UFO Sighting Report — Ulysses, Kansas, 11 September 1964

This document contains a U.S. Air Force sighting report and subsequent correspondence regarding an incident on 11 September 1964, near Ulysses, Kansas. A female witness reported that while driving her car at approximately 0500 or 0600 hours, she encountered a round, dull-colored object, roughly the size of a car, which appeared to be hovering approximately three feet above the highway. The witness described the object as having a bubble on top and a small opening on the bottom, with no visible moving parts. She reported no sound, only a gust of wind as the object banked and moved above her vehicle. The witness was reportedly frightened and later sought refuge in a cafe in Ponca City. The Air Force, specifically Major Hector Quintanilla, Jr. of the Aerial Phenomena Branch at Wright-Patterson AFB, evaluated the report and concluded that the object was likely a tumbleweed being driven by the wind. The official analysis suggests that the witness's perception of the object's size and speed was influenced by the closure rate of her own vehicle and the shock of the encounter. The document also includes correspondence between Major Quintanilla and Hayden C. Hewes of the Interplanetary Intelligence of Unidentified Flying Objects (IIOUFO), in which the Air Force declines to release complete file folders containing witness names, citing privacy reasons, and discusses other UFO-related inquiries, including the Stanford films and a training film at Lackland AFB.