Two Nike Sergeants and the White Objects Trailing an Airliner

It was bright daylight at about 09:17 on 8 October 1957, with excellent visibility. Master Sergeant Walter W. Housley Jr. and Sergeant First Class Merrel E. Lee were at Fort Ward on Bainbridge Island, the site of Battery D of the 513th AAA Missile Battalion. They were watching an airliner on its way from north-west to south-east towards Seattle-Tacoma. Below and behind it flew two round, flat-white objects in line astern, each about half the size of a penny held at arm's length. At first the sergeants took them for two parachutes. The objects came from the north-west and banked away to the south-west. They flew a short crossing course and then banked away to the north-west, banking often along an irregular path. After 25 to 30 seconds they disappeared in a bank.

What is on the record

The report sits in Blue Book as case 5003. The 27th Air Division judged both observers reliable, and the reporting officer cited their "unquestioned reliability" and the clear visibility. ATIC ordered a follow-up, and Housley repeated his account by telephone. The record card's conclusion is Unidentified. The airliner itself is not identified in what the archive holds. The scan's text reads the battalion number as both 313th and 513th, and the 513th fits the Nike defence of Seattle. Berliner lists the sighting among the Blue Book Unknowns as two US Army sergeants at 9:17 a.m., and there are NICAP and Johnson entries for it.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD: a released government record names who saw it. The Air Force's file names Housley and Lee, and the archive holds no telling of that morning from outside it. A tier is a statement about sources and nothing more. What flew behind the airliner is not resolved here.