Incident Report: Sighting of Unidentified Aerial Object, Ramore, Ontario, 25 May 1953

On May 25, 1953, at approximately 0415 hours, five U.S. Air Force airmen stationed at the 912th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron in Ramore, Ontario, observed an unidentified aerial object. The witnesses, identified as Dean F. McDonald, Vittorio E. Settimi, Thomas J. De Stefano, Thomas C. Sfinas, and Paul H. Ryan Jr., were returning to their base from Kirkland Lake when they noticed an orange, round object that appeared larger than a star. The object initially hovered near the base site before moving laterally and eventually climbing vertically into the clouds. The airmen reported that the object made no sound and, at one point, left a trail similar to a shooting star. Upon reaching the clouds, the object appeared to leave a small indentation where it broke through the cloud cover. The observation lasted approximately twenty minutes. The airmen, who were considered sober and reliable by their command, provided individual written statements detailing their experience. Despite the witnesses' insistence that the object was not a star or a tower light, the official conclusion reached by the military authorities was that the sighting was an astronomical phenomenon, specifically a star or planet, and that the report was a result of distorted interpretation. The report notes that the squadron's radar equipment (AN/FPS-3 and AN/TPS-1D) was not operational at the time of the incident, and no physical evidence, photographs, or radar data were obtained. The document includes the formal correspondence from the 912th AC&W Squadron to the Director of Intelligence at Headquarters USAF, forwarded through the 4708th Defense Wing, and contains the individual statements of the five airmen involved.