The Rainbow-tinged Object Beside the Moon at Walden

Staff Sergeant Patrick Murphy of Stewart Field watched it longest. On the evening of 1 June 1949 he followed a yellowish-white oblong near the full moon. Through binoculars he made out a smaller object attached in front of a larger one, washed in soft rainbow colours. Around Walden and Pine Bush other people were looking up too, and their descriptions did not match. One saw an "inverted exclamation mark" and another a snake. To one it was a first-quarter moon, only longer. To another it was three or four balls of fire chained together. It moved slowly with the wind away from the moon and faded. Murphy's ending was different: he said it vanished after a sound like a rifle shot.

What is on the record

The 4400th Air Base Group at Stewart Field forwarded the statements, and their times differ. Murphy gives 18:30 to 20:30, though the file has him watching for about three hours. Arthur J. Gutter gives 19:20 and an unnamed merchant 19:30. A secretary, Mrs Monte E. Notton, gives 21:15, and a soda-fountain clerk 21:30. Notton's statement records that she was Miss Leona Pulver when the sighting was first reported. Two more witnesses, Miss Simmons and Miss Roe, could not be contacted. Several other names are blacked out.

Air Materiel Command noted the "marked similarity" to research balloons. It added that Stewart Field facilities were sometimes used as a balloon release site, and it asked for a check. The Project 10073 record card concludes "Balloon". The record shows a tension of its own here. The NICAP database lists the case as a Blue Book Unknown, a yellow oblong soundless object, while the card gives an identification.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD: a released government record names who saw it. Three of the witnesses carry names here: Murphy, Notton and Gutter. The soda-fountain clerk is named in the file too, but his age is not given, so this page describes him by his job. Everything the archive knows of the sighting comes from those forwarded statements. That sourcing earns the grade but does not test the balloon reading. The reading is the Air Force's, and this page leaves it in place.