Project 10073 Record Card — Key Biscayne, Florida, February 14, 1962

On February 14, 1962, at approximately 9:15 p.m., a civilian witness and three other individuals observed an unidentified aerial phenomenon while sitting by the swimming pool at the Key Biscayne Hotel in Key Biscayne, Florida. The sky was described as cloudless and the stars and moon were very bright. The witnesses observed a bright light, which they initially compared to the brightness and size of a star, moving across the sky from a roughly west-to-east direction. The observers initially speculated that the object might be the Echo satellite, as they had observed it on previous occasions. However, as the object approached the vicinity of the moon, it dimmed and faded from view. The witnesses continued to watch for approximately 20 minutes, expecting the object to reappear on the other side of the moon, but it did not. The witnesses estimated that the object should have taken no more than two minutes to pass beyond the moon's radiance. The official record card for Project 10073 concludes that the object was likely an aircraft. The report suggests that the aircraft was lost from view due to the brightness of the moon, which was 74% illuminated at the time. The investigators provided two potential explanations for why the object was not seen again: either the witnesses' eyes lost their adaptation to the darkness after staring at the bright moon, causing them to miss the object as it emerged, or the object changed direction while within the moon's glare and did not emerge where the witnesses expected it to appear.