Union City, IndianaJune 1960

On June 6, 1960, at 7:55 p.m., a photographer in Union City, Indiana, spotted what he believed was an unidentified flying object. The man, a professional photographer who worked for a local newspaper, was standing at the corner of Columbia and Pearl streets when he saw the object flying from west to east across the sky. He described it as high-flying, fast, and quiet, with no contrail (the white trail that jet engines typically leave behind).

The photographer used his Kodak Pony IV camera loaded with Kodachrome color film to capture an image of the object. He noted that the sun was behind him during the sighting. Interestingly, he observed that while a pattern appeared around the object in the photograph, this pattern was not visible to his naked eye when he witnessed the event. He also stated that the image was not a double exposure, meaning he had not accidentally exposed the film twice.

The Air Force's Photo Analysis Division examined the photograph in August 1960. Their conclusion was straightforward: no discernible object could be identified in the print itself. The light-colored areas visible in the photograph, they suggested, could have been caused by sun flare, a common photographic artifact created when bright light enters the camera lens at certain angles. Major Hector Quintanilla Jr., chief of Project Blue Book, informed the photographer of these findings in October 1966, more than six years after the sighting occurred.

The Air Force rated this case as unidentified because no clear explanation emerged during its review. However, the evidence ultimately pointed toward a photographic phenomenon rather than an unknown craft. The full case file, consisting of seven pages, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.