New York, NYAugust 1959

Unidentified

Summary

On an August evening in 1959, a New York City resident spotted a white object in the sky that resembled a bright, sparkling star. The witness described it as roughly the size of a half dollar. The object was moving upward and featured what appeared to be a double exhaust with what the witness called "immediate spurts." Within a few minutes, the object disappeared into the clouds above.

The Air Force asked follow-up questions to clarify what the witness meant by "immediate spurts" and whether the witness's friend, who was present during the sighting, had also seen the object. The friend was unable to grab binoculars in time and could not confirm the sighting. The friend has since moved away and could not be located for further questioning. The witness also could not remember details about the direction and angle of the object or explain what "spurts" meant.

Because of these limitations, the investigation stalled. The Air Force did check with the U.S. Weather Bureau at New York International Airport and learned that a weather balloon had been released about one hour before the sighting. At the time of the sighting, that balloon was at approximately 64,048 feet, roughly 12 miles high. However, the investigation did not reach a firm conclusion about whether the balloon accounted for the sighting.

The Air Force labeled this case unidentified. The full case file, comprising 9 pages, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.

Reported location

New York, NY

Date of incident

August 1959

State / country

NY / US

Page count

9 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unidentified

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 36

¥ § Ly vi PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD hs | i 1. DATE 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS | : ; | & 3X Was Balloon | E 25 pup 59 Now York. INV 0 Probably Balloon 3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4 TYPE OF OBSERVATION SE Lib ELI oy) : Ne ; O Was Aircraft | Local Er BD Ground- Visual O Ground-Radar O Probably Aircraft § ch ee 100A A 0 Air Visudl 0 Air-Intercept Radar O Possibly Aircraft i 5. PHOTOS 6. SOURCE 0 Was Astronomical ] O Yes OO Probably Astronomical 5 “8 No Civilian O Possibly Astronomical | ; 7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE un fo {17 SER PRET tien 108) 0 Insufficient Data for Evaluation i 3 0 Unknown | 5 - 10 mins one vertically 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11. COMMENTS ’ : Wnite obj, like a white sparkling star, Verified as balloon fm internaticnalj i -} size of half dollar, had double exhaust w/ 2a POrGTe | immediate spubts. Disappeared upward into 3 clouds. | E 4 ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP 52) A ] i E | i . . p, : 4 ’