San Antonio, TexasSeptember 1952

On September 7, 1952, at 10:50 p.m., a couple in San Antonio, Texas witnessed an unusual flash of light in the eastern sky. The man and his wife were leaving friends' house when they saw a dark orange explosion-like flash that appeared about fifteen miles away and roughly twenty thousand feet up. The flash remained visible for about three seconds before fading. To the witnesses, the object looked about the size of a pea held at arm's length.

Later that evening, at approximately 10:40 p.m. on the same date (the exact timing in the document is unclear due to OCR errors), the witnesses reported seeing a second, separate phenomenon. This time, the object appeared to be bright orange and flashed on suddenly like a firefly. It seemed to move and was roughly the size of a small dirigible. The color was described as being equivalent to an orange heated to around two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. The object was visible for a duration the witnesses describe as very brief, though the exact length is difficult to determine from the OCR text.

One of the witnesses noted in his statement that the phenomena did not seem to match any conventional aircraft or known natural event he could think of. He mentioned the possibility of hallucination but seemed uncertain about this explanation. The Air Force's final conclusion on the case was listed as "unidentified," meaning investigators could not determine a likely explanation for what the witnesses saw.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, consisting of 7 pages.