Old Bridge, New JerseyApril 1956

On the evening of April 28, 1956, a man and his wife were sitting on their front porch in Old Bridge, New Jersey, when they noticed a bright light in the sky to the northeast. For about thirty seconds, the light grew brighter and whiter. Then it began to dim and turn red, and started moving from east to west. The witness noted that a transport aircraft passing overhead in the same direction was moving noticeably faster than the mysterious light. After traveling at a slow speed for about thirty seconds, the object suddenly accelerated to what the witness described as enormous speed and disappeared. The total observation lasted roughly three minutes.

The witness had credentials that made his report noteworthy. He had worked as a technical representative for Lockheed and Curtiss-Wright during World War II, and later served as a scientific consultant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff evaluating German aviation development after the war. He had also received a Certificate of Appreciation from the Army. Because of his background in aviation, he was confident the object was not any known type of aircraft, nor a meteor or comet. He speculated that if the object had been solid, it would have appeared on radar screens in the Metropolitan area around New York City, located about fifty miles away.

The Air Force Technical Intelligence Center received the report but found the information insufficient to launch a formal investigation. On the official evaluation form, investigators noted that the object's behavior, duration, and maneuvers suggested it might have been an aircraft, possibly a jet that turned on its afterburner to account for the sudden speed increase and the red coloring that appeared as it accelerated. The file was marked "Probably Aircraft" on the case card, though the evaluation concludes with enough uncertainty that it falls short of a definitive identification. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consisting of 16 pages.