Louisville, Kentucky UFO Sighting (June 28, 1950) — FBI Files
In June 1950, a photographer in Louisville, Kentucky, captured footage of a bright, disk-shaped object hovering near a DC-3 aircraft.
Historical Context
The sighting in Louisville, Kentucky, occurred during a period of heightened atmospheric anxiety in the United States. Following the 1947 Kenneth Arnold sighting and the subsequent Roswell incident, the American public and various government agencies were navigating a new era of unidentified aerial phenomena. During this period, the term “flying saucer” entered the common lexicon, fueled by a series of reports involving metallic, disk-shaped objects performing maneuvers that defied contemporary aeronautical understanding. This era was characterized by the early Cold War, where the fear of advanced Soviet technology and the presence of unidentifiable objects in domestic airspace were treated with significant gravity by federal law enforcement.
At the time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation maintained specific protocols for handling such reports. Because unidentified objects were perceived as potential threats to national security or vital infrastructure, field offices in cities such as Knoxville, Albuquerque, and Los Angeles were instructed to route UFO reports to FBI headquarters. This systemic approach ensured that any phenomenon that could potentially interfere with or observe sensitive installations was documented within the Bureau’s internal intelligence framework.
The June 1950 Incident
On June 28, 1950, an incident took place in Louisville that was documented by federal investigators. The event was captured on film by photographer Al Hixenbatalog, who was originally attempting to film birds when the unidentified object entered his field of view. The resulting footage provides a rare visual record from this era of unidentified aerial phenomena.
The recorded footage depicts a bright, disk-shaped object. According to the observations made during the filming, the object appeared to be positioned lower than a DC-3 aircraft. The object was noted to have a slight corona surrounding it. The movement of the object was described as being remarkably stable; the file contains the observation that it stood practically still, like a balloon. This stationary period lasted for approximately ten seconds before the object began to diminish in size, eventually disappearing toward the west. While the saucer remained visible throughout the duration of the film, the DC-3 aircraft moved out of the frame quickly, appearing in the shot for only about ten feet of the footage. The released documentation does not specify the total number of witnesses present during the event.
Investigation and Classification
The documentation of this case was released to the public on May 8, 2026, as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). This release was part of a broader effort to provide transparency regarding historical government records of unidentified objects. The Louisville case is notable for being one of the few entries from this period to include photographic or video evidence of the phenomenon.
The status of the Louisville sighting remains officially unresolved. Under the protocols of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), all records released through the PURSUE program are designated as unresolved by default. The federal government has not reached a conclusion regarding whether the object was anomalous or conventional. In the context of 1950s aerial sightings, conventional explanations often included experimental aircraft, meteors, or astronomical bodies such as Venus or the Moon. Additionally, the presence of weather balloons, specifically those associated with the Project Mogul series, was a frequent subject of investigation during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Atmospheric phenomena, such as lenticular clouds or sundogs, also served as frequent scientific candidates for explaining sightings of luminous or disk-shaped objects.