Project 10073 Record Card — Indianapolis, Ind., 1 August 1951

This document consists of a Project 10073 Record Card and an associated outgoing clear message from the Department of the Air Force, dated 14 August 1951. The report concerns a sighting that occurred on 1 August 1951, at 1900 hours CST, over Indianapolis, Indiana. The witness report, which originated from military and civilian sources, described a single object moving in a westerly direction. The object was estimated to be at an altitude of 30,000 feet and was described as a silver, plastic balloon. The sighting was initially reported via the CIRVIS (Communication Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings) system through Andrews AFB. Following the report, the Wright-Patterson Flight Service duty officer coordinated with the Cambridge U Air Force Research and Development Center to verify the nature of the object. It was determined that the object was a research balloon, a conclusion supported by the fact that the Research Center had been tracking a balloon over Indianapolis at the time of the sighting. The record card explicitly concludes that the object was definitely identified as a research balloon. The documentation provides a clear administrative trail of how a reported aerial phenomenon was processed, investigated, and ultimately identified through inter-agency coordination between military flight services and research centers.