Project Blue Book Case File
Leibnitz, Austria, March 1960March 1960
Summary
On the evening of March 2, 1960, a newspaper photographer named Schedelmaier was riding his motorcycle through the Styria Province near Leibnitz, Austria when he spotted a glowing light ahead in the countryside. At first he thought it was a falling star, but as he watched, the light remained motionless and he felt heat radiating from it. He stopped about 50 feet away and took several photographs. The object, which he described as looking like a white-glowing spider, hovered roughly 45 feet above a wooded area for about 10 seconds before flying off with a noise similar to a jet aircraft.
The photographs were published on the front page of the Vienna newspaper Wiener Montag on March 7, which called them "the most sensational photograph of our century." The Air Force Office of Special Investigations received a press clipping about the case and requested evaluation.
In analyzing the case, the Air Force concluded that the photograph was too unclear to allow for a definitive identification. The service suggested that Schedelmaier probably saw a weather balloon (an inflatable device used to measure atmospheric conditions) that had developed a leak and was drifting along surface winds. The evaluation also noted that the photographer may have exaggerated the story to create sensationalism, which would sell more newspapers. Experts who examined the photograph found no signs of a hoax, though the image quality prevented any reliable determination of what the object actually was.
The full case file, as preserved by the National Archives, is reproduced below across 8 pages.
Reported location
Leibnitz, Austria, March 1960
Date of incident
March 1960
State / country
? / XX
Page count
8 scanned pages
USAF evaluation
unknown
Microfilm
T1206, Roll 37