Norristown, PAJanuary 1959

Unidentified

Summary

On January 13, 1959, a civilian about 4 miles northeast of Norristown, Pennsylvania, reported a strange object in the sky. The sighting began about 4:55 p.m. local time (1655 EST) and was watched for roughly 10 minutes. The witness, a priest with engineering and astronomy training, observed while driving on Route 202, then parked to keep watching.

He described one cigar shaped object the color of golden sunlight, with its long axis vertical. It was about 10 degrees above the horizon and about 10 degrees south of the setting sun. The object seemed to descend slowly toward the horizon, then went behind a small bar of cloud and reappeared below it before fading in the twilight haze. He ruled out a cloud and the moon.

The Air Force concluded the case was astronomical, listed as a possibility. The record card said that from the description and apparent motion, the witness probably observed a parhelion (a sun related optical effect).

Reported location

Norristown, PA

Date of incident

January 1959

State / country

PA / US

Page count

3 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unidentified

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 35

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 3

View transcribed text

" i ~ a i om a
A ae PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD + pi .
I. DATE 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS
O Woes Balloon
hn 5Q 7 ston. Pa 0 Probably Balloon
3. DATE-TIME GROUP & TYPE OF OBSERVATION &_ VOsmY Wewen |
~ » O Was Aircraft
PETER |W SR “1X Ground- Vi sual O Ground-Radar Q Probably Aircr oft
OMT_L3 Q Air Visuel O Air-Intercept Radar | 0 Possibly Aircraft |
: ou 0 Was Astronomical
O Probably Astronomicel
Civilian O Possibly Astronomicel
7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE Ke ppt a ge re
O Insufficient Date for Evaluotion
0 Unknown ;
“0 mins on SW
0. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11. COMMENTS
Cigar shaped obj, color of golden sun- From description and apparent
‘! light, scemed to be descending slowly notion, wihkness probably observed
toward the horizon, a parhelia.
ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP $2)
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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28981738