PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD 1. DATE 2. LOCATION 7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 2 -3 seconds 10. BRIEf SUMMARY OF SIGHTING Brilliant white light moving East to West thr gh 30 deg arc in 2-3 seconds before winking out. Elliptical shape. Brightness of' Venus. SEE LANSIOO MICHIGAN CASE FIIE ATIC PORM U9 (R&V 26 I&P U) 12. CONCLUSIONS METEOR observation \Jhile rid inc bi:;:t.;l J:> Et~ 1 ir.s .u. , Bast Ir.s.u. E:.tst Lun~ins on ..l.cn. J\.Ve. , l.n disl:, flyin(.!' u. t der.::-ca they spo'tteit ~ anele. '.L'he c~e:Jc:ci 't !.!d a:3 very laree, .facinj' flash, t!:a't S U\J a \ I hi te ..!'.!tor u vor:l sieht of t!lis object. 'L'C.e cky \v~s cl e~r of c-l ou.d of ob~erva. t ion 3 6. Britton-Thornton. At 2106 hours on 23 i1B.:r 1964, a. Corporal ~1.ot-trto;l ~.:".: the Michigan State Police Headquarters, East Lansing, N.ichigan, received c. cz.il from a \-Toman rrho said an object ( a light) iva.s covering over her house, crazy," dashing back and forth and looping about. Since the Corporal recosr::.zed her given location as being near the police station, he went out the rear e:: ... .;.::.-e.rlcc and looked to the south, but saw nothing. He did not log the name of the lady, nor does he remember it. After terminating the call, he went back ouJ~side, a::d. looking due south, saw an extremely oriJ J iant ivhite ooject p::!.ss at a.n elevation of about 20 in a horizontal path :f'rom east to -vrest. The object 'He.s apparently longer in the north-south dimension tha.n in the eo.st-'\Test direc"tio:.'1; its shortest dimension "WaS in the direction of travel. Thornton escirna:tes the le:::;th to width ratio as perhaps three or four to one. The longest dimension \Ja.S as approximately 3/4 inch at arm s length (the moon, nO\rever, '\las stated to : e "6 inches" in diameter at arm's length when full, eltnoug~ it 1-1as not noticeC. that night). The total time of travel was about tl1ree seconds. The brightness of the o~ject is remembered as stea~,. brighter than Venus, and before the object reached ~:.e horizon to the south-west it winked out suddenly, as if someone had turned ~:1e light-s off. The start of the trajectory is not knmm., as Thornton caught sit; of the object to the south while it was e.pproxin'2.tely at its maximum elevatic:1. There vTas no sound. Thornton returned inside and got another trooper, -vrho ce.ne out but sa~r ::o~-::1i:..~ At 2136 hours, a call was received from a ni vers i"~y Village, Michigan state University :East Ia.nsing (~bout three bloclcs the State Police headquarters) reporting a sighting of vTiJ.O.~ appears to be the same object that Thornton saw. Thornton was emphatic about the fact that he had never seen such a st.ran~e object in all his life. He 'WaS reluctant to talk about it, expressing some rce::-et that he had ever "opened his mouth" about it. Invest:i:gator had a slight impressio:1 that Thornton was perhaps not mentioning all the reasons he had for t inking 't!1a.t the object was so strange -his apparent agitation seemed out of proportion t9 the sighting of a. bright meteor, but D'lB\Y, of course, have been due only to the fact that his report was being investigated. and his wife were intervierred. These witnesses had been riding in an open convertible about three rni.1es sou.th-vrest of Thornton's location, at about the same time (shortly af'ter 2100), and were on an interchange of Inters-tate 96 at the Cedar street entrance, headed south. a pre-medical student; just finishing his senior year saw the object for the 1ongest t ioe; bis vrife, alerted byhis exclamation, just caught a glimpse of it before it 1nr~ed out said that the object was coming from his l.e:f't and ;.ras due south wl.e.n he first noticed it. Its elevation vras between 20 and 30 degrees. It vias judscd later to be as bright as Venus perhaps brighter (Venus vTas approxirr.ately at r11agnitude -4) and of nearly the same color , a clear 't7l1i te. The oojec~ moved to the west through an arc of about thirty degrees, taking about three secO>"lds At the end of this time, the light suddenly cut off, while the object was still travelling through clear sky well above the horizon and clear of: trees. ~'litness described it as if' someone had turned a light off, or even more. as if the li~:lt. had rotated behind something. If a minimm velocity for a meteor is taken as about 25,000 feet per seco:1C.., then for the object to travel thirty degrees in three oeco:1ds, or ten d e[;lees per second, it would have to have been about 26 mi~es D."'.ra.y; eve:1 l-Tith e.n c~cvation of thirty degrees (an upper limit) it would thus have been only aba~t 13 or 14 miles high. In order for the meteor, if it was such , to have been at a more proper height, the J.ine of sight distance would have to be at l e ast four to six times the distance just calculated, and the velocity 'f,rou1d h~ve to have been ver,y high, perhaps 20 to 30 miles per second. The sudden cessation of J.ight, with no trail left behind, no sha.t.~cering into smaller pieces, and no fading of the glow, suggests either an extremely high velocity meteor of small size which was completely consumed b efore it could lose velocity significantly, or the ~re interesting possibility of a meteor of la~geT size and very .hish velocity which "skipped" in and ou-t !Jf the atmosphere. Unfortunately, both Thornton and cau3ht sight of the object vrhen it was due south, so no correlation of starting point is possrole., and Thornton could not remember very closely how far the object '\-Tent before it winked out except to SB\Y that the trajectory ended "in the south~oTest." He reported the sat1e duration of 2 to 3 seconds. Within the J.imits o~ the estimates, 1-Tith being the better one, the lines of slight were parallel when the l.ight went of f indicating a. large distance. The same lirnits of error, however, would permit t h e ight to be a.s close as 6 mil.es travelling, ho-vrever a.t a speed o:r one ~rl.le per second. At such a speed, low in the at~osphere, ar~ material ooject would be visibl.e at night by viirt;ue o:r its high skin t eopere.ture, a.nd the light could not cease abruptly. initially reported that the object returne d fl~o:n t h e Hes t so0.; after they pul.J.ed off the road to look arou:1d. They determine d on their mm, ho-vrever, by returning to the same scene the next night, that the objectii::.a-1' :~etu::-ne ~laS the planet Venus (it '\oTaS in an entirely different :po.rt of the s!~) ~ and so reported during the personal interview. The similarity in brigbtness and color had misled them. Final note: if the cutoff point had been on a line o~ sight passir.g thTouc~ both observers, then no horizontal triangulation is meaningfUl. Elevation angles estimates are too uncertain to permit estimates. With fair probability, the object rnay be taken to rave been a fazt, bricht meteor, a fireball, far to the south and many miles high. If so, it could have been seen in northern central Indiana., and would have been brightest soi:-~eH~ere over the Indiana-Michigan border. The object seem by and Thornton could not r.ave been the sane e.s the one reported by the anonymous caller to have been "over her house," b ecause the lady's house -was somewhere between Thornton and the no further information is available on this latter object. o~n. 2106 ES.r, 23 ~ 1964. State Policeman and :t-15(] colle.se studc:r ite light moving east "rest for 2-3 seconds, tnen su.dde:D .. :r vrinking out. Total angular motion, about 30 decrees. Possi b l y a clista::t 1r.t:! ... .;~o~, but extreoely high speed required. Trooper descrioed elliptical 3:: e, s::c~-": dimension along line of travel. Brightness like Ve~us. ~ast L~nsi -L~::si . PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD 0 WaA Ballc.on Probably Balloon :::.....------1 0 Pauibly Balloon IX Ground-VIsual 0 GrounciRador Woa Alreroft 0 Probably Aircraft I S:~G~M~T~f! =====:===--hr,-lOfffi]Air-VIsuol 0 Air-Intercept Rodor Pauibly Aircraft J. ~ Was Aatronomfc.ot(lA~toe.._ 0 Yea 0 Probably A stronomlcol 7. LENGTH OP OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER Of OBJECTS 9. COURSE ci ent Doto for Evaluation 10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11. COMMENTS Stationary, elliptical obj, size of full moon. Sighting brief 4 s econds max. Detail= Blue metallic color with blue haze. \olhi te ll~:htl and data pres entedmight indicate meteor mixed in. Obj emitted a white flash and however no lateral moti on firm, notai l disappeared. Flight from East to South. 2t and flash of brightness not in accord seconds. No noise. Second witness observed for with this evaluation. Possibilty of 3 seconds. photo plane also not l ikely due to the See Lansing Case File. ATJC FORM 32P (RBV 21 BEP 52) manner of disappearance and briefness of observation. Case carried as insufficient data ~ University, where the sighting occurred, but had returned homa b y the time of this investigation, where they were contacted by t.elephone. lives during the summer at Street, Flint 3 Michigan, and lives in the summer at Street, Grand Haven, Michigan. During the school year, they reside in Shaw Hall, Michigan State University . were returning to their residence after a speech on campus by Governer Romney, which ended at 2000 hours., 2"I~ 1964. The time is uncertain . but nay be somewhat previous to the sighting above, by perhaps :fifteen minutes; it may have been somewhat afterward; 2030 is selected as a median.tine. were riding a bicycle (tandem) due east across the campus noticed an object Just above the trees straight ahead., at an elevation of about 25. He satdl, "hey, look., " and saw it, too. The object \vas apparently stationary, had an elliptical sha:pe, and -was appr~xirrately the size of the fu moon. It was bluish or metallic colored, and was surrounded by a blue r..aze, mixed ,.rith white. Acco:::ding to the object remained stationary, tilted tm-1ard the South, all thJ.s time, and then emitted a brilliant white flash, like a 11~gnesium flare or bomb. Inwediately after the flash, the object vms gone, and for it but did not see it. According to who looked later and j ust caught a brief glimpse prior to the white flash_. the l.ight did flash a brilliant ra.gnesium lrhite, ou"'~ then the object travelled at high speed from due east touard the south, finally disappearing behind trees in the west-sout~west. The vThole movement took about 2 . 5 The object showed no features, but had a definite (elliptical) shape . It 'WaS silent. This sighting was ver,y brief, lasting a total of no ~ore than 3-4 seconds. Little can be learned from it but Rodgers' description tal.lies with an airborne photo mission, the disc being a "moonlit rotor disc." Ti1is is a weak eXJ?lat'-a.tion, however, unless the haze can be accounted for. If version is taken ( a~:d may simply have failed to acquire the ~oving ooject after the initial flash), then no explanation in conventional teres c a n be offered. Tnere is no basis for a choice between the reports. The sky vms reported as cloudless and perfectly clear; in addition, the cal!IPUa was dark. 2i:,May 1964. E1 J iptical object, bluish, surrounded er haze. Emitted flash of '"bite l.ig~t, -::ay "the:>. have flo~m o:f to south. Possible heli.copter photo mission '\nth strobe li~ht nossible correlation ,.,ith next sighting. East Le.nsin3. :,>~1PLAI0IT REPORT (NQme) {Number) t.~is en origin:Jl IOmplainant _ t!;is i.s a supplementary report, complete this box. :hi s repor: concludes complaint, 0 C:omplaint Unfounded complete this box. 0 Complaint C:losed by Arrest 0 Service Rendered 0 Complaint C:losed by Arrest(s) involving person (s) under 18 0 Other Disposition - te of Final Disposition Post of Final Disposition -==-~-.-- TURE OF COMPLAINT