A fireball crosses the Great Lakes region and a reported object falls near Kecksburg, Pennsylvania
December 9, 1965 · Kecksburg, Pennsylvania · Sighting · Secondary sources only
On the evening of 9 December 1965, a bright fireball was reported across Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and southern Canada. In Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, residents said an object came down in nearby woods, and some described it as acorn-shaped. Firefighters and police went to look; military personnel arrived and told civilians to leave, and witnesses later described a covered object taken away on a flatbed truck. An Air Force spokesman said its personnel were technical experts helping state police, who found nothing to report, and Project Blue Book logged the case as a meteor. In 2003 journalist Leslie Kean sued NASA for its records. NASA settled in 2007 and released several hundred pages; a court-monitored search ended in August 2009 with no 'smoking gun' but with records found missing or destroyed.
Why it matters (4/5)
Blue Book logged it as a meteor; a later FOIA suit against NASA exposed missing records and kept the case in public view.
Caveats
Accounts conflict. The 1965 volunteer fire chief later said nothing crashed in those woods, while other firefighters said something came down. The acorn shape and the flatbed truck come from witness accounts that vary and became widely known after a 1990 television segment. A Soviet space-probe explanation (Kosmos 96) is contradicted by tracking data cited by two of the pages read. The Blue Book file, the NASA documents and the court-ordered search report were not opened; the pages that describe them differ on some details.
Sources
- Is case finally closed on 1965 UFO mystery? (NBC News), context
- Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, 9 December 1965 (casebook page) (Patrick Gross (ufologie.patrickgross.org)), context
- The Vault Files: The 1965 Kecksburg, Pennsylvania Crash (The Black Vault), context