Project 10073 Record Card and Correspondence — Temple, Texas, July 1956

This document collection details a UFO sighting reported by a civilian in Temple, Texas, on July 31, 1956. The witness, a bookkeeper, observed a single, round, brilliant milky-white object moving in a straight, level path toward the west-south-west. The witness estimated the object's size as one-fifth that of a full moon and noted its speed was equal to or greater than a jet. The object was visible for approximately one and a half to two minutes before it slowly dimmed and faded out. The witness explicitly stated that the object did not resemble a balloon, plane, meteor, bird, smoke, or reflection. Following the sighting, the witness contacted the local newspaper, the Temple Telegram, but the report was ignored. The witness later submitted a formal report to James Connally Air Force Base and subsequently provided additional information to the 4602D Air Intelligence Service Squadron. In this follow-up, the witness compared the object to the 'Marianna' case (referring to the 1950 Nicholas Mariana film from Great Falls, Montana), noting that the object he observed appeared similar in shape and color. The military documentation includes a Project 10073 record card, which concludes that the object was 'Probably Aircraft.' The administrative records show the difficulty the military had in processing the report due to the unavailability of specific Air Force forms (AF Form 112 or 112a) at the time, leading to the correspondence between James Connally Air Force Base, the 4602D Air Intelligence Service Squadron, and the Air Technical Intelligence Center.