Morgantown, West VirginiaMarch 1949

On the night of March 15, 1949, a civilian in Morgantown, West Virginia reported a single round, flat object that he compared to the lid of a garbage can. He was outside checking the weather, a nightly habit, when he saw the object cross the sky at a very high speed, heading from the northeast toward the southwest. It was yellow, glowed like a flame, made a sound like a sky rocket, and left a yellow, tapering trail. The whole sighting lasted only two or three seconds, and the sky was clear.

A second witness reported a similar object in the same part of the sky on March 28, 1949, this one shaped like a flattened funnel with a reddish gold color and a dark red trail. According to the file, a third man who studies astronomy as a hobby was satisfied that neither object was a natural astronomical event, and said he waited a week to report what he saw because he feared being ridiculed.

The Air Force recorded the case on a Project 10073 record card, its official form for unidentified flying object reports, and concluded that the sighting was astronomical, most likely a meteor.