Project 10073 Record Card and Associated Correspondence — Kansas City, Missouri, 30 Sep 60

This document collection details a sighting of an unidentified aerial phenomenon reported on September 30, 1960, in Kansas City, Missouri. The primary witness, a cable foreman for the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, described a round, luminous object, ranging in size from a baseball to a beachball, which appeared as an extra-bright star. The observation lasted approximately 15 minutes and was made from a nine-story building at Ninth and Walnut Streets. The object was reported to be stationary with a course of NW. Following the report, military and weather bureau personnel investigated the incident. One evaluator from the Weather Bureau's Radar Development and Analysis Branch suggested the object was a large, high-altitude constant-level weather balloon, noting that attempts to track the object with WSR-57 radar were unsuccessful and that it was not detected by local air defense radar. However, the official Project 10073 record card provides a different conclusion, stating that the planet Venus was setting at the time of the sighting and that the azimuth of the object coincided with the position of Venus, making it the probable explanation. Subsequent communications between Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base and the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) indicate that additional reports of similar sightings were received from Wichita, Topeka, and Omaha, though these were not formally logged with specific details. The correspondence highlights the confusion surrounding the event, with military authorities requesting further data on the balloon theory while simultaneously documenting the Venus explanation.