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This Project Blue Book case file, digitized by the Internet Archive, covers Incident 144: two Eastern Airlines pilots reported that a wingless, cigar-shaped object with a flaming exhaust passed their DC-3 about 20 miles southwest of Montgomery, Alabama, on 24 July 1948. The file includes an OSI interview with a Robins Air Force Base employee who saw a similar object, negative aircraft traffic reports from many bases, and later correspondence. A December 1948 intelligence report found fairly consistent descriptions across four related sightings.
“Office of Special Investigations”6 pages
Trip 573 checked Blackstone, Va. at 0219, July 24, 1948 Estimated Raleigh-Durham, N. C. at 0259 Flight Plan VFR Washington to Raleigh-Durham direct. Weather at Blackstone at 0230 D/ 70 D 4GF 112/73/72/ wsw5/987 Greensboro and Raleigh-Durham both had 2/15 plus.
Shortly after checking Blackstone and as near as we can place the time, approximately 0230, we picked up a trail that appeared to be a jet or rocket trail traveling at a terrific speed.
The object leaving the trail was traveling in a southwesterly direction, and as nearly as we can place the degree of travel, $ 2 3 0^{\circ} $ . Our heading at the time was $ 2 1 5^{\circ} $ .
The trail at no time crossed our flight path. It was on the distant western horizon at approximately 20 above the horizon. The trail covered an 80 to 90 arc laterally. Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 161 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.