Miss, Ala, Ga, Tenn Area, September 1958September 1958

On the night of September 25 to 26, 1958, a bright object with an irregular tail of fire was observed moving across the sky over a four-state area including Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. The object appeared about the size of a dime, or roughly one-fourth the size of a full moon, with a tail estimated to be four or five times longer than the object itself. Multiple witnesses saw it travel in a straight path from the southwest to the northeast, taking about fifteen seconds to cross the sky before gradually dimming as it disappeared to the north-northeast.

The primary report came from a military observer, a captain and senior pilot with the 2047 AACS Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. He was standing in his yard in southern Montgomery when the object first appeared roughly 60 degrees up from the southern and western horizons. As it traveled across the sky, it eventually passed nearly overhead and disappeared at about 15 degrees above the northern and eastern horizons. The observer noted that the object's brightness and tail briefly diminished when it was almost directly overhead, then resumed full brightness, which he believed might indicate a tumbling or attitude change in flight. The object appeared to travel slower than typical meteors, leading the observer to speculate it might be a large vehicle or missile re-entering the atmosphere.

The sighting triggered numerous additional reports from across the region. A radio operator in Columbus, Mississippi reported seeing the object moving southwest to northeast with an intermittent flame trail about 200 yards long. Commercial airline pilots contributed important observations: a Delta Air Lines flight near Chattanooga reported a light moving from south to north that seemed to brighten dramatically and did not resemble a shooting star. Multiple other airline crews reported sightings. An off-duty Civil Air Patrol pilot near Oxford, Alabama said he heard a roaring sound and saw fire coming from the object, though he observed no navigation lights. Most dramatically, Captain Bill George of the Alabama Air National Guard, flying a T-33 jet at 2,500 feet near Birmingham, reported that the object passed directly over his aircraft at approximately 3,000 feet, appearing as a fireball with a 90-foot tail. A tower watch supervisor at Center Point, Alabama confirmed hearing the noise and observing the fireball with a long tail.

Air Force officials at Maxwell Air Force Base evaluated the collected reports as reliable and credible, noting that the various accounts were consistent in their descriptions of the object and the time of observation. The preparatory officer's assessment that the object was a large vehicular object or missile re-entering the atmosphere represents the most detailed analysis available in the file. The full case file, comprising 19 pages, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.