Naha, Okinawa, October 1962October 1962

On October 7, 1962, an observer in Naha, Okinawa, saw a bright white object moving across the night sky at an unusual angle. The object appeared first in the southwest, at an angle of about 30 degrees above the horizon. When the observer spotted it again roughly two hours later, it was in the northwest at about 40 degrees elevation. The entire observation lasted between ten and fifteen minutes.

The observer was using a camera equipped with a telephoto lens to take time-exposure photographs of the moon at the moment the object appeared. The object seemed to move with an erratic flight path. Because of this erratic behavior and the observer's activity at the time, the Air Force investigated whether what was seen might have been a reflection or artifact on the camera itself. However, investigators found that the object and observer both recorded data consistent with an actual sighting in the sky.

The Air Force's conclusion was that the sighting most likely represented the Earth satellite Echo I. The timing, location data, and visual characteristics all correlated with NORAD records of when that satellite would have been in position and visible from Okinawa at the time of the sighting. No radar confirmation of the sighting appears in the case file.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consisting of 37 scanned pages.