Westover AFB, Mass., December 1950December 1950

On the morning of December 6, 1950, a man standing in his yard in West Springfield, Massachusetts heard an unusual whistling sound. He looked up and spotted a silvery, half-moon-shaped object flying overhead. The object had a dark shadow line across its upper edge and appeared to be metallic. It moved in a straight line toward the south, seeming to accelerate as it flew. The entire sighting lasted less than 45 seconds before the object vanished suddenly without a trace.

The observer was a service technician for Remington Rand who also served as an aircraft mechanic in the Air National Guard. He told investigators that he was familiar with the sounds of conventional and jet aircraft, and that this noise was distinctly different. He estimated the object's altitude at 10,000 to 20,000 feet, though he acknowledged he could not be certain given that he did not know the object's actual size. He remained nervous during questioning and stressed that he wanted no publicity, fearing people would think him a believer in the "flying disc" craze.

Captain Lloyd A. Olsen, the wing intelligence officer at Westover Air Force Base who interviewed the witness, suggested the whistling sound might have come from a commercial vehicle or apparatus nearby. He also proposed that the object itself could have been a false vision caused by bright sunlight reflecting off something in the vicinity. Olsen noted that although the observer claimed the sighting lasted about thirty seconds, his own estimate was much shorter, closer to five or ten seconds. At the time of the sighting, radar at Westover was inoperative, and the location lay beyond the range of ground-controlled approach scopes, so no radar confirmation was possible.

The full case file, including the observer's sketch of the object, is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, comprising 8 pages.