Kansas City, MissouriMay 1953

On the afternoon of May 21, 1953, an Air Force enlisted man in Kansas City, Missouri, heard a loud sound in the sky and stepped outside to investigate. Looking upward, he spotted three egg-shaped transparent objects moving rapidly overhead at what he judged to be a high altitude. The objects were traveling in a roughly southeasterly direction. The witness observed them for about ten minutes before they disappeared from view.

The objects resembled balloons, according to the file, but were more transparent than bright. When questioned by investigators, the witness said that while the objects looked balloon-like, his experience with weather balloons and the objects' peculiar maneuvering made him doubt that identification. He estimated the objects to be traveling at approximately 1,722 miles per hour. The witness had military experience and training in radio at Scott Field, and was working with guided missiles at Holloman Air Force Base at the time of the sighting.

The Air Force form questions reveal some details about what the witness observed. The objects did not change shape, flicker, or give off smoke. They did appear to stand still briefly at one point. The witness said they disappeared in the way an aircraft vanishes in the distance as it turns and climbs away. He could not estimate their actual size but noted some uncertainty in his responses. The case file includes a note indicating there were "inconsistencies in answers, too contradictory," though the details of these contradictions are not clearly legible in the OCR text.

The file concludes with the Air Force's assessment that the objects were aircraft, though the reasoning for this conclusion is not fully explained in the visible portions of the case file. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, spanning 14 pages.