Naperville, IllinoisMarch 1962

In March 1962, two women driving near Naperville, Illinois, spotted mysterious red blinking lights in the evening sky. The women, returning from a card game, watched the strange object move across the residential area over the course of about fifteen minutes. The Air Force launched an investigation, but neither weather analysis nor detailed interviews of the witnesses led to a firm conclusion about what they had observed. The case was marked unidentified.

The sighting began around 10:40 p.m. when the driver first noticed several red lights, described as similar in color and brightness to car tail lights, at about 10 to 15 degrees above the horizon. As the car moved through the neighborhood, the witnesses continued to track the object. The lights seemed to turn and move in response to the car's motion, and both women noted an absence of sound, which struck them as unusual if the object were an airplane.

During the investigation, the two witnesses gave separate accounts. One woman described seeing six to eight distinct lights initially, while the other reported seeing primarily two large red lights. Both agreed on the general location and direction of the sighting, but their descriptions of the object's size and specific behavior differed noticeably. The investigator conducted on-site interviews and visited the area, measuring distances and checking for local sources of reflected light. Officers also checked with local authorities and the Federal Aviation Administration, which reported no aircraft in distress or unusual activity that night.

The investigation noted two potential explanations. The lights from a nearby high school might have been visible from certain angles and could reflect off car windows. Additionally, a helicopter occasionally delivered mail in the Naperville area, which could account for some observations. However, neither explanation fully accounted for all the details the women reported. A similar sighting in nearby Lisle on the same evening was also reported to police, adding some corroboration to the general phenomenon but not resolving the mystery.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives in 60 pages of microfilm.