Macon & Forsyth, Ga., August 1959August 1959

On August 16, 1959, around 1620 hours (4:20 p.m.), four civilians in the Hillcrest section of Macon, Georgia reported seeing an unusual object falling from the sky. The object appeared roughly the size of a human head and was round in shape with a pointed tip at the bottom. Its bottom half glowed orange while the top portion was silver. The witnesses said the object was falling end over end and made a loud screaming sound as it descended.

About the same time, a police officer in Forsyth, Georgia also reported seeing an object with a similar description. The sighting lasted long enough for witnesses to observe the object's motion, which included bobbing up and down at times. The object traveled at what observers described as jet speed.

The Air Force investigation was limited by the small amount of information available. Weather data from the time showed wind patterns that aligned with the object's direction of travel. The file notes that limited visibility and low cloud cover at the time may have affected how the object appeared and possibly contributed to its disappearance from view. An Air Traffic Control station near Macon was operating during the incident, but no additional flight information was readily available to investigators.

The Air Force initially concluded that the object was probably a balloon. The direction the object traveled matched wind patterns at the time, which supported this assessment. However, the file itself contains minimal supporting detail for this conclusion, and the investigation was hampered by the difficulty in gathering complete witness testimony from all observers involved.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consisting of 11 pages.