Nantucket Point, Long Island, N Y, January 1963January 1963

On the night of January 4th into the early morning of January 5th, 1963, a railroad worker at Nantucket Point on Long Island looked up from his job filling train tanks around 3 a.m. and saw an unusual craft hovering roughly 100 feet above him. He described it as perfectly round, shaped like two saucers pressed together, about 75 feet across, with a bright blue light like an exhaust plume on top. The object was clearly visible in the moonlit night against the shining metal structure.

For about an hour, the worker watched the craft execute turns, flips, and high-speed maneuvers close to the ground, never descending below 500 to 1,000 feet. He saw no windows or ports except for the blue light on top. At one point, a night guard from a nearby Republic Aerospace facility drove up, and the craft slid over to hover above that area. The worker felt the craft seemed to be watching him and the operation.

Around 4 a.m., a large jet or airline plane flying at about 15,000 feet passed overhead. The craft shot straight up at tremendous speed, nearly colliding with the plane before veering off at the last moment. It then moved west at low altitude toward New York City. As it departed, a coworker saw it leaving as a "moving bright star."

The account came to Air Force investigators through the motel owner where the worker was staying, who wrote to the U.S. Air Force Intelligence Bureau vouching for the man's reliability and sobriety. The motel owner noted that the worker seemed genuinely shaken by the experience and had watched the object for approximately an hour, and that other workers may have witnessed it as well.

The Air Force's evaluation, based on astronomical analysis, concluded the sighting was probably a balloon. The case file notes that the object had characteristics of an astronomical object, with the bright blue light and reported maneuvers possibly explained by atmospheric distortion and the witness's interpretation of the object's behavior under unusual nighttime conditions. Bright stars visible at the time of the sighting included Regulus, Betelgeuse, Venus, and Mars, all of which could have appeared to move or change position depending on viewing angle and atmospheric conditions.

The full case file, comprising 10 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.