San Ramon, CaliforniaAugust 1956

# San Ramon, California, August 1956

In August 1956, residents of San Ramon, California reported seeing an unidentified object in the sky. The sighting occurred on August 10, and the Air Force received multiple witness accounts. The object was described as appearing fuzzy and amber colored, roughly twice the size of the planet Mars as it appeared in the night sky.

The object reportedly hovered in nearly the same location for about four hours without making any sound. According to witnesses, the object moved very little during this time, making its direction of travel contradictory and unclear. The sighting prompted attention from local authorities and eventually reached Air Force investigators.

A separate incident also occurred in Dallas, Texas on August 10-11, 1956, which appears to have been connected to this investigation. In Dallas, civilian personnel, employees of Braniff Airways, and radar operators at the 745th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron detected an unknown target on their radar scope. The radar blip appeared three times larger than a normal aircraft echo. The radar track showed the object maintaining a constant speed of approximately 400 knots, and radar operators filmed roughly 100 frames of 35-millimeter film documenting the unusual track. The object's radar position aligned almost perfectly with the visual sightings reported by civilian observers. A military interceptor aircraft was asked to investigate but the target disappeared before the aircraft could reach the area.

The Air Force's official evaluation of the San Ramon sighting concluded it was unidentified. The full case file, consisting of 17 pages of declassified records held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.