STEAD AFB NEV, October 1952October 1952

On October 25, 1952, at 1039 (10:39 a.m.) Pacific time, tower operators at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada spotted what they described as a circular object about the size and color of a medium orange. The object traveled eastward at high speed and vanished. Three to four minutes later, it reappeared heading westward before disappearing again, leaving behind a vapor trail (a visible cloud created by the object's passage through the air).

The witnesses were A/1C Albert F. Flowers and A/2C James L. Wright, both experienced tower operators. Flowers had served six years in the tower, while Wright had been on duty for thirteen months. The men used binoculars to observe the object from a location five miles southwest of the base, over Mount Peavine. The object appeared to be flying between fifteen thousand and twenty-three thousand feet in altitude. At no point was the object visible for more than five seconds. The sky was clear with visibility of fifteen miles or better.

A civilian in the Reno suburb of Home Gardens had also reported seeing unidentified objects and called a local radio station, which in turn called Stead Tower. The original civilian report mentioned a formation of twenty objects with two over Stead, though the official Air Force summary notes uncertainty about whether one or two objects were actually sighted. A fire observer on Mount Peavine saw nothing. No other significant details came from local air traffic checks.

The file also contains a separate 1952 incident reported by an Air Force Office of Special Investigations district on a Rhode Island sighting from October 26 (the day after Stead), in which a Navy veteran reported two egg-shaped silvery objects moving at extreme speed. However, the OCR text becomes unclear regarding details of this secondary report, making a full summary unreliable.

The Air Force's official evaluation, recorded on the initial case card, indicates the Stead AFB objects were "probably balloon," though the worksheet leaves the final evaluation marked as "unknown." No clear explanation appears in the file for the discrepancy between these two assessments.

The full case file, comprising 19 pages as archived by the National Archives, is reproduced below.