Van Nuys, CaliforniaApril 1955

Unidentified

Summary

On an April night in 1955, a housewife in Van Nuys, California, stepped outside and saw a red, flashing light appear in the sky immediately after a multi-engine airliner passed overhead. The light moved in a straight line toward the northwest and remained visible for about eight to ten minutes.

The observer reported that she had actually spotted this same object three or four times during the previous week. Each time, the light appeared right after a scheduled airline aircraft flew over the area. The pattern seemed too consistent to be coincidence, but she could not determine what the object was.

When Air Force investigators looked into the case, they concluded that the sighting was almost certainly the tail beacon of a United Airlines aircraft. Commercial airliners of that era carried rotating red beacons on their tails to make them more visible at night. Under the right atmospheric conditions, such a beacon can appear to emerge from nowhere and move in ways that confuse observers on the ground. This explanation satisfied the Air Force's evaluation criteria.

However, the case file indicates the Air Force designated this sighting as "unidentified" in their official determination, even while the comments section strongly suggested it was a known aircraft feature. The full case file, comprising 7 pages, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.

Reported location

Van Nuys, California

Date of incident

April 1955

State / country

CA / US

Page count

7 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unidentified

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 23

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 7

View transcribed text

. Lhe Code CROP oe pe WY ere To PERPTRNN Wr L500 > rong) 485 T BY Hw LD IR NA S35 © Pree PEMA 87 avd A po — . . ——— BE
i ! ; |
4 PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD
] 1. DATE 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS
1 00 Was Balloon
E 20 i ‘ p- ali Ff : 0 Probably Balloon
i nV BPERE 909. Van Nuys, Californda. 1g WSiUsh pesos
A 3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4. TYPE OF OBSERVATION
Eo Laud EERO MXGround- Visual 0 Ground-Radar Hl Bian Hariri ;
| EF GMT 21/0630Z SE 0 Air-Visual 0 Air-Intercept Radar O Possibly Aircraft
EE CIT ER DR ER A 6. SOURCE 0 Was Astronomical
Po O Yes 0 Probably Astronomical
| = . . . i 3 1
| : XX No aie tel a GE v ilia n (coo) DO Possibly Astronomical
- 7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE 18 ARVIN il icidsolih cies abot
b: 0 Insufficient Data for Evaluation
| ¥ 0 Unknown
; 8-10 minutes one northwest id
4 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING hy BEIT
J One red, flashing light seems to Definitely identified as an
3 come out of nowhere after a multi United Airlines Flight a/c
E engine a/c passes overhead and move with a red, rotating beacon
3 in a straight line toward the NW. attached to the tail structure
3 ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP 52)

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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28961769