Trenton, N.J., May 1958May 1958

On the night of May 29, 1958, a photographer in Trenton, New Jersey took a series of pictures of the moon using a telescope attached to his camera. When he examined the negatives, he noticed a small white speck on one of the photographs. The speck was about the size of a pinhead and did not appear on any of the other exposures he had taken that night or on subsequent evenings.

The photographer, a former industrial photographer who had worked for U.S. Steel, believed the speck was something real and not a camera defect or a problem with his film development. He was confident enough in his discovery to send a copy to Life Magazine in June 1958, though he did not receive a response. Word of the photograph eventually reached the Air Force through a security officer at a steel plant.

The U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations interviewed the photographer and examined his original negative, along with detailed information about his camera equipment (a 35-millimeter Soligar with a 40-inch focal-length Sky-scope lens, shot at 1/100th of a second). They also spoke with an astronomer at Princeton University who reviewed the image. The astronomer noted that while the photograph was "interesting," a single exposure was not enough to reach any scientific conclusion about what the speck might be. He stressed that any meaningful analysis would require multiple photographs taken at different times.

After reviewing and analyzing the photograph, the Air Force's Photo Unit concluded that the white speck was caused by crystallization of the grains in the photographic emulsion, a common flaw in film development rather than evidence of anything unusual in the night sky.

The full case file, consisting of 19 pages, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.