Lewisdale, MarylandAugust 1953

In August 1953, a woman in Lewisdale, Maryland reported seeing a mysterious round white light moving across the night sky on multiple occasions. According to her account, the object resembled an airplane's landing light and moved from northeast to southwest, sometimes appearing to hover and changing speed erratically. The witness reported sighting the light on several nights between August 30 and September 7. Two additional witnesses, her mother and sister, also observed the phenomena from the same location.

The Air Force investigator who examined the case concluded that the woman's reliability could be "somewhat doubted" given her previous year of reporting similar incidents to Bolling Air Force Base. After extensive investigation, the preparing officer determined that the object was almost certainly a commercial aircraft. The investigator noted that commercial flights regularly passed over the nearby Riverdale area en route to Washington National Airport and routinely turned on their landing lights in that vicinity. When traffic at the airport followed the Riverdale approach pattern, an aircraft could appear to speed up, slow down, or even seem to hover, offering a plausible explanation for the reported motion.

The case file includes witness questionnaires and interview notes but provides no final formal conclusion from the Air Force. This case file, consisting of 29 pages, is held by the National Archives on microfilm T1206, Roll 19.