Iceland.Keflavik · two officers see ten silvery objects in the sky

On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 4, 1955, at 1338 GMT, Lieutenant Colonel Edward J. Stealy, commander of the U.S. Air Force's 57th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, and First Lieutenant Joseph W. Burt, his adjutant, were walking back across the ramp at Keflavik Airport, Iceland, after looking at and photographing a C-99 transport. They were heading for the new Strategic Air Command hangar when Stealy saw some objects almost overhead and called Burt's attention to them. The two followed them as they crossed the sky and disappeared, about 30 degrees above the horizon, behind a cloud layer that covered the hangar. Stealy checked his watch, which was accurate; Burt later gave the same time in his statement, and Stealy confirmed it.

Stealy estimated about ten objects with no sensible formation: two were off to the right and the rest held in one general area. Some moved rapidly in position, but not back and forth slowly the way a jet would, rather in jerks. Halfway across, one of the objects in the center left a trail that looked like smoke and vanished almost at once. They had no clear outline, no wings or tail, and all were the same size and round. They seemed transparent without being so; Stealy compared them to "a glob of milk of magnesia that had been heavily cut with water". He judged them to be at considerable altitude and traveling at great speed.

Burt described them a little differently: oval, the color of oxidized silver, and not reflecting light. He said he had seen many jets fly and that these were like none of them in shape or speed. He saw them go east, in a loose formation, for about four or five seconds; one left a smoke trail of about two seconds that engulfed it before it was lost behind the clouds. The AFR 200-2 questionnaire attached to the report, which is unsigned and does not say who answered it, gives them as round, almost translucent with a white cast, about the size of a penny, with the trail the size of a piece of string beside it, no sound, and in view for five to eight seconds. It adds that the group left sight in a straight line while a few of the objects jerked about within it.

According to Burt, they flew at about 25,000 to 30,000 feet, at well over 1,000 knots, and measured some 60 to 70 feet, though he himself noted that the size could not be fixed because the altitude was unknown and that his figure was a very rough estimate. Second Lieutenant Edward J. Marlow, the squadron's intelligence officer, wrote air intelligence information report IR 1-55 on May 9, five days later, with Burt's statement and the AFR 200-2 questionnaire. He noted the observers' position (63° 58′ 45″ N, 22° 35′ 50″ W), a temperature of 47 °F, a dew point of 32 °F and 52% humidity, and the winds aloft, which at 30,000 feet were from 200° at 20 knots. He closed with one line: no further sightings had been reported.

The Blue Book card records ten objects, five to eight seconds, course unknown, and adds that they were not in formation. Its conclusion is "UNIDENTIFIED" and the comments box says nothing more.

What gives the case weight is who saw it and how it was recorded. The two witnesses were the squadron commander and his adjutant, named and ranked, and the official report was written five days later with the signed statement of one of them. What is missing weighs just as much: no radar, no photograph, even though they had been photographing an airplane shortly before, and no other witness in the report, which closes by saying that no further sightings had been reported. The two officers walked together and saw the same thing from the same spot, so they count as a single testimony.

The most striking figures are not measurements. The speed of over 1,000 knots and the size of 60 to 70 feet depend on an altitude of 25,000 to 30,000 feet that Burt guessed and that he himself declared uncertain. What the file does hold are direct impressions: the jerky movement within the group, the lack of sound, the lack of wings and tail, and a brief trail that did not look like a jet's contrail. The two witnesses do not fully agree either: Stealy saw them as round and milky, seeming transparent without being so, and Burt as oval and oxidized silver, not reflective; the card says they were not in formation, Stealy that they had no sensible pattern, and Burt that they were in a loose formation.

The file proposes no explanation: the evaluation box of the report is empty and the card says only "UNIDENTIFIED". Nor does it record any check of the time against flights, balloons or launches in the area. That absence of analysis is a fact about the file, not evidence for anything extraordinary: two observers looking up for a few seconds have no cues to distance to tell whether an object was small and near or large and far. With what exists, the case is a credible, brief military testimony, documented at the time and without any detail that allows it to be closed.