Northern Ohio, October 1960October 1960

In October 1960, a resident of northern Ohio submitted photographs to the U.S. Air Force, claiming they showed a strange object near the moon. The witness said the pictures were taken by a friend using an old Kodak camera with bellows, and that the negatives showed mysterious lights and objects that did not appear on the original moon photographs.

The witness was convinced the sightings were genuine. He wrote that he had also seen a strange object in the sky months earlier, which he was certain was not a conventional aircraft. He emphasized that the negatives had never been retouched and that he had proof of their authenticity.

The Air Force's Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center analyzed the photographs. Their analysis found that the random marks appearing on all the negatives were likely caused by dust or small particles moving inside the camera during exposure. The circular image on the negatives, measuring about three-quarters of an inch across, could not have been the moon under normal photographic conditions. Instead, the analysts suggested it might have been a backlit circular opening, or they raised the possibility that the film rolls had been mixed up at the processing lab, meaning the witness may have accidentally submitted photographs of something else entirely.

The Air Force returned the photographs to the witness with a polite letter explaining their findings. The case file indicates the Air Force considered the photographs attempts to photograph the moon, though the exact nature of what was actually captured could not be determined. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 7 pages.