NEW ORLEANS, LA., August 1952August 1952

On the evening of August 3, 1952, a clerk-typist employed by the Army Finance Office in New Orleans reported seeing an unusual object in the sky. At approximately 9:38 p.m., while sitting in a parked car on Port Street, the witness observed what he described as a "flying saucer." The object appeared to be spinning clockwise and throwing off bluish-white sparks from a white circle about two feet wide. The witness estimated the object was roughly one mile away, much closer than the moon, and was traveling from west to east at approximately 100 miles per hour. The sighting lasted between 30 and 60 seconds. The witness took care to rule out reflections from nearby railroad yard lights and the full moon visible that night, and noted that the hazy sky obscured stars in that section. A brother-in-law was present but did not see the object.

The sighting was reported to the Army's New Orleans Port of Embarkation on August 4, 1952, and the case was forwarded to the Office of Special Investigations. The report was subsequently sent up the chain of command through Fourth Army headquarters to the Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

The file also contains detailed reports of a separate and much larger sighting that occurred at Hamilton Air Force Base in California on the same day. Experienced military pilots observed silver, circular objects between 60 and 100 feet in diameter traveling at speeds estimated at 400 to 450 miles per hour. The objects maneuvered in patterns resembling a fighter dogfight over a period of about an hour and a quarter.

An Air Force intelligence officer reviewing the case noted that weather balloons had been released in the area on the day of the sighting and concluded that the objects were likely balloons. The complete case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 31 pages.