Westover AFB, Mass, December 1957December 1957

Insufficient Data

Summary

On the morning of December 3, 1957, a man driving home from work near Saratoga, New York, saw a large brilliant bluish-green object with an orange tail falling through the sky toward the northwest. The sighting lasted only a second or two. The witness, a night-shift newspaper operator, told federal investigators that he did not plan to report the sighting to his employer because he feared they would ridicule him.

The U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations received the report through the Federal Bureau of Investigation and forwarded it for further action. The case file includes the original FBI letter describing the sighting, but the OCR text becomes difficult to read on the final page, making it impossible to determine if additional investigation findings or conclusions appear in the remainder of the document.

The Air Force's official evaluation form indicates that the case was marked as unknown, though the brief summary notes that the object had "all characteristics of a fireball." The full case file, consisting of 8 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.

Reported location

Westover AFB, Mass, December 1957

Date of incident

December 1957

State / country

? / XX

Page count

8 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unknown

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 31

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 8

View transcribed text

SEER ue ER A AT RTA A AE : i :
“ : ; PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD :
1. DATE ; 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS \
118% Was tover AI'D, Mass O Was Bolloon
3 December 1957 2, Saratoza, New York O Probably Balloon
3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4 TYPE OF OBSERVATION 8: Roseibly Balesn |
7h ‘ 0 Wos Aircraft
| 4% 7 1 pee Ee he A DRS A xH Ground-Visual 0 Ground-Reder Q Probably Airerofs
MTL. 03/07207 02291pcat) Ain Visual O Air-Intercept Radar | DO Possibly Aircraft
3. PHOTOS ’ R Bx Was Astronomical Ale iecor
O Yes 2 \ 1 ‘OQ Probobly Astronomical
0 Ne Civilian & military 0 Possibly Astronomical
7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE Oo ee
yea Q Insufficient Dota for Evaluation
1, not given 1. Down 0 Unknown
2, 1-2 seconds one 2, NW .
10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTINO 11. COMMENTS
1. Round object, size of dime, reddish | All characteristics of a fireball,
green, fiery, falling straight down,
2, A large brilliant bluish gresn
object with an orange Lait, alling =
in a NW direction,
ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP $2) j
. y /
4 s PY
4

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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28975625