LOS ANGELES, CAJuly 1952

On July 28, 1952, a man and his wife observed an unusual flying object in the sky near Los Angeles International Airport around 12:15 p.m. local time. The witness initially thought the object resembled a star. When he lined it up against telephone wires on the ground, he noticed it was slowly revolving and oscillating up and down. The object displayed green and red flashes that were very bright. At times, a smaller light appeared directly above it. The couple watched for about two minutes as the object gradually receded, grew dimmer, and finally disappeared from view. Tower operators at LAX airport attempted to spot the object but were unsuccessful.

The March Flight Service Center filed a CIRVIS report (an official U.S. Air Force system for reporting unusual aircraft observations). The Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio sent the witness a detailed questionnaire to gather more information. In his response, the witness noted that weather conditions included 7-mile visibility with scattered high clouds. No military or civilian aircraft were reported in the area at that time. Local authorities at Harrisburg State Airport indicated that weather balloons had been released earlier, though officials doubted the balloons were in the observer's location when the sighting occurred.

In his written statement, the witness drew on his professional background as an electronics consultant with sixteen years of experience in instruments and physical measurement. He ruled out several conventional explanations, stating the objects were not reflections caused by temperature inversions, reflections on car windows, or aircraft identification lights. He requested that investigators check whether any planes had landed at nearby airfields during the sighting window and whether radar had detected anything unusual.

The Air Force's local intelligence office concluded it could offer no definite explanation for the sighting.

The full case file, held by the National Archives, comprises 20 scanned pages from microfilm T1206, Roll 13.