1955-04-06 — Jamestown, California (vicinity of Crows Landing / Avenal)
Narrative
A 35-year-old housewife in Jamestown, California reported observing a round white object 55 degrees up, drifting slowly westward, at 2050Z on 6 April 1955. Subsequently a flight of F-86 aircraft from 413 FIS in the area of Crows Landing sighted what they believed to be a weather balloon with something hanging from it; the flight climbed to 42,000 ft to examine it and estimated the object at about 20,000 ft above them. Two aircraft sent to investigate near Avenal spotted a balloon and reported it to Castle AFB. The case was concluded as 'Positive Moby Dick' (a known high-altitude research balloon program).
extracted via: llm_subagent_v1
Witnesses (1)
- 86 pilotsgroup_pattern
Source documents (1)
Click filename to view on Internet Archive (where these are mirrored as public-domain US-government records).
- 23857158-003-029NARAvalue 1.3[direct]
Score evidence (7)
Why this event scored the way it did. Every contribution is traceable.
s
- weather balloon (-2.0)
- drift (-0.5)
- outcome=resolved_prosaic (cap S<=3)
- post-blend cap S<=3 (resolved_prosaic)
p
- docs=1 (+0.5)
- single agency (+0.5)
evid
- narrative only (base 1)