Los Angeles, CaliforniaMay 1953

On May 20, 1953, a man in Los Angeles reported seeing a white stone roughly the size of a football descend toward him from the sky. The object came to rest about five feet above his head in broad daylight and remained there, stationary, for about five minutes. A small white cloud then gathered around it from what he described as the surrounding atmosphere, and he noted a faint smell of sweet perfume in the air. After five minutes, the object slowly ascended back into the sky, taking about three to four minutes to disappear from view. The entire observation lasted about seven to eight minutes.

The witness claimed this was the same object he had observed months earlier, on November 15, 1952, near Sacramento. In that earlier sighting, he reported seeing a white stone at about 100 feet altitude that moved rapidly eastward across a clear sky before vanishing. According to his letter, the witness was a U.S. Air Force officer with training in anti-aircraft observation, and he submitted both accounts for official record.

The Air Force's written analysis is blunt. Internal notes from June 1958 point out logical inconsistencies in the account: if the object came to rest directly above the witness's head at five feet altitude, it would have been resting on or very near the top of his head. The Air Force also noted that the sighting was not reported until late 1954, more than a year after the event, which they said made detailed analysis impossible. On the official case form, the Air Force concluded the sighting was a "hallucination," suggesting the observer was likely experiencing some form of mental disturbance. A note in the file mentions that the U.S. Weather Bureau had a balloon-launching site in Sacramento that had released a balloon on November 15, 1952, just before the first reported sighting, though no definitive link was established.

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