Victorville, Calif., February 1953February 1953

On February 2, 1953, two aerial gunners aboard a B-50 bomber spotted a silver object in the wake of a B-52 aircraft near Victorville, California. The gunners were flying at 25,000 feet during a training mission when they noticed the object. Both men attempted to photograph it, but their descriptions of what they saw differed. One gunner described a silver ball with flat surfaces that reflected light differently depending on the angle. The other gunner said it looked like a disc that rotated, showing its circular side and then its flat side. The object appeared to be about three feet across and roughly twenty miles away. Throughout the entire three-minute sighting, the object remained stationary and made no sound.

The intelligence officer who filed the report noted that large plastic balloons approximately seventy-five feet in diameter had been found in the area. The navigator of the bomber crew believed the object was likely one of these balloons, as they were used in classified experiments being conducted in the vicinity. The officer added that another report supporting this identification might become available later, though no conclusion appears in the case file.

The two gunners had a combined fifty plus years of service and sixty bombing missions between them. Neither had reported seeing unidentified flying objects before this incident. Their photographs of the object were forwarded to Air Technical Intelligence at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, but the film appears not to have provided conclusive evidence.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, 13 pages.