Long Island, New YorkAugust 1958

On the evening of August 13, 1958, a civilian observer in Ponca City, Oklahoma watched a bright orange object streak across the night sky. The man, described as a calm and reliable 36-year-old employee of Continental Oil Company, was closing his garage when he spotted the glowing object moving fast from the northeast. He watched it for 14 seconds as it traveled in a gradual arc from north to south, following a path that seemed to match the curve of the Earth. The object appeared as a ball of fire with what looked like a small tail, and it simply vanished as if someone had switched off a light.

The observer admitted he did not know what he had seen. He wondered if it might be a satellite or a missile nose-cone, but he ruled out a meteor because he felt the object's behavior did not match how he thought meteors behaved. He acknowledged, however, that he had never actually seen a meteor and had no training in astronomy or meteorology.

The Air Force investigated the sighting and consulted with a professor of astronomy at Oklahoma City University. Weather conditions at the time were clear and fair, with good visibility and no clouds. No aircraft were logged in the area by the Kansas City Civil Aeronautics Center. In the end, the Air Force believed the object was most likely a meteor, despite the observer's own skepticism about that explanation. The case file notes that the observer's physical description and the object's characteristics were consistent with a meteor sighting.

The complete case file, as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below across 8 pages of microfilm.