The Whirling Silver Disc over Sidney, Ohio

The first sighting came at about 09:00 on 3 May 1949. A Sidney jeweller was opening his shop when he saw a bright, shiny silver disc high overhead, about five inches across in apparent size. It headed north-east for about two minutes, wavering and climbing and dropping slightly. A second man saw an oblong object the size of a softball. The next evening at 18:30 Mrs Russell Wical was working in her garden near Maplewood, about three miles north-west of Port Jefferson. She saw a whirling, bright silver object, flat and round or oblong, high up and going north-east. It was in view for under two minutes. On 6 May breakfast customers at the Spot Restaurant in Sidney saw a very bright object moving south at high altitude for about two minutes. None of the objects made a sound. Only one observer reported a trail, and it was greyish.

What is on the record

A Dayton Daily News story prompted the inquiry. Air Materiel Command asked the Office of Special Investigations to look into it, and OSI District 5 filed its report on 26 May 1949. Blue Book holds it as incident 310 from the Project Grudge period. OSI closed the inquiry without a conclusion.

These are three sightings on three days, grouped in one file, and they read best as a cluster rather than one event. Sparks lists the dates as Blue Book Unknowns, and NICAP gives each day its own entry. The Johnson calendar names three of the 6 May witnesses from another source, but the released file blacks those names out, and this page follows the file. Balloons are a possible reading that the file never tested.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD: a released government record names who saw it. Mrs Wical is the only witness named in the released papers. The jeweller, the second man and the restaurant customers are described but not named. Their accounts are known only from the OSI file, and a tier records how a case is sourced, never what was seen. What whirled over Sidney that May is not resolved here.