[ILLEGIBLE], November [ILLEGIBLE]Date unknown

On November 29, 1952, a man in Rochester, New York sent a letter to Sampson Air Force Base describing unusual lights he had seen five days earlier from Gannett Hill, west of Canandaigua Lake. The writer and a companion were hunting when they noticed four extremely bright white lights above South Hill, positioned roughly toward Sampson Air Force Base, about 25 miles away. The lights appeared stationary at first but behaved strangely. Each would last only a few seconds, then vanish and be replaced by another light positioned slightly higher or to the side. Never more than four lights were visible at once, and never fewer than one.

What made the sighting unusual to the observer was an optical aftereffect. When each bright white light faded, it left an afterimage, not of a single red light, but of a cluster of six or seven red lights arranged together. Viewing these clusters at arm's length, each appeared to be about 3/64 of an inch across. If the lights were truly visible at 25 miles away and appeared that large to the naked eye, the writer reasoned, they would have to be enormous. The witness ruled out a simple optical illusion or refraction, and noted that the vertical separation between clusters suggested significant altitude differences. He also observed no diffusion or reflection on clouds, which he would have expected from actual flares. Over the course of the evening, the writer estimated watching over one thousand individual lights appear and disappear before leaving the hill. When descending the peak, the lights vanished.

The Air Force found no remarkable significance in the report. The case file shows that personnel at Sampson AFB who reviewed the letter considered the observation to lack accuracy and noted it had not been received promptly enough to conduct timely investigation. The writer's conclusion that the lights were not ordinary flares, and his request for clarification on whether he had seen something normal, received only a brief acknowledgment from the base. No detailed analysis or follow-up investigation appears in the file.

The full case file, comprising 51 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.