Reno, NevadaJuly 1953

On July 3, 1953, two civilians sat on a lawn near East 9th and Lake Streets in Reno, Nevada, and spotted a white, pinpoint-like object high in the sky. The observer's wife noticed it first, pointing it out through tree branches. The husband watched for about eight minutes, considering whether it might be a weather balloon, but decided against that idea because the day was bright, hot, and cloudless yet the object neither moved nor changed size. He left his wife to keep watching while he tried to report the sighting to authorities.

What followed was a frustrating round of phone calls. The observer contacted a local police officer, who referred him to police headquarters. Police headquarters said to call the sheriff. The sheriff said the sighting was outside their jurisdiction and suggested calling the Army. Unable to reach the Army, the observer called the FBI, who took his name and address. After returning to verify his wife still had the object in view, he called the FBI again and was told they had referred the matter to Stead Air Force Base.

Over the next two hours, the observer made multiple calls to various Air Force colonels, each referring him to another. An officer eventually asked him to find a disinterested witness. The observer stopped a passing car and asked the driver, who turned out to be a geology professor at the University of Nevada, to look at the object. The professor did so, though only briefly. When the observer finally reached an Air Force colonel to report this verification, the officer said he would send two enlisted men for debriefing. The object was still visible at that time, but disappeared before the Air Force personnel arrived at the observer's hotel two hours later.

The Air Force's official investigation noted that the witnesses were reliable. The observer had spent fifteen years working in airline meteorology and communications. However, after reviewing the case, Project Blue Book's contract astronomers concluded that the object had been the planet Venus. The evaluation form marks this case as unknown despite the Venus conclusion noted in the file discussion.

The full case file, including detailed witness questionnaires, technical intelligence reports, and weather information, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 17 pages.