Vicinity Nome, AlaskaDecember 1957

# Case Summary

In December 1957, residents near Nome, Alaska reported seeing bright, fast-moving objects in the night sky over a period of about thirty minutes. Multiple witnesses on the ground observed flame-colored objects with trailing tails moving in various directions across the dark sky.

The first sighting came from a dentist and private pilot in the Nome area. He saw a round object about 6 to 12 inches across, colored flame red with a tail four to five times its diameter. The object traveled on a flat, straight path from south to north before disappearing behind buildings. The sighting lasted between 20 and 30 seconds.

A second observer reported an oblong object several inches to a foot or more in length, initially white and gold but turning red as it passed behind clouds. This sighting lasted about four minutes and moved from low in the south toward the north before disappearing into cloud cover. A third witness, who viewed the object through binoculars from inside a local building, described a baseball-sized orange-red sphere that appeared to spin and seemed to bounce slightly as it moved. This observation also lasted about twenty minutes.

A fourth report came by radio from a teacher in a more remote location south of Nome. He reported a flaming object that fell to the ground 12 to 15 miles away, burned for one to one-and-a-half minutes, then went dark. A signal flare-type object then shot upward from that position and disappeared. The Air Force investigator noted that the teacher's account arrived through an intermediary via radio contact, making direct verification difficult.

The Air Force investigated the sightings by phone interviews with witnesses within two hours of the events. Investigators noted that the timing, directions of movement, and witness descriptions showed some inconsistencies. One key finding: the period of the sightings fell during a known peak season for meteor and fireball activity in that region of the world. An Air Force station at nearby locations reported low cloud cover and poor visibility during the sighting period. The investigator concluded that the observations suggested a meteor sighting, though further investigation was considered warranted. Weather conditions at the time were clear to partly cloudy with calm surface winds.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 10 pages.