Western U.S., August 1957August 1957

# Summary

On August 2, 1957, at roughly 4:30 a.m., an observer at Red Bluff Air Force Station in California spotted a bright white object the size of a baseball streaking overhead. The object had a blue tail about a yard long. It moved in a straight line on a heading of approximately 320 degrees (roughly northwest) and remained visible for about five seconds before it exploded silently and broke apart.

Later that same morning, around 5:35 a.m., multiple observers across a wide area of the western United States saw a similar phenomenon. Witnesses from northern California to Oregon, Idaho, and Washington reported seeing an oval-shaped object that glowed brilliant white with a yellow fringe. As it moved, the front of the object shifted through bluish and greenish colors. Observers described the object as sending out star-shell-like bursts before it disappeared. A shock wave from an explosion was heard three to five minutes later, though the sound was faint.

The Air Force officers who received these reports noted that the sightings coincided with the Perseid meteor shower, an annual astronomical event occurring in early August. Newspaper accounts from the time describe a large, brilliant fireball seen across the western states, with observers reporting it traveled generally from east to west and appeared to disintegrate near the California-Oregon border near Yreka. The reports were widely mistaken for a crashing aircraft. The U.S. Air Force and the Western Air Defense radar center identified the objects as meteors connected to the Perseid Shower. One document included in the file offers a critical note, cautioning that fireballs and large meteors are frequently reported as UFOs and urging investigators to distinguish genuine sightings from meteor events.

This case file contains 10 pages of documents held by the National Archives.