Llano, TexasAugust 1949

On the early morning of August 20, 1949, a rancher near Llano, Texas saw an unusual object in the sky for more than two hours. The man reported that around 3:00 a.m., while standing near his back door, he spotted something rising over a mountain about 1.2 miles northeast of his house. He described the object as roughly 15 feet tall and 3 to 4 feet wide, copper colored like a bright red fire, and containing about eleven quarter-moon shapes that were each about 6 inches across. The object was so bright it hurt his eyes to look at it directly and cast shadows on nearby buildings.

The object rose slowly straight up to about 250 feet in the first 15 minutes, then stayed at that altitude and moved south for about 1500 feet over the next two hours, moving so slowly it took roughly an hour per half-mile. The observer went inside around 5:30 a.m. for breakfast while the object was still visible. He heard no sound from it and saw no visible means of support or propulsion. There were no clouds that night. A second witness, the observer's wife, also saw the object but thought it was the moon and lost interest.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations interviewed the rancher in late August 1949. The investigator noted that while the man appeared reasonably intelligent and honest, he also held several unusual beliefs. He claimed the Milky Way and the Big and Little Dipper constellations were out of their normal positions, that his ranch contained deposits of uranium and other minerals, and that his radio had experienced strange static interference in recent days. The investigator also learned that the rancher did not report the sighting until after reading a newspaper article about flying saucers on August 20th, the same day as the incident.

The file notes no air bases in the area that might have released any experimental devices. The file records no radar confirmation of the object. The Air Force concluded the sighting remained unidentified. The full case file, consisting of 8 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.