57th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, 1950: A Red-Orange Light Over Elmendorf
An Alaskan fighter wing's May–June 1950 history records five radar-squadron men watching a reddish-orange light hover over Elmendorf for five minutes on 5 May 1950 before it sped away.
At 11:30 on the night of 5 May 1950, five men of an aircraft control and warning squadron at Elmendorf Air Force Base looked up at a light that did not behave like anything they knew. The wing’s historian thought the episode worth a chapter of its own, even if that chapter is only one paragraph long.
What this record is
This is the history of the 57th Fighter-Interceptor Wing at Elmendorf Air Force Base, near Anchorage, Alaska, for May and June 1950. The wing was responsible for the air defense of the Anchorage area. The title page (page 3 of the PDF) shows it was prepared by Captain O. J. Twedt, historical officer, and approved by Brigadier General D. R. Hutchinson, commanding. The PDF runs to 206 pages and covers organization, personnel, operations and training, supply and maintenance, facilities, and a final chapter called “Special Subjects.” It was classified SECRET and was declassified in full by the Air Force Declassification Office on 2 May 2025 as case 342UAP00002. The UFO paragraph is the evident reason it was included in the transfer.
What it says about UFOs
One page of 206 concerns a UFO: page 147 of the PDF, which is page 72 of the typed history and the whole of Chapter VI, “Special Subjects.”
It reports that two officers and three airmen of the 625th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron “observed an unusual flying object” at 2330 hours Alaskan Standard Time on 5 May 1950. All five are named: Captain Marcellus D. O’Sullivan, First Lieutenant William J. Reisinger, Technical Sergeant Ehrle W. Peterson, Technical Sergeant Melvin H. Dexter and Corporal Benny Lipson. According to the history, the witnesses “substantially agreed” that the object was “an unusual light, reddish-orange in color, and of a constant intensity.” It stayed overhead for five minutes. Then it “suddenly and with increasing rapidity” began to move, in the direction of 220 degrees from Elmendorf on a heading of 040 degrees, and disappeared over the horizon. The two bearings are given as printed. The history does not explain how an object bearing southwest of the base could be heading northeast, so the geometry cannot be reconstructed from this page.
Nothing more is said. The page does not mention radar contact, even though the witnesses belonged to a radar unit. It says nothing about fighters being scrambled, a report being sent to higher headquarters, or any evaluation. Other mentions of unidentified targets (pages 53 and 179 of the PDF) concern routine aircraft identification, not this sighting.
Context
Alaska was a front line of Cold War air defense in 1950, and aircraft control and warning squadrons watched constantly for Soviet bombers. A light over the base at night would have drawn trained attention. The date falls just after the spring 1950 wave of saucer reports, while the Air Force’s own UFO project, Project Grudge, was largely dormant. The wider Air Force program is described in the Project Blue Book overview. The collection this record comes from is described in the Record Group 615 overview.
Status
The page gives an exact time, a named group of military witnesses and a short, consistent description. It gives no duration for the departure, no elevation, no size and no evaluation. A steady reddish-orange light that hangs overhead and then moves off with increasing speed fits a number of ordinary explanations, among them a balloon catching a new wind or an aircraft seen at an unusual angle. It fits unusual ones too, and five minutes of observation by radar personnel is not trivial. The history does not settle the question. Whether the sighting reached Project Grudge and received an evaluation would have to be checked in the Blue Book case files.