Willow, AlaskaFebruary 1953

On February 16-17, 1953, two experienced Air Force pilots saw a mysterious red light over Alaska while flying a military transport plane. Major Joseph H. Lemon and Captain Eugene S. Cramer were piloting a C-47 near Anchorage when they spotted what looked like an aircraft's navigation light about five miles away, positioned to their left. The object was roughly 1,000 feet below their altitude of 2,000 feet.

As the pilots watched, the light behaved in ways no ordinary aircraft should. It grew steadily brighter and larger, changing color from red to a reddish orange like molten iron. It climbed from 1,000 feet to about 2,000 feet and moved in a straight line toward the Willow area. Then it stopped and hovered in place for about five minutes before moving again. The pilots contacted Elmendorf Air Force Base and asked if any jets were airborne in the area. The tower said no, and radar operators reported they could not pick up any flying object on their screens.

The sighting lasted roughly fifteen minutes. At one point, the object appeared to reverse direction and return along the same path it had come, a maneuver the pilots found puzzling. When the object seemed to be over Wasilla, the pilots turned their aircraft toward it and pursued at 150 knots. As they approached, the light grew to about three times its original size and brightness, then dimmed and disappeared as it moved away on a heading between 270 and 290 degrees magnetic.

The Air Force officers who filed the report praised both pilots as reliable witnesses with years of flying experience and no bias about unidentified objects. However, the Air Force concluded that the most probable explanation was refraction of the star Vega, a natural optical effect that can occur in certain atmospheric conditions. No identification was ever confirmed. The complete case file, totaling 7 pages as held by the National Archives, is reproduced below.