Rangeley, MaineJanuary 1954

On the evening of January 28, 1954, an object described as bright yellow-white, changing to orange, appeared in the sky near Rangeley, Maine. The observer, identified in the file as a researcher at the Orgone Institute, watched from his study in a place called the "Lower House" for approximately fifteen minutes. The object appeared about the size of a pea held at arm's length and moved into a valley in the direction of Round Pond before disappearing behind low ridges between nearby camps.

The observer reported seeing the object move behind and in front of landscape features, including trees and mountains. He noted that a second similar object appeared to follow the same route moments later, traveling among the trees in the area. Both objects moved in a northwesterly direction. The observer stated that he had witnessed similar aerial phenomena on several previous occasions in January 1954, particularly on the 13th, 14th, 17th, and 18th.

The Air Force's 4602D Air Intelligence Service Squadron at Ent Air Force Base received the report in early March 1954 and forwarded it to the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for analysis. The report included a completed technical information questionnaire from the observer, maps of the Rangeley area, sketches of the objects' paths, and additional written commentary. The observer's reliability was rated as "Fox Dash Six" in the file, though the exact meaning of this code is not clearly explained in the available documents.

The Air Force ultimately classified this sighting as unidentified. No conventional explanation appears in the case file, and no further investigation seems to have been conducted beyond the initial questionnaire and documentation. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 19 pages.