Longmont, ColoradoJuly 1957

In July 1957, a rancher working about six miles west of Longmont, Colorado observed an unusual craft hovering in the early morning sky. He was raking hay south of his farmhouse when he spotted the object approaching from the south-southeast. At first he thought it was a meteor about to strike the ground, but the object came to an abrupt stop in midair instead.

The craft hovered in place while rocking gently, like a falling maple leaf. The man stopped his tractor and watched for approximately ten minutes. The object appeared to be made of a shiny material resembling blue glacier ice. The top featured a honeycomb pattern with hexagonal compartments that seemed to contain a bright, liquid substance similar to mercury. Despite the honeycomb texture, the surface appeared smooth, as if covered with transparent material like plastic wrap. A scalloped band ran around the middle of the craft with a darker, burnished color. The bottom was smooth and silver, with three or four kidney-shaped designs that were also burnished and dark. The witness estimated the craft was roughly 400 feet above him at a distance of about half a mile, with a diameter of 150 to 200 feet.

After hovering silently with no visible exhaust or disturbance, the craft rose vertically several hundred feet, tilted, and accelerated at tremendous speed in an arc toward the south-southwest. The witness reported a second similar sighting about two weeks later, though this time the object did not remain as long or descend as low.

The witness wrote to astronomer J. Allen Hynek in October 1964, seven years after the sighting. He stated that the incident remained clear in his memory and that he remained certain he had observed a manufactured craft, though he had developed no explanation for what it was. He noted no one else in the area reported a similar experience.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, containing 19 pages.