Sampson AFB, New YorkOctober 1953

On the morning of October 9, 1953, a woman living in quarters near Sampson Air Force Base Hospital in Geneva, New York, heard an unusual loud roaring noise coming from the northeast. When she looked up, she saw a bright silvery object traveling westward at a high altitude. She described it as circular, disk-shaped, and about three inches in diameter as it appeared to her eye, traveling on its edge across the sky. The sound was constant and unbroken, unlike any aircraft she knew. She ran to get a neighbor to witness the phenomenon, but by the time they returned outside, the object had disappeared from view, though the roaring sound continued for several more minutes.

About twenty minutes later, the witness's nine-year-old daughter came inside and reported that she too had seen a flat silvery object traveling from the southwest over the hospital area. The child described it as about the size of a silver dollar and said it was making an unusual noise. The girl had been playing outside and had not overheard her mother's conversation about the earlier sighting. The child thought the object had smoke moving in front of it. Both witnesses agreed the sound was unlike any jet or conventional aircraft they knew, continuous and much louder than normal aviation noise.

The Air Force investigated and confirmed the weather that morning was hazy with about ten miles of visibility and light southwest winds at four miles per hour. Officers estimated the object had traveled at approximately 11,000 feet altitude in a straight line from northeast to southwest, showing no unusual maneuvers or evasive movements. The Air Force noted the first witness had some college education and was age 39, while the second witness was a child, and marked the reliability of the sightings as doubtful and unreliable respectively. The file concludes only that the object was "possibly an aircraft," though no conventional explanation was confirmed.

This case file, consisting of nine pages as held by the National Archives, remains classified as unidentified in the Project Blue Book records.