Wilson, NCOctober 1949

In October 1949, a resident of Wilson, North Carolina reported seeing a fireball in the sky on the 12th of the month. According to his account, the object appeared first as roughly the size of a full moon, colored red, and positioned at a 45-degree angle above the horizon. As he watched, the object stopped in mid-flight, reversed direction, and resumed its original path before disappearing. Before it vanished, its apparent size had shrunk to that of a baseball. The witness reported no sound or trail.

A second observer in the Raleigh area, a professor at North Carolina State College, described a similar event on the same date and time, between 11:10 and 11:15 p.m. He saw a blue-white meteor traveling parallel to the earth's surface in a north-northwest direction at an estimated altitude of 15,000 to 18,000 feet. Like the first account, this object produced only a brief trail and no sound. Notably, the professor said the object broke into two or three pieces and disappeared quietly. He added that except for its horizontal trajectory and fragmentation, he had no reason to believe it was anything other than a falling star.

The file indicates the reports came to Air Force attention through the American Meteor Society. Officials checked weather conditions, winds aloft, local flight schedules, and whether any testing devices had been released in the area. The checks produced no findings that would explain the sightings. The report itself contains no formal Air Force conclusion regarding the nature of the objects.

The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives, spanning 134 pages of microfilm.