Project 10073 Record: UFO Sighting Report - San Francisco, California

This document contains a UFO sighting report filed by an electrical engineer from the U.S. Naval Ordnance Test Station in Pasadena, California. The witness observed an extremely bright, spherical object between March 24 and April 5, 1966, at approximately 0500Z. The object traversed a path from WNW to ESE, moving from 10 degrees above the horizon to 80 degrees above the horizon. The witness described the object's brightness as fluctuating irregularly, comparing it to a plane on fire with the fire momentarily extinguishing. The witness explicitly noted that the final position of the object involved the 'off-shooting' of smaller round objects, rather than an explosion. The witness delayed reporting the sighting while attempting to obtain an illustration of the phenomenon and due to a concurrent 'Cal. Tech. student balloon hoax.' The official conclusion reached by the Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center, after consulting with SPADATS, was that the sighting was likely caused by the decay of space debris, though a specific object could not be identified due to the high volume of space junk entering the atmosphere at that time. The report includes detailed sketches by the witness illustrating the object's brightness fluctuations and the subsequent release of smaller objects.