Kittery Point, Maine East Nassau, New YorkFebruary 1957

On the night of February 14-15, 1957, a bright green object streaked across the sky near Kittery Point, Maine, witnessed by a couple taking down laundry in their yard. The object was described as round, about the size of a softball, and surrounded by an intense emerald green light that illuminated the surrounding area. It moved from north to south, passed directly overhead, made a whizzing sound, and disappeared behind trees in a swamp within a few seconds. A second witness, also in the Kittery Point area, observed the same incident, seeing what he described as a bright flash of light while putting his car in the garage.

The observers' account sparked an immediate investigation. In the days following the sighting, the male observer reported finding a peculiar hole in the ice of a nearby swamp pond, roughly fourteen inches across and perfectly round, with edges that appeared scorched as if cut with an acetylene torch. He also described walking through what felt like a band of concentrated heat about twenty feet wide. When he and his son examined the pond more closely, they claimed to find a small brown metallic object on the pond bottom. A geiger counter (a device that measures radioactivity) registered higher readings near the hole than in surrounding areas.

An Air Force investigation team from the 100th Bombardment Wing visited the site on March 9 and March 13, 1957. By that time, warm weather had melted most of the ice, and the investigators found no evidence of burned vegetation, no remaining hole, and no object in the water. Radiation readings with both a geiger counter and an ion chamber (another type of radiation detector) were normal, with the highest reading being only one one-hundredth of a roentgen (a standard unit of radiation exposure). The investigators concluded that while the female observer was sincere in her account of seeing the bright green object, the subsequent claims about the ice hole and the band of heat were likely unfounded.

The case was filed as unidentified, though the brief summary appended to the initial report card noted characteristics consistent with a meteor observation. The full case file, containing ten pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.