Long Beach, Long Island, NYJanuary 1956

On the afternoon of January 18, 1956, a resort operator driving home near Long Beach on Long Island noticed an unusual object in the sky. At first he thought it might be a crescent-shaped slice of moon, but when he looked again moments later, the object had shifted position. Concerned, he stopped his car to watch it. After observing it drift slowly downward for a few moments, he rushed home to his bedroom on the beach and examined it more closely through 10x50 binoculars. Through the binoculars, the object appeared about three to five times larger than a commercial aircraft at the same distance. It was white, bright, and well-defined, though featureless due to the distance. The witness estimated it was roughly 20 miles away and remained visible for about 25 minutes before darkness fell.

The Air Force investigation confirmed that the witness was reliable and coherent. His account showed no embellishments or contradictions. The investigator checked with radar centers, airfields, and the Coast Guard but found no corroborating radar data. A call to the local newspaper, Newsday, revealed that another woman had reported seeing a similar object at roughly the same time and location, though she described it as hovering and resembling a weather balloon. She did not leave her name.

The Air Force ultimately concluded the sighting was a pibald weather balloon, a white inflatable balloon three feet in diameter released at LaGuardia Airport at 9:00 p.m. that evening. According to the investigators' calculations, such a balloon would have been approximately eight miles west of the witness and at 22,000 feet altitude at the time of the sighting, matching the observed angle and appearance. The low sun in the western sky, with the balloon positioned between the observer and the sun, would have created the bright, crescent-like appearance the witness sketched. The full case file, reproduced below as held by the National Archives, contains 10 pages.