Case File · FBI · Cold War / Blue Book Era (1953-1969) Declassified May 8, 2026 · PURSUE Release 01

Cincinnati, Ohio UFO Sighting (Sept.11,'54) — FBI Files

UFO Visual Sighting

A cold war / blue book era case from Cincinnati, Ohio. Residents of Cincinnati reported strange stains appearing on the yellow trim of their houses.

Sept.11,'54
Cincinnati, Ohio
Source document: 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_8
Source document: 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_8 · Source: declassified document

Background

On Sept.11,‘54, in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. government investigators recorded an unidentified-object incident later released to the public on May 8, 2026 as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The incident is a Cold War-era case investigated under the Air Force’s Project Blue Book or its predecessors. The case was filed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose Knoxville, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, and other field offices routed UFO reports to headquarters under the Bureau’s standing protocols for the protection of vital installations.

What the document records

Residents of Cincinnati reported strange stains appearing on the yellow trim of their houses. The stains were described as a washed-out brown or black color and were difficult to remove. One resident also reported swelling of their hands and eyelids a few days after the incident.

The number of witnesses is not specified in the released document.

Verbatim from the file

“”washed-out brown, almost black color.””. “It looked like someone had used a blow-torch”. “Allgeyer, five days after the incident complained of extreme swelling of both hands and eye lids.”

Type of case

The case is a visual sighting reported by ground or air observers.

Status

All records released under the PURSUE program are designated unresolved by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) by default. The federal government has not concluded that the events were anomalous, has not concluded that they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Conventional candidates for sightings of this period include experimental aircraft, weather balloons (especially the Project Mogul series in the late 1940s), atmospheric optical phenomena such as sundogs and lenticular clouds, and astronomical objects including Venus, the Moon, and meteors near the horizon.

Sources