Tinker AB, OklahomaJuly 1953

On July 8, 1953, at 10:27 p.m., observers at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma spotted a round, white, shiny object moving across the sky. The object had no tail or other obvious features. Military personnel, including someone identified as Garrett, watched the object for about four minutes using the naked eye and binoculars. The control tower also reported seeing the object, which was moving to the southeast at roughly 12 miles per hour.

The Air Force investigation that followed tried to determine whether multiple sightings that night were actually the same object. The 13th Air Division reported no radar contact at the time of the sighting. However, the 5th Mobile Weather Squadron had released a weather balloon from Tinker at 8:00 p.m., less than 2.5 hours before the sighting. The weather balloon was equipped with instruments and was rising on winds from the southeast.

Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC), the Air Force's UFO investigation unit, believed the object was the weather balloon. The azimuth and elevation readings taken by military observers through binoculars matched closely enough with the balloon's expected position to support this conclusion. ATIC also noted the possibility that other unidentified sightings reported around the same time might have been weather balloons as well.

The Air Force's official evaluation concluded that the sighting was a confirmed balloon observation. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, containing 10 pages.