Project Blue Book Case File
Kettering, OhioApril 1958
Summary
On an April day in 1958, a witness in Kettering, Ohio saw an object that resembled a truck with a white flame color streaking across the sky. The object was described as very slender with some width, and it left no trail behind it. The sighting lasted about 230 seconds, or roughly four minutes.
The object moved in a distinctive path. It first traveled south, then turned east, and finally disappeared toward the northeast in the direction of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB), a major U.S. Air Force installation located near Dayton, Ohio. The witness observed a single object, not multiple objects, and provided basic information about its movement and appearance on the standard Air Force questionnaire.
The Air Force's investigation concluded that the object was probably an aircraft. The case file notes are sparse and the OCR quality of some pages is poor, which limits the detail available about how the investigation proceeded or what specific evidence led to this conclusion. No additional analysis, weather data, or witness interviews appear clearly in the reproduced materials.
The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, spanning 9 scanned pages.
Reported location
Kettering, Ohio
Date of incident
April 1958
State / country
OH / US
Page count
9 scanned pages
USAF evaluation
unknown
Microfilm
T1206, Roll 32