Two Sheriff's Deputies and the Lights over Leona Valley

Deputies W. D. Mallette and T. M. Morrissey were on patrol on Leona Valley Road, a mile west of 90th Street West, at 23:18 on 1 August 1952. Two bright objects hung side by side in the southern sky, about 20 degrees above the mountains. They descended together toward the western horizon and stopped. One moved east parallel to the horizon for about ten seconds, turned south and vanished. The other stayed still for about ten minutes and then sank toward the horizon with a pendulum-like motion until it was gone at 23:43. There was no noise. The sky was very clear under a bright moon.

What is on the record

The Sheriff's complaint report, file Z-150-360, dated 8-1-52 and headed "Suspicious Circumstances (Flying Saucers)", is in the Project Blue Book file. A State Fish and Game warden phoned at 23:40 to report the same objects from his home. At about 23:45 a caller reported a strange object over Lake Hughes, and CAA Palmdale passed it to George AFB. On 2 August Capt. Paul E. Shoemacher of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards interviewed the deputies. They described white-yellow elliptical lights with hazy outlines, the size of a baseball. The only test flight nearby was one F-94C, which had already landed. A March AFB teletype speaks of three "saucers" and a brilliant red light seen by station personnel. Nothing showed on radar and there was no interception.

The record card disagrees with the sheriff's report. It describes two brilliant red lights that hovered for five minutes and sped away at 01:14 PST on the 2nd, from a civilian source. Berliner's list of Blue Book Unknowns and Johnson's calendar follow the card. Its conclusion is Unknown, case #1771. The second deputy's initials read T. M. in the report, and the first deputy's name is typed both Wallette and Mallette.

A light sinking in the west could fit a setting bright planet or a balloon flare, and the file tests neither.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it. Two witnesses keep their names, Mallette and Morrissey. The warden and the Lake Hughes caller are redacted, and the archive holds nothing from outside the file. The tier measures sourcing, not truth. What sank behind the mountains is not resolved here.