Taiwan Vicinity, April 1961April 1961

On April 10, 1961, four pilots flying near Taiwan observed a bright light in the sky for roughly 10 to 15 seconds. The object appeared blue-green in color and trailed what witnesses described as a flaming tail. It moved east to west at an altitude of around 5,000 feet, flying at an estimated speed of roughly Mach 0.8 (about 530 miles per hour). The object remained several miles away from the pilots' aircraft throughout the sighting and did not perform any unusual maneuvers.

The object's sudden appearance and unusual appearance caught the pilots' attention. One pilot stated it looked as if sparks of hot molten iron were flying off it. The sighting was confirmed by multiple military observers, including pilots identified as Captain Chow and Lieutenant Chuang, as well as Flying Officer Tsao from the Chinese Air Force. The flight leader noted that visibility at their altitude was unlimited with no cloud cover, which made the observation conditions favorable.

The Air Force investigation noted the weather conditions at the time, recording surface winds and upper-level winds at various altitudes. An estimated distance of approximately 15 nautical miles separated the object from the aircraft. Despite the multiple witnesses and clear observation conditions, the case file does not contain an explicit Air Force conclusion about what the object was. The OCR quality of the remaining pages is too degraded to extract further investigative details or conclusions.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 9 scanned pages.