[ILLEGIBLE], October 1951October 1951

In October 1951, radar operators and pilots at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington spotted a mysterious object in the sky. The object appeared as a medium gray, round shape roughly the size of a dime. It hung in the sky above the area while four F-94 fighter pilots chased it for nearly an hour.

The sighting began at 11:01 a.m. on October 16 when the naval station first detected the object using a theodolite, a surveying instrument that measures precise angles in the sky. Four fighter pilots from the 0220 Troop Carrier Group scrambled to investigate. They flew directly at the object for fifty minutes, but it never changed size or distance despite their pursuit. The pilots flew at altitudes up to 31,000 feet, but the object remained above them with no clear estimate of how far away it actually was.

Photographs taken from the fighter aircraft failed to show any distinct object when developed, so they provided no additional clues. Weather conditions were clear, and a navigator from the carrier group calculated the object's position using the aircraft's location at the time. That calculated position fell within five degrees of where the planet Venus was known to be during that period.

The Air Force investigator concluded that the object sighted was most likely the planet Venus. The case file notes that Venus was visible in that area during the time of the sighting. Despite the fifty-minute pursuit and multiple witnesses, no alternative explanation appears in the file beyond this astronomical assessment.

The complete case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 8 scanned pages.