San Diego, CaliforniaCirca 1956

An unusual flying object puzzled a U.S. Geological Survey supervisor in downtown Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, after he spotted something floating past his office window that seemed to behave in ways he could not explain.

The supervisor was working at his desk on the 13th floor of the Federal Building, on Main Street, when something outside caught his eye. He thought at first it might be a balloon, but the movement seemed wrong for that. The object was about two feet wide and three feet long, with a greenish hue and a slight metallic sheen. It floated past lower buildings across Main Street at what seemed to be close range, in broad daylight.

The object's movements grew stranger. As it descended toward a nearby freeway, it suddenly changed course and rose. It then drifted over parked cars, missing them by what looked to the witness like a few feet. Approaching a two-story building at the edge of the parking lot, the object was headed straight for impact. Instead, when it came within about ten feet of the wall, it took a sudden rise and moved along the building's surface and over the roof, about five or six feet above it. The observer said he could read the lettering on a nearby stop sign as the object moved past, so clear was his view.

The object then dropped low again toward the sidewalk, hovering about seven feet above it as it moved slowly along. After rising again to circle above another rooftop, it abruptly shot away at high speed and vanished over Union Station four blocks away. The witness was alone in the area and did not call others to witness the performance.

The observer was a professional with significant standing in the federal government. He had reported the incident to the Strategic Air Command in Pasadena years earlier but felt the report was dismissed without proper consideration. When the current wave of sightings reminded him of the incident, he wrote to the Air Force in April 1966, nearly ten years after the event, to place it on record. He stated he was certain beyond doubt that the object was real and under some form of control, since no uncontrolled object could rise vertically, change direction so often, or accelerate to such speed.

The Air Force's evaluation of this case was unidentified. The substantial file reproduced below contains 38 pages of historical record as held by the National Archives.