WSW Biloxi, MississippiSeptember 1962

On the night of September 21, 1962, the pilot and deck hand aboard the fishing vessel Miss Lou reported seeing an unusual object in the sky. The ship was anchored off Pass Christian, Mississippi, southwest of Biloxi. The first sighting occurred around 1:34 a.m., and the witnesses continued to observe the object through binoculars until they lost sight of it at approximately 1:58 a.m., for a total observation time of roughly 13 minutes.

The object was described as red and black in color, with occasional orange streaks and flaming yellow flashes. The witnesses said it was too large and too low in the sky to be a star. The object moved at high speed from west to east, traveling in the direction of Florida. The Air Force noted in its initial summary that the brightness compared to the full moon, with a smaller Venus-like object visible in its initial position, though the case file text on this point is unclear.

The sighting was reported via a Marine operator in New Orleans to the Coast Guard, which forwarded the information to the Air Force. In January 1963, the Air Force's Technical Intelligence Division wrote to the witnesses requesting completed questionnaires to gather more detailed information. The OCR text of the questionnaire forms is too degraded to extract reliable specific details about how the witnesses answered individual questions.

The Air Force ultimately concluded that the sighting was unidentified. The case file states there was insufficient data for a definitive evaluation, and no conventional explanation is recorded in these documents. The full case file, reproduced below as held by the National Archives, spans 11 pages.