PROJECT BLUE BOOK

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PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD

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1. DATE 2. LOCATION 12. CONCLUSIONS
D Wos Balloon
23 May 64 East Lansing, Michigan O Probably Balloon
3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4. TYPE OF OBSERVATION D Possibly Bolloon
O Was Aircroft
2 ae 2% Ground- Vi sual O Ground-Redor QO Probobly Aircraft
_omt__24/02062 2 D Air Visual O Air-Intercept Rader |9 Possibly Aircroft
5. PHOTOS | 6. SOURCE i Was Astronomical Meteor
0 Yes QO Probably Astronomical
[No civilian 0 Possibly Astronomical
7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION | 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE +(|O Other
0 Insufficient Data for Evaluation
GO Unknown
2 - 3 seconds om ___one West at
10, BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11. COMMENTS

Brilliant white light moving East to West
30 deg arc in 2-3 seconds before winking out.
Elliptical shape. Brightness of Venus.

SEE LANSING, MICHIGAN CASE FILE

ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP 52)

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METEOR observation

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6. Britton-Thornton, At 2106 hours on 23 Mey 1964, a Corporal Tnovnton bt
the Michigan State Police Headquarters, Eest Lansing, Michigan, received a cail

from a woman who said an object ( a light) was hovering over her house, @cving
crazy," dashing back and forth and looping about. Since the Corporal recognized

her given location as being near the police station, he went out the rear envrance
and looked to the south, but saw nothing, He did not log the name of the ledy,

nor does he remember it. After terminating tne call, he went back outside, and
while looking due south, saw an extremely brilliant white object pass at an
elevation of about 20° in a horizontal path from east to west. The opdject was
apparently longer in the north-south dimension than in the east-west direction; its
shortest dimension was in the direction of travel, Thornton estimates the Length
to width ratio as perhaps three or four to one, The longest dimension was given

as approximately 3/4 inch at arm's length (the moon, however, was stated to se

"6 inches" in diameter at arm's length wnen full, although it was not noticed

that night).

The total time of travel was about three seconds, The brightness of the object
is remembered as steady, brighter than Venus, and before the object reached the
horizon to the south-west, it winked out suddenly, as if someone had turned the
lights off. The start of the trajectory is not known, as Thornton caught sighs
of the object to the south while it was epproximetely at its maxiimm elevation.

There was no sound,

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Thornton returned inside and got another trooper, who came out but saw novhins

further,

At 2136 hours, a call was received from a i. GERD veiversity
Village, Michigan State University, Fast Lansing (about three blocks from
the State Police headquarters), reporting a sighting of what appears to be the
same object that Thornton saw,
| __ Thornton was emphatic about the fact that he had never seen such a stvranse
oodject in all his life. He was reluctant to talk about it, expressing some resret
that he had ever "opened his mouth" about it. Investigator had a slight impression
that Thornton was perhaps not mentioning all the reasons he had for thinking ‘shat
the object was so strange ~- his apparent agitation seemed out of proportion to
the sighting of a bright meteor, but may, of course, have been due only to the
fact that his report was being investigated.

ep 224 his wife were interviewed, These witnesses had been riding
in an open senvert thle about three miles south-west of Thornton's location, at
about the same time (shortly after 2100), and were on an interchange of Interstate
96 at the Cedar Street entrance, headed south, QM, a pre-medical student,
just finishing his senior year, saw the object for the longest time; his wife,
giarted by his exclamation, just caught a glimpse of it before it winked out.

age: said that the object was coming from his left and was due south when
he first noticed it. Its elevation was between 20 and 30 degrees, It was judsed
later to be as bright as Venus, perhaps brighter (Venus was approximately at
magnitude -4) and of nearly the same color, a clear white, The object moved
to the west through an are of about thirty degrees, taking aoout three seconds,
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. Witness
described it as if someone had turned a light off, or even more-as if the lisht
had rotated behind something.

If a minimm velocity for a meteor is taken as about 25,000 feet per second,

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then for the object to travel thirty degrees in three seconds, or ten degrees

per second, it would have to have been about 26 miles away; even with an elevation
of thirty degrees (an upper limit) it would thus have been only about 13 or 14
miles high, In order for the meteor, if it was such, to have been at a more

proper height, the line of sight distance would have to be at least four t6

six times the distance just calculated, and the velocity would have to have

been very high, perhaps 20 to 30 miles per second,

The sudden cessation of light, with no trail left behind, no shattering into
smaller pieces, and no fading of the glow, suggests either an extremely high
velocity meteor of small size which was completely consumed before it could lose
velocity significantly, or the more interesting possibility of a meteor of larger
size and very high velocity which "skipped" in and out of the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, both Thornton and 4 caught sight of the object when
it was due south, so no correlation of starting point is possible, and Thornton
could not remember very closely how far the oodject went before it winked out,
except to say that the trajectory ended "in the southwest." He reported the same
duration of 2 to 3 seconds, Within the limits of the estimates, with QQ
being the better one, the lines of slight were parallel when the light went off
indicating a large distance, The same limits of error, however, would permit the
light to be as close as 6 miles, travelling, nowever, at a speed of one mile
per second, At such a speed, low in the atmosphere, any: material object would be
visible at night by virtue of its high skin temperature, and the light could
not cease abruptly.

The QM initially reported that the object returned from the West soon
after they pulled off the road to look around, They determined on their own,

tn. ahs ~~

however, by returning to the same scene the next night, that the objectThat "retuz

was the planet Venus (it was in an entirely different part of the sky), and so

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reported during the personal interview. The similarity in brightness and color

had misled then,

Final note; if the cutoff point had been on a ‘line of sight passing through

ng through
both observers, then no horizontal triangulation is meaningful. Elevation angles
estimates are too uncertain to permit estimates.

With fair probability, the object may be taken to have been a fast, bright

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 somewhere

over the Indiana-Michigan border,

The object seem by SRP ana Thornton could not have been the same as
the one reported by the anonymous caller to have been “over her house," because

the lady's house was somewhere between Thornton and the @@QMM Unfortunately,

no further information is available on this latter object.
6.

4,

Thornton. 2106 EST, 23 May 1964. State Policeman and MSU collese studen
Saw brilliant white light moving east west for 2-3 seconds, tnen suddenly
winking out. Total angular motion, about 30 desrees. Possibly a distant mex

but extremely high speed required, Trooper described elliptical shaze,
dimension along line of travel. Brightness like Venus. Hast

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“"astnmr ‘ce Tere! ~— “er
aw Ww pF Het —ee -.

PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD

2. LOCATION

12. CONCLUSIONS
0 Was Bolloon

1. DATE |

5] ~

2bMay 64 _lEast_ Lansing, Michigan O frobably Belleen
3. DATE-TIME GROUP 4. TYPE OF OBSERVATION QO Possibly Balloon
Local ifs eo. a { Ground-Vi sual Ci Ground-Rodor 4 Preble Alves ‘ts
GMT. er] 1302 A re D Air Vi sual OD Air-Intercept Radar O Possibly Aircrofe 2.
Ss PROTOS) anh a. &. SOURCE |X Was AstronomicaXAET €O
0 Yes 2 prckeny peepee ee
ossibly Astronomica
faeces <<" ee ae |__ civilian z a)
7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION 8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS | 9. COURSE 0 Othe
sufficient Doto for Evaluation
Unknown
WEE ele, a I eT oe ta
10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING 11, COMMENTS

Stationary, elliptical obj, size of full moon. | Sighting brief 4 seconds max. Detail=
Blue metallic color with blue haze. White light and data presentedmight indicate meteor

mixed in. Obj emitted a white flash and however no leteral motion firm, notail

disappeared. Flight from East to South. 24 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 likely due to the
manner of disappearance and briefness

See Lansing Case File. ; of observation. Case carried as

insufficient data.

ATIC FORM 329 (REV 26 SEP 52)

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ie area 36 Gee 53h inc. The witnesses are students at Michigan, State .

A University » where the sighting occurred, but had returned home by the time of

this investigation, where they were contacted by te‘Lephone. ele SS ee:

lives during the summer at QQQRNBMMM street, Flint 3, Michigan, and am
G9 lives in the summer at a Street, Grand Haven, Michigan. During

the school year, they reside in Fe 5 Shaw Hall, Michigan State University.
Gl and ea pe were returning to their residence after a speech on campus
by Governer Romney, which ended at 2000 hours, ofpiiay 1964. The time is uncertain
but may be somewhat previous to the Qj sichting above, by perhaps fifteen
minutes; it may bays been somewhat afterward; 2030 is selected as a median time,
GD and MD were riding a bicycle (tandem) due east across the campus
when GEE noticed an ovject just above the trees straight ahead, at an elevation

of about 25°. He saydZ, "hey, look," and ge” a saw -it, too. The object wes

apparently stationary, had an elliptical shape, and was approximately the size of

the full moon, It was bluish or metallic colored, and wes surrounded by @ Dbiue
haze, mixed with white.

Accozding to Wie. the object remained stationary, tilted toward the South,
all this time, and then emitted a brilliant white flash, like a wearesium flare
or bomb, Immediately after the flash, the odject was gone, and QP looked about
for it but did not see it,

According to en who looked later and just caught a brief glimpse
prior to the white flash, the light did flasn a brilliant ragnesium white, bur
then the object travelled at high speed from Gue east toward the south, finally
disappearing behind trees in the west~-soutiwest. The whole movement took about 2,5

seconds,

The object showed no features, but had a definite (elliptical) shape. It
was silent,

This sighting was very brief, lasting a total of no more than 3-4 seconds.
Little can be learned from it, but Rodgers’ description tallies with an airborne
photo mission, the disc being a "moonlit rotor disc." This is a weak explanation,
however, unless the haze can be accounted for, If Tames version is taken (and
es may simply have failed to acquire the moving object after the initial
flash), then no explanation in conventional terms can be offered, There is no
basis for a choice between the reports,

Tne sky was reported as cloudless and perfectly clear; in addition, the

campus was dark,
2.

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2030 EST, ob May 1964. Elliptical object, bluish, surrounded f
by Llignter blue haze. Enitted flash of white light,: may then have flowm or?

tO south, Possible helicopter photo mission with strobe light 3 possible
correlation with next sighting. East Lansing. | ‘i

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