Pontiac, Mich., April 1952April 1952

On the night of April 27, 1952, a man driving with his family north of Detroit saw a brilliant white object descend rapidly from the northeast sky near Pontiac, Michigan. The object stopped at approximately 3,000 feet in the air and hovered for three or four minutes. The witness estimated the object to be about 200 feet in diameter and noted that it appeared to have two rows of window-like openings around its entire circumference, resembling the holes of a mouth organ.

After hovering, the object began drifting northwest toward Pontiac at roughly 100 miles per hour, stopping two or three times during the observation. The witness drove to a nearby drive-in restaurant and convinced two young men to come outside and witness the phenomenon. He then called the Birmingham police, asked them to alert nearby airfields, and later phoned the Detroit Times and Selfridge Field to report what he was seeing. As the object continued to drift, its lights flickered on and off three times. On the third occasion, the lights changed from white to brilliant yellow-orange. The witness followed the object for about one and a half hours as it moved west, until it disappeared over tree tops near Flint around 11:15 p.m.

The witness later contacted the Detroit Times with written statements from two young men and a railroad truck driver who had also observed the object. The reporter who followed up on the story called Selfridge Field's radar division, which stated that nothing had been detected on radar that evening. The Times ultimately did not publish the story. In his letter to the Air Technical Intelligence Center, the witness expressed frustration that authorities had not responded more seriously to the sighting and argued that the public deserved better information about such incidents.

The Air Force's status report from November 27, 1952 described the source of the report as "obviously doubtful" and noted that the incident involved a "large circular object very close to the ground," estimated 200 feet in diameter. The case file does not state a final evaluation. This summary is drawn from 11 pages of declassified records held by the National Archives.