Project 10073 Record Card — Fort McKinley, Ohio, 20 August 1962

On 20 August 1962, a 16-year-old civilian witness in Fort McKinley, Ohio, observed an unidentified aerial phenomenon for approximately 20 to 30 minutes. The witness described the object as a solid, silver, bar-shaped entity with a bulge in the middle, appearing dimmer than the brightest stars. The witness reported that there were one or two objects that seemed to rotate around each other. The object was initially observed in the West and eventually disappeared in the Southwest after performing a radical descent with abrupt, uneven up-and-down movements. The witness estimated the speed of the object to be three or four times that of a jet. The sighting occurred at night under dry weather conditions with scattered clouds. The witness was outdoors at the time and used binoculars to observe the object. The official Air Force evaluation concluded that there was insufficient data for analysis, noting that while the observation shared some characteristics with a balloon sighting, the reported radical flight deviations and speed were inconsistent with that explanation. The report highlights conflicting information provided by the witness.