Jebal, Lebanon, April 1963April 1963

On April 15, 1963, a university professor and four colleagues spotted an unusual bright object in the sky while on a camping trip high in the mountains of northern Lebanon. The object appeared to generate its own light, similar to a star. The night was clear and dark, with no moon visible.

The witnesses watched the object move from northeast to southwest across the sky over the course of ten minutes. As it traveled, the object made several sudden, sharp changes in direction that seemed far too quick for any ordinary aircraft. When it approached the southwestern horizon, the object reversed course abruptly and eventually vanished overhead. No sound was heard at any time during the sighting.

The primary witness was a professor of marine biology at the American University of Beirut, described in the file as observant and not prone to exaggeration. The four other witnesses were geologists, a natural historian, a physics instructor, and an amateur astronomer. All five men agreed on the basic details of the sighting and none could offer an explanation for what they had seen.

The U.S. Air Force's Foreign Technology Division asked for more detailed information from the witnesses, sending a list of follow-up questions in June 1963. These questions covered details like the object's brightness, apparent size, any trail or exhaust, how it changed direction, and exactly where it was in the sky at various points. The file notes that the report contained inconsistencies in the witnesses' accounts of the maneuvers and that "nothing in report of a factual nature" indicated the object was anything other than a misidentification of an aircraft, though the witnesses' insistence that direction changes were too abrupt for any plane created a conflict with this analysis. The file does not state a final conclusion.

This case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consisting of 14 pages.