Vicinity Of Wake Island, September 1959September 1959

On September 9, 1959, a crew aboard a U.S. Air Force C-97 cargo plane spotted an unusual sight near Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean. The aircraft was flying at 6,000 feet, heading west toward Okinawa, when observers noticed a bright white light ascending sharply above the horizon. The light then disappeared and reappeared, this time descending nearly straight down while changing colors to red and possibly violet. The entire sighting lasted about five to six minutes. What caught attention was a large vapor-like trail or cloud that accompanied the light, remaining visible for roughly 30 minutes as it was gradually scattered by winds.

The sighting was made by four witnesses with solid flying credentials: Captain Thomas Patterson, the aircraft commander with roughly 7,200 hours of flight time; First Lieutenant William Schroder, the navigator; Captain Allen Johnson, a rated pilot and passenger; and Sergeant First Class Hughie Chavis, a passenger. Schroder attempted to photograph the trail in color, while Chavis captured black and white photographs using a 120mm camera. The aircraft's position at the time was approximately 1,934 miles north and 16,336 miles east, in the vicinity of Wake Island.

The most likely explanation emerged shortly after the sighting reached Air Force intelligence. An Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile had been fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California earlier that same day, at approximately 1730 hours (5:30 p.m.). The time and location of the missile's reentry into the atmosphere matched closely with the sighting, and the steep angle of descent and the appearance of the trail in the photographs were consistent with a missile nose cone burning up as it fell back to earth. The trail's rapid dissipation by wind and its vertical character resembled the normal appearance of such a reentry event rather than an aircraft contrail.

The Air Force concluded that the sighting was an observation of this missile test. The case file notes that the "irregular trail appears to be the normal result of varying winds with altitude," a finding consistent with how atmospheric reentry of a missile nose cone would behave. Color photographs taken by Schroder were forwarded to intelligence personnel for analysis, though results are not described in the file.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, spanning 15 pages.