Project 10073 Record — Lancaster, Pa, 4 Feb 53

This document consists of a Project 10073 record and an accompanying operational immediate cable regarding a sighting of an unidentified aerial object near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. On February 4, 1953, at approximately 0200Z, a civilian witness named Mr. John Ripple reported observing an object at Lancaster R D 6. The witness described the object as being orange in color and approximately three times the size of a star. According to the report, the object hovered at an altitude of 30 degrees above the horizon for several minutes before flying out of sight. The weather conditions at the time were reported as clear with 15 miles of visibility. The operational cable, dated February 5, 1953, was transmitted from the Commanding Officer of Flight Operations at Olmsted Air Force Base to the Director of Intelligence at Headquarters USAF in Washington, D.C., with information copies sent to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Ent Air Force Base. The official conclusion recorded on the Project 10073 form states that there was insufficient data for a full evaluation. The evaluating agency, ATIC, noted that both Mars and Venus were in the west at the time of the sighting, and while the object's color was more closely associated with Mars, the available data remained inconclusive.