File 104 · 17 July 1957

RB-47 electronic encounter

Gulf Coast, Mississippi to Texas, United States

Opened 9/4/2026

Ledger illustration of the file — not a photograph of the object. Ledger illustration of the report. Gulf night under a military track. — Night Ledger illustration of the file

LightsHynek RVradar-visualArchive6 witnesses

Standing

Unidentified

On the public record, and still open. A claim, paper, or film — not a finding that it was ours, and not a finding that it was not.

What was claimed

An Air Force RB-47 with electronic intelligence gear tracked a luminous object that matched its ELINT bearings for hundreds of miles.

What is on the record

This file is a working record — a report, not a verdict. Official paper, if any, is linked where we have it.

A Strategic Air Command RB-47, flying a training/ELINT route from Mississippi toward the Texas coast before dawn, detected a strong signal on its direction-finding gear that coincided with a bright light the crew could see. The object appeared, disappeared, and reappeared; ground radar at Dallas/Fort Worth painted a target at one of the visual positions. The encounter lasted more than an hour.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics later reviewed the case as one of the strongest in the Air Force files. Weather and ground emitters have been proposed. The crew were electronic-warfare officers doing their job.

Could this have been ours?

The known sky, that night.

Satellites were already up. The station was not. Starlink was not.

Always

Venus and the bright planets

A fixed brilliant point. Does not streak. Does not hover over a street then leave. Often the first misread light in a rural report.

Always

Aircraft, balloons, meteors

Landing lights, flares, lanterns, reentries, fireballs. They are on the known sky. They do not close a file by themselves — they are what a serious look has to hold the claim against.

Orbit · Space — the desks for lights that are already named.