Misawa, Japan, July 1960July 1960

On July 6, 1960, military witnesses at Misawa Air Base in Japan observed an unusual luminous cloud and bright object in the sky. The sighting began around 0600 (6 a.m.), when observers spotted a white glowing cloud at an estimated 36,000 feet. The cloud moved slowly from northwest to southeast across the base.

After about five minutes, something dramatic happened. The cloud spread open at its center, and a bright reddish-orange ball, roughly the size of a basketball, appeared with streaks of flame shooting from its sides. Most witnesses agreed they saw only one such ball, though one observer reported seeing two. Within a minute, the bright ball faded, and the cloud reshaped itself into a doughnut with a dark hole in the middle. This doughnut configuration held for about four minutes before the object faded away to the east.

The object showed no complex maneuvers. It moved at a slow, steady pace from northwest to southeast, then shifted course due east just before disappearing. All eleven U.S. Air Force security personnel and one Japanese security guard who were reinterviewed confirmed the basic facts of the sighting. One American witness noted that his first impression was of a spiral nebula (a distant galaxy), but he quickly rejected that idea. The weather that morning was clear with high, thin scattered cirrus clouds (wispy ice crystals high in the atmosphere) with tops reaching 36,000 feet.

The Air Force investigation concluded that the sighting was probably caused by a weather balloon that reached a high altitude and exploded. The luminous cloud at the center was attributed to water vapor released by the explosion and lit by the sun. Wind phenomena observed by the group matched wind direction patterns at that altitude. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 7 pages.