Project 10073 Record Card — Sighting near Benson, Arizona, 18 October 1957

This document details a sighting of an unidentified object by a group of electronics engineers near Benson, Arizona, on the evening of October 18, 1957. The observers, who had set up cameras to track the expected passage of the Russian satellite Sputnik I, instead witnessed a bright object with a yellowish hue traveling rapidly from the southeast to the northwest horizon. The object was described as brighter than any star but less bright than Venus, and the witnesses believed it was reflecting sunlight. They took three time-exposure photographs of the object. Subsequent analysis by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and correspondence between various scientific and military entities, including the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC), suggested that the object was not the satellite, as its trajectory did not match the expected orbit of the Sputnik I rocket. The investigation concluded that the sighting was likely an 'artificial meteor' created by an Aerobee rocket experiment conducted by the Air Force at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, on October 16, 1957. This experiment involved blasting aluminum pellets into the upper atmosphere to study physics and satellite tracking, which resulted in bright, glowing trails visible from the ground. The document includes correspondence between L. N. Cormier of the National Academy of Sciences and Dr. J. Allen Hynek, as well as reports from the Collins Radio Company, confirming that the sighting was likely associated with these artificial meteor tests rather than an extraterrestrial or unknown phenomenon.