Rothwesten, Germany, November 1957November 1957

On November 14, 1957, radar operators at a U.S. Air Force station in Rothwesten, Germany detected three separate radar signals, or blips, traveling at extraordinarily high speeds. The station was part of the 601st Air Control and Warning Squadron, which monitored airspace in the region near the Czech border. The targets did not match known aircraft signatures, and the first blip even split into two separate signals during observation.

All three blips moved at speeds estimated between 2,000 and 5,300 nautical miles per hour, speeds far exceeding any aircraft technology of the era. The signals were tracked across the radar scope, with the radar operators noting that the blips "painted" normally on the radar display, meaning they appeared to be solid targets rather than electronic ghosts. The first target appeared at 11:01 a.m. and was tracked for five minutes across the screen before departing the radar's range. The second and third targets were detected at 5:42 p.m. and 5:53 p.m., each lasting one to two minutes.

Several radar personnel participated in the observations. Sergeant Charles L. Floeck, who had a reputation for reliability, was the only observer to track the entire flight path of the first target. First Lieutenant Melvin Rumstein, the assistant duty controller, observed the other two targets and noted the unusual electronic interference that occurred during their detection. A radar maintenance officer attempted to explain some of the interference as cross-talk between two nearby radar stations, but acknowledged that this explanation did not fully account for all the observations.

The Air Force evaluators concluded that the targets were most likely not real radar echoes. In their view, the signals were unexplained radar artifacts of the sort that frequently appeared on radar scopes without any corresponding physical object. The combination of extremely high reported speeds and the very brief observation times suggested to investigators that the blips were widely scattered across the scope and likely unrelated to one another. The file contains no definitive explanation for the sightings.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consisting of 8 pages.