Mishawake, IndianaMay 1952

On the evening of May 8, 1952, a 16-year-old girl standing outside her home in Mishawaka, Indiana saw a strange object in the sky. She described it as oval in shape and dull red in color, roughly half the size of the moon. The object hung motionless for about 28 seconds, then moved sharply upward and to the right before disappearing into a cloud. The entire sighting lasted only about 30 seconds, and the girl heard no sound from the object.

The girl wrote a letter to a national magazine describing what she had seen, and her account was forwarded to the U.S. Air Force for investigation. An Air Force officer from O'Hare International Airport interviewed her and found her to be intelligent, honest, and genuinely convinced that she had witnessed something real. The officer noted that she wore no glasses and had a clear view of the object against a clear sky.

The investigating officer analyzed the girl's observations and estimated that if the object had disappeared at an altitude of 25,000 feet, it would have been traveling at roughly 6,000 miles per hour. However, the Air Force conducted no additional verification. Weather records from a nearby airport showed clear skies with scattered clouds at 25,000 feet, though a weather observer there reported receiving two unusual calls that evening and seeing what he thought was a searchlight reflection on the clouds. The investigating officer noted this seemed unlikely, since the girl was clear that she saw her object against clear sky and watched it disappear into a cloud, the opposite of what a searchlight would produce.

The Air Force ultimately classified this sighting as unidentified. No aircraft were confirmed to be in the area at the time, no physical evidence was recovered, and no industrial activity or other conventional explanation accounted for what the girl witnessed. The complete case file, as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below across 7 pages.