LAURINSBURG-MAXTON AFB N C, October 1952October 1952

On October 22, 1952, at 10:10 p.m., Airman Second Class Bernard F. DeMonte was walking guard duty at Laurinburg-Maxton Air Base in North Carolina when he heard an unusual sound in the sky. He looked up and saw a huge oval object passing overhead. The object was roughly 100 to 200 feet across, with two red lights in the front and eight to ten steady green lights in the rear. DeMonte said the object moved silently as it approached, but as it passed over him, it made an ear-splitting sound unlike anything he had ever heard. He watched the object make a 180-degree turn toward the west, circle back over his position to verify his initial sighting, then make another turn toward the southwest before disappearing on the horizon.

Three other airmen at the base witnessed the object or heard its distinctive sound that night. The first witness, whose name is garbled in the OCR'd record, described the sound as a loud grinding noise that came from overhead while he was in his bunk. He said the noise was not that of a conventional airplane or jet. When Air Policeman A/2C Reed called him outside, he saw green lights in a circular pattern and watched the object circle around and pass two miles west of the base. Airman First Class Frank L. Donnelly also heard and saw the object at 10:17 p.m., observing a few green lights in a circular position. Like the other witnesses, Donnelly said the sound was distinctly different from any jet or conventional aircraft he knew.

The Air Force investigated the sighting on October 22, 1952. Weather conditions at the time were reported as clear skies with unlimited ceiling and good visibility. The base's intelligence officer filed the report under Air Force regulations for unidentified flying object sightings. The case file notes that while only DeMonte directly observed the object itself, three other airmen verified the unusual sound it produced.

The case file contains a memory sketch of the object drawn by one of the witnesses, showing the two red lights in front and the eight to ten green lights arrayed in the rear. The evaluation form at the top of the case file lists "probably balloon" as the likely explanation, though the file contains no detailed analysis or conclusion explaining why this determination was made. The full case file, consisting of eight pages of documents held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.