Mobile, Ala., June 1950June 1950

On the evening of June 23, 1950, witnesses across a broad stretch of the southern United States saw a brilliant ball of fire streak across the sky. The object was visible to people in Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, and others at sea, drawing attention from pilots, air traffic controllers, weather forecasters, and ordinary citizens. What they saw burned bright for only a few seconds but left behind a glowing trail of white or bluish vapor that remained visible for roughly half an hour.

An aircraft on a routine weather reconnaissance mission over the Gulf of Mexico provided the most detailed account. The crew watched as the object appeared to descend in a spiral or twisting path from an altitude of at least 50,000 feet, fading as it dropped toward 20,000 feet. The trail it left behind was described as extremely bright and lasted much longer than the initial light. One crew member sketched the path as extending from a base of 80 miles to a height of 60 to 70 miles, with the phenomenon seeming to elongate upward before diving toward the earth. The object moved at what seemed a slow rate despite its great distance, taking somewhere between one and a half to twenty minutes to fully fade from view.

On the ground, observers offered varied descriptions. A fireman in Jackson, Mississippi, said it looked like a grapefruit spouting fire like a roman candle and followed by a white vapor trail. A Civil Aeronautics Administration air traffic controller and a weather forecaster both stressed that the object was far more brilliant than any meteor either had ever seen, and both remarked that the persistent vapor trail was unlike anything they had observed from meteors before. One captain who encountered the phenomenon reported it was traveling at tremendous speed.

Despite the widespread sightings and detailed crew observations, the case file does not state a clear conclusion from the Air Force about what the object was. One civilian weatherman quoted in the file suggested it was probably a meteorite that had veered off course and landed in Louisiana swamps. The full case file, consisting of 9 pages, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.