A Colour-changing Light the Port Austin Radar Tracked for 17 Minutes

Airman First Class John T. Mandinec was on guard at the 754th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron's station at Port Austin, Michigan. At 22:04 on 17 February 1953 he saw a light 8 to 10 miles to the west-north-west. It was larger and brighter than a star, and it cycled through red, pink and white. It seemed to hover low above the horizon. Then it moved slowly south, shrinking and dimming until it faded after about five minutes.

Second Lieutenant Harold S. Eagle, a controller, watched it too. At 22:08 he picked up a target on the station's AN/FPS-3 search radar about 9 miles out on a bearing of 300 degrees. He tracked it for 17 minutes at about 55 knots and an estimated 1,000 feet, until it faded into the ground clutter at 22:25. No aircraft were known to be in the area, and visibility was unlimited.

What is on the record

Project Blue Book holds the case as Unknown 2419. The file reports that an airman at Oscoda AFB saw a light at the same time, and that the radar squadron at Selfridge AFB tracked a target on a similar course. ATIC worked through the candidates. Venus was low on the north-west horizon and could explain what Mandinec saw. It could not explain the radar track. ATIC also judged a pilot balloon from Waukegan unlikely and asked about helicopters. The case stayed Unknown.

The catalogues split on the outcome. Johnson's catalogue says the file was changed to "Venus" in 1963. The Berliner and Sparks list of Blue Book unknowns keeps it as Unknown, and NICAP, Hatch and Overmeire all list it.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it. Only Mandinec and Eagle are identified, with the radar crew on duty behind them. No outside testimony stands beside the file. Venus is a live answer for the light, and the radar track is the part the file left open. What Eagle followed on his scope is not resolved here.