Project 10073 Record Card — Lafayette, Louisiana, 9 November 1957

This document is a Project 10073 record card detailing a UFO sighting reported on 9 November 1957 at Lafayette Airport, Louisiana. The witness, a pilot for Eastern Airlines, observed a round, silver, bright object approximately seven inches in diameter for a duration of five minutes. The object remained stationary before fading away. The report includes a teletype message from the Commander of the 35th Air Division to the Director of Intelligence at Headquarters USAF, as well as notes from the investigation. The official conclusion reached by the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) was that the object was a balloon. Investigators determined that the sighting was a specular reflection of a balloon launched from a nearby area, which was illuminated by the sun's rays. The pilot, who was in a parking lot at the airport, was noted to have been looking directly into the sun at eye level, which likely contributed to the observation. Weather conditions at the time were reported as scattered cirrus with 15 miles visibility and winds from the northwest to the southeast. The document includes a hand-drawn sketch illustrating the pilot's position relative to the sun and the object.