Severna Park, MDAugust 1957

Insufficient Data

Summary

On the evening of August 14, 1957, at around 7:53 p.m., two bright lights maneuvered across the sky above Severna Park, Maryland. Three witnesses, including a professional engineer and a minister, saw the objects while standing near a house on Hatton Drive.

The engineer described the lights as brilliant, white, and as bright as a magnesium flare, though much brighter than sunlight reflecting off an airplane. The objects appeared between east and northeast, roughly 60 to 70 degrees above the horizon. The witnesses said the lights looked like "the showers from a sky rocket" but held a steady intensity as they moved. The first light seemed to descend to about 1,000 feet, level off, and move eastward. The second light then came down, looped, and both objects climbed rapidly out of sight behind a distant cloud. The engineer noted they moved fast, perhaps 100 to 200 miles per hour, and made sharp turns. The sighting lasted less than a minute. There was no sound, tail, trail, or smoke.

The Air Force noted that the area around Severna Park was scanned continuously by radar as a known military operations zone. The cover sheet indicates the Air Force concluded the objects were "a/c reflecting sun's slant rays," meaning an aircraft reflecting sunlight. No additional investigation appears in the file, and no contradiction or follow-up to this explanation is recorded.

The complete case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 8 pages of scanned documents.

Reported location

Severna Park, MD

Date of incident

August 1957

State / country

MD / US

Page count

8 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unknown

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 28

PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD a 1. DATE ; 2 LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS | Hag 0 Wos Balloon | 14 August 1937 Severna Park, Md O Probably obra | 3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4 TYPE OF OBSERVATION O Possibly Sellen % . BSc LENE Lc 8X Ground- Vi sual O Ground-Rader IX Probably Aireraft | GM 15/00532 O Air Visual 0 Air-Intercept Rodar O Possibly Aircraft 5. PHOTOS 8. SOURCE O Wes Astronomical O Yes o Probably Astronomical CX Me Civilian DO Possibly Astronomical 7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE Cr SN Os O Insufficient Data for Evaluation : 0 Unknown few seconds two ENE 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11. COMMENTS Two maneuvering brilliant lights about] Objects were seen near an area like the showers from a sky rocket if | of known air operations activities| | two were separated from the rest, The | which is scanned 24 hrs a day by | lights held a steady insensity, radar, No other report.of anythiag t unusual, It is concluded that obj | was a/c reflecting sun's slant 28 rays, f=. ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP 52) ‘