accelerating rapidly as they climbed. Within about 22 minutes, the lights became too faint to see. Witnesses noted no sound, exhaust trail, or other visible physical features. The lights appeared brighter and larger than any aircraft lights in the area. Personnel viewed the objects through binoculars of the type 7x55, which brought out additional detail.

A Navy P2V aircraft already flying in the local traffic pattern at the time attempted to intercept and identify the objects. The aircraft gave chase and tracked the lights on a heading of 212 degrees magnetic for approximately 17 minutes, but reported being unable to overtake or identify what it was seeing. Electronic intercept attempts by Air Defense Command personnel were unsuccessful. Weather conditions at the time were clear with 15 miles of visibility, and meteorological data provided no explanation for the sighting.

The Air Force file identifies the sighting as being related to Project Barber Shop, a balloon-launching operation, though the specific details of this identification and its basis are difficult to extract from the heavily redacted portions of the document. The case was evaluated as unknown. The full case file, comprising 11 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.