Vicksburg, MississippiApril 1949

# Vicksburg Triangle, April 1949

On the night of April 22, 1949, just after midnight, a man in Vicksburg, Mississippi saw a strange object in the sky. The observer, a carpenter who worked at a local pool hall, looked up and spotted what he described as a triangular-shaped object. It looked milky, like a fluorescent light but not quite as bright. The object was headed east and was flying at a moderate speed. The whole sighting lasted only five to ten seconds before the object simply disappeared into the clear sky, as if it had traveled beyond sight.

The triangle-shaped object was reportedly about four feet on each side and one and a half feet wide. A row of lights ran along the outside edge of each side. The observer said the object appeared to have wings but showed no visible exhaust, made no sound, and seemed to move faster than a mail plane or National Guard plane but slower than a jet. There was no impact on the clouds around it.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations interviewed the observer in May 1949 and found him to be reliable. He had a good ability to judge size and distance and enjoyed watching airplanes to identify their types. The investigators noted he gave a detailed and elusive account of what he saw. A check of radar records in Vicksburg found no sightings. No military or commercial aircraft were known to be in the area at that time. Weather conditions on the night of the sighting included low visibility and broken clouds, though the ceiling was estimated at 25,000 feet. The investigation found no test devices had been released by any military or research organization in the area. The file shows the Air Force could not definitively identify what the observer had seen.

The full case file, totaling 44 pages, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives.