PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD - OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

This document consists of a Project 10073 record card and a corresponding letter dated June 4, 1954, from a civilian witness in Oakland, California, to the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The witness, a fifty-year-old individual, reports two separate sightings of unidentified objects occurring within a month of each other in early 1954. The first sighting occurred at midnight on a cloudy night while the witness was riding in the caboose of a freight train. The witness described a multi-colored object with no tail that appeared and veered sharply to the left before disappearing in approximately five seconds. The second sighting took place in daylight, about half an hour before sunset. The witness observed two small objects, estimated to be no more than five feet in diameter, which were brightly colored and possessed blunt tails. These objects traveled horizontally parallel to house-tops before one of the balls, described as pure white, exploded without disturbing the shape of the first. After a few seconds, both objects vanished. The witness speculated that these events were electrical displays or natural phenomena. The official conclusions recorded on the Project 10073 card categorize the first sighting as a meteor and the second as ball lightning.