Napavine, WashingtonMay 1954

On the evening of May 31, 1954, a woman attending a drive-in movie theater near Napavine, Washington, reported seeing an unusual object descending toward the ground. She described it as round and flat, with what she called a "funny looking design." The object came down in front of the car, stopped abruptly, moved slowly to the right, stopped again, and then took off rapidly. The witness became so startled that she screamed loudly enough to attract attention from other people at the theater. She told her husband what she had seen but did not report the incident to authorities because she feared people would think her crazy.

The woman reported a second sighting about three weeks later, on June 25, 1954, around 3 a.m. local time. She was looking out a window of her upstairs apartment when she saw something large pass quickly across the window. The object made a noise like something moving very fast, and she found the experience frightening enough to disrupt her sleep. Her husband, who had been in the car during the first sighting, did not report seeing the object himself, despite being present.

When the Air Force investigated the case, they noted significant questions about the reliability of the account. The husband's failure to observe anything during the first incident, despite being in the same vehicle, raised doubts about what the witness had actually seen. The investigators also suggested that the witness may have been influenced by newspaper articles about UFO sightings and by her own anxiety. They considered the possibility that the falling lights might have been flares dropped by an aircraft conducting night operations, though local records did not confirm such activity. The Air Force's evaluation form indicates the case was probably the result of psychological factors rather than an actual unknown aerial phenomenon.

The full case file, consisting of 7 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.