Project 10073 Record Cards and Technical Information Sheets — Dayton, Ohio, August 1957

This document collection comprises a series of Project 10073 record cards and U.S. Air Force Technical Information Sheets detailing multiple UFO sighting reports in the Dayton, Ohio area during August 1957. The reports document various civilian observations of aerial phenomena, including objects with lights, objects with orange-white tails, and stationary yellow-white objects. The Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) conducted investigations into these reports, often coordinating with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base operations to cross-reference sightings with known flight activity and meteorological data. Several reports were identified as conventional phenomena. One specific incident involving an object with three lights was determined to be a weather balloon released from Sulphur Grove, Ohio, at 2030 hours. Another report of an object with an orange-white tail was identified as a jet aircraft using its afterburner. Observations of stationary yellow-white objects were attributed to the planets Venus and Jupiter. The documentation includes internal routing slips and notes from staff duty officers, such as Captain G.T. Gregory, who expressed frustration with the quality of some reports, noting that some witnesses appeared inebriated or were otherwise unreliable. The archive also contains a press clipping from a local newspaper titled 'It's Only Star, Folks! "Thing" Is Identified From Plane Window,' which discusses the public confusion surrounding these sightings and the role of the Cincinnati Astronomical Society in identifying Venus as a source of many reports. The investigators consistently sought to dismiss reports that lacked sufficient data or were clearly misidentifications of standard aircraft or celestial bodies, emphasizing the systematic nature of their evaluation process.