PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD — South Laguna, California, 16 January 1957

This document consists of a Project 10073 record card and associated teletype correspondence regarding a UFO sighting that occurred on 16 January 1957 in South Laguna, California. The report details an observation of two or three objects, seen one at a time, which appeared, brightened, dimmed, and eventually disappeared. The witnesses, identified as civilians associated with the Ground Observer Corps (GOC), observed the phenomena through binoculars for a duration of one to two minutes. The objects were described as being very low on the horizon in the west-southwest direction. The official conclusion reached by the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) was that the sighting was likely caused by naval aircraft conducting night landing exercises on aircraft carriers in the vicinity. This conclusion was reached after consultation with the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) and Naval Intelligence, although neither agency could definitively confirm the presence of specific aircraft at the exact time of the sighting. The documentation includes internal notes from the reporting officer, Harold J. Schmidt, Jr., and reflects the standard investigative process for UAP reports during this period, emphasizing the attempt to correlate sightings with known military or astronomical activity.