◆ CASE FILEThe facts, corroborated
The Blue Light over Van Nuys
On a July evening in 1948 an Ordnance Reserve captain and his wife in Van Nuys, California, watched a round object glow bluish for about an hour, turn orange at dusk and go dark almost at once. The Air Force's intelligence study of December 1948 says investigation showed it was a balloon carrying cosmic-ray equipment. This is the record of what the couple reported and how the Air Force explained it, not a verdict on what was in the sky.
◆ THE SHORT VERSION
- The Blue Light over Van Nuys is a reported UAP case in Van Nuys, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, California, United States, 22 July 1948 per the study.
- An Ordnance Reserve captain and his wife watched a round object over Van Nuys glow with "a bluish luminescence" for about an hour, turn orange at sunset and go dark almost at once.
- It never bobbed like a weather balloon, the Air Force study records, and stayed "quite steady" in a ground wind while it crept through a vertical arc of twenty-five degrees or more.
- The Air Force's December 1948 study says investigation determined it was "a balloon carrying cosmic ray equipment"; on the evening the investigation settled on, observatory staff had watched a ribbed balloon with a gold plate hanging beneath it.
- His wife's statement disagreed: "It did not appear to be a balloon or any advertizing device."
- For this case Fractured Realities holds 1 distinct source, 1 corroborating primary document and 1 claimant on its resolved list.
- The archive grades it L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it, the top of our scale, though no independent testimony sits beside that record.
Counts are resolved totals of what sources say, computed 2026-10-03; the reported details above are claims in the record, not findings. A record of reports, not a verdict on what happened.
EVENT DATE
22 July 1948 per the study
LOCATION
Van Nuys, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, California · United States
COORDS
34.19°N 118.45°W
INDEPENDENCE
L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD
SOURCES
1 distinct
CLAIMANTS
1
STATUS
Known from released government records
NUMBERS COMPUTED 2026-10-03 · RESOLVED COUNTS, NOT A VERDICT
