Project Blue Book Case File
Montebello, CaliforniaDecember 1957
Summary
On December 1, 1957, at 3:00 p.m., a man in Montebello, California watched six objects moving slowly westward across the sky. His children had called his attention to them first. He filmed the objects with a motion picture camera.
When Air Force investigators examined the film, they found it showed only two objects, not six. These two objects moved back and forth slowly in unison. The witness said the objects were at roughly the same altitude as small airplanes he frequently saw over his house, between 3,000 and 4,000 feet. He confirmed they never flew as high as aircraft that leave vapor trails, and he saw no smoke or visible tail trailing behind them. When asked what he thought the objects were, the witness said he did not believe they were balloons or airplanes he had seen before.
The Air Force investigation noted that the witness appeared to be seeking publicity and had shown hostility toward the Air Force. Officials decided to conduct their own interviews rather than bring in qualified intelligence personnel. A note in the file mentions that the witness had made critical statements about the Air Force, and the investigators treated his account with skepticism given his antagonistic attitude.
The exact technical details of the camera and film are difficult to extract from the available OCR text due to image quality issues. According to the case card, the Air Force's final evaluation was listed as "unknown."
The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, spanning 8 pages of microfilm.
Reported location
Montebello, California
Date of incident
December 1957
State / country
CA / US
Page count
8 scanned pages
USAF evaluation
unknown
Microfilm
T1206, Roll 31