Lake Meade, NevadaApril 1952

On April 7, 1952, a military officer on a fishing trip to Lake Mead, Nevada, with his wife and a friend spotted a large silver object in the sky. The object appeared between 0200 and 1000 hours (2 a.m. and 10 a.m.) on Wednesday, April 2. The witnesses said the object was silver in color and very large, but it hovered at such an extreme altitude that they could not determine its exact shape.

When asked to estimate the size, the officer compared it to a B-36 bomber without wings. The object moved only a very short distance during the entire hour the witnesses watched it, then suddenly vanished. The witnesses drew attention to a flight of F-80 jets that passed overhead at around 0300 hours (3 a.m.), leaving vapor trails. The jets appeared to be at least 15,000 feet in altitude, but the unidentified object seemed to be at a considerably higher altitude than the vapor trails.

The three witnesses were the officer himself, his wife, and a friend from Lockburne Air Force Base in Columbus, Ohio. Weather conditions were clear with excellent visibility (described as CAVU, meaning ceiling and visibility unlimited). There were no disturbing weather phenomena, and no physical evidence was recovered. The Air Force file indicates the object was unidentified, though the initial assessment form noted it was probably a balloon.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 7 pages.