Project 10073 Record Card — Sighting near Augustine Island, Alaska, March 1959

On March 8, 1959, at approximately 1130Z, a pilot for Northern Consolidated Airlines reported an unidentified aerial phenomenon while flying near Augustine Island, Alaska. The witness, an experienced pilot, described observing a bright green point of light, slightly larger than a star, which entered his field of vision on the right side of the windscreen. The object maintained a horizontal flight path and did not appear to drop, before disappearing in a flash of bright light described as resembling an explosion to the north. The entire observation lasted between two and three seconds. The pilot explicitly stated his belief that the object was not a meteor, citing its intense color and horizontal trajectory. The 10th Air Division intelligence office investigated the report and consulted with the University of Alaska Astronomy Department. The university suggested the object was likely a meteorite or a 'fire ball' due to the short duration of the sighting. Military intelligence further noted that the time and direction of the observation roughly coincided with the predicted passage of '1959 ALFA 2' over Alaska. While the report acknowledges that the pilot's description of the object being unlike anything he had ever seen makes a reentry of 1959 ALFA 2 a possibility, the intelligence office concluded that the evidence was very tenuous and that further evaluation was impossible at their level due to a lack of data.