North Hollywood, CaliforniaFebruary 1956

On February 2, 1956, a staff sergeant named Richard L. Walker, stationed at Camp Irwin in California's Mojave Desert, watched a flying object move across the sky from north to south. He estimated it was traveling at thousands of miles per hour and flying above 15,000 feet. Over the next three weeks, other soldiers at the same base reported seeing unusual aircraft and radar blips.

The most detailed sighting came on February 9, 1956, when two soldiers observed an oval-shaped object with brilliant brightness and no sound. It moved to a specific location, hovered for about one minute, then shot away at tremendous speed to another spot, where it stayed visible for about four minutes. The radar operators detected three separate targets on their equipment during this period, all within the 8-mile detection range of their radar unit.

However, the Army could not confirm that any aircraft were in the area at those times. Air traffic control had no record of planes flying over the reservation. The radar targets showed characteristics that looked like aircraft, but without visual sightings or confirmation from the tower, investigators could not be sure. Because the information arrived too late for a thorough investigation, and because the evidence could support either aircraft or something else, the Air Force marked the case as insufficient data for evaluation.

The full case file, consisting of seven pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.