Unresolved UAP Report, Catalina Island, November 16, 1953 — Department of War File
The file contains a report of a round, purplish-white object above Catalina Island on November 16, 1953. The report describes the object as remaining stationary, then moving northwest toward Los Angeles over approximately 10 minutes on a level flight path.
Incident Overview
On November 16, 1953, in Catalina Island, California, the Department of War preserved a documentary record that was declassified and published on October 23, 2026 as part of the seventh tranche of the Department of War’s Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE).
The file runs to five pages: a record card, the blank reverse of that card, and a three-page teletype message. The message came from the headquarters of the 2347th Air Reserve Flying Training Center at Long Beach Municipal Airport and went to Air Defense Command, the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Air Force intelligence in Washington and Continental Air Command. A receiving stamp dates it 17 November 1953. Its numbered paragraphs follow the reporting format the Air Force had laid down in Air Force Regulation 200-2 in August 1953.
The observer was a military man, a technical sergeant named in the message as Robert J. Currie, and he was not on the island. The message gives the place of observation as Tenth and Gaffey in San Pedro, on the mainland, so the object was seen “over Catalina” from across the channel. By his account it was round, “saucer shape,” the size of a pea, purplish white at first and then fading to a whiter colour that it kept until it disappeared. There was one object. It appeared to be stationary at first, then moved north-west toward Los Angeles in a straight, level path until the light faded from view. He noticed it by “casual glance at sky,” put its elevation at 45 degrees when he first saw it and again when it vanished, and gave the time of observation as ten minutes. The message reports a clear night and visibility of ten miles.
Two remarks close the message. The first says that astronomers at the Griffith Park Observatory, spelled “Griffies” in the teletype, “aver that objects such as these are possibly planets which appear more clearly after rain fall.” The second judges the witness “fairly reliable due to association with jet aircraft activity while stationed at Long Beach Air Force Base,” and adds that the astronomers’ observation “may account for the appearance of the subject.”
The record card, typed later on a form dated September 1963, goes further than the message. It gives the date-time group as 16 November 1953, 1305Z, and its conclusion is “Astronomical (JUPITER).” It notes that the movement of the object does not match the winds aloft, which argues against a drifting balloon, and repeats the observatory’s view. The last line is the working: “Nov 15, Jupiter 5 hrs, 38 min., 45 deg elevation in West.” The 5 hours 38 minutes is Jupiter’s right ascension, its position on the sky. A standard calculation of the planet’s position confirms the analyst’s figure. At 1305Z on 16 November, which is just after 5 a.m. local time, Jupiter stood about 45 degrees above the western horizon as seen from San Pedro, matching the elevation the sergeant reported. It was about a month from opposition, when it is at its brightest, and would have been the brightest point in that part of the sky.
By late 1953 the Air Force project had a new name and a new posture. Project Blue Book had replaced Grudge in 1952, and after the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel met in January 1953, the emphasis moved toward explaining reports quickly and reducing public interest in them.
What the government released
The file contains a report of a round, purplish-white object above Catalina Island on November 16, 1953. The report describes the object as remaining stationary, then moving northwest toward Los Angeles over approximately 10 minutes on a level flight path. The report characterizes the observer as fairly reliable due to his association with military jet aircraft activities while stationed at Long Beach Air Force Base, Los Angeles, CA. The report refers to an assessment by local astronomers that Jupiter provided a possible explanation.
The case in this archive
This report is one of four Air Force files from Catalina Island released together in PURSUE Release 07, and the Catalina Island case history reads them side by side.
Status of the case
The Jupiter explanation is good but not perfect, and the gaps are worth stating. The message gives the time as “160505-160515” without a time zone, while the card and a pencil note on the first page read the times in different ways, one as 0505Z and the other as 1305Z. Only the card’s reading puts Jupiter at 45 degrees in the west; at 0505Z, mid-evening local time on 15 November, it would have been lower and in the east. Seen from San Pedro, Catalina lies roughly south across the channel, so an object “over Catalina” and a planet in the west are not an easy fit.
A light that seems to hang still, then drift, then fade is a common way for people to describe a bright planet in a hazy sky, since the eye has no fixed reference against a dark background. Jupiter does move as the Earth turns, sinking toward the western horizon by about two and a half degrees in ten minutes, but that slow slide does not match a move north-west toward Los Angeles, and the report does not say how the sergeant judged the direction. None of this points to anything more than a misread planet.
The Air Force’s own conclusion was astronomical, and nothing in the file contradicts it in a way that matters. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office has made no modern determination about this incident, and the release of the file is not an endorsement of its conclusions.