Project Blue Book Case File
NEBRASKA, MISSOURIOctober 1954
Summary
On October 31, 1954, commercial airline pilots and observers from Nebraska and Missouri reported seeing a bright meteor. The object appeared in the night sky with a large, glowing trail that shifted through colors, starting green, then white, then displaying the full spectrum of rainbow colors before fading out.
The sighting was reported by four United Airlines pilots and one American Airlines pilot. Witnesses spotted what seemed to be a very bright meteor roughly one hundred miles south of Lincoln, Nebraska, appearing at a forty-five degree angle along the horizon. The phenomenon was observed from locations south of Grand Island, Lincoln, Omaha, Nebraska, and St. Joseph, Missouri.
The Air Force's Technical Information Center evaluated the event as a civilian astronomical meteor. No photographs or physical evidence was collected. The file indicates this was a straightforward sighting with multiple credible witnesses, all aviation professionals accustomed to observing the sky.
The full case file, comprising 36 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.
Reported location
NEBRASKA, MISSOURI
Date of incident
October 1954
State / country
MO / US
Page count
36 scanned pages
USAF evaluation
unidentified
Microfilm
T1206, Roll 22