The Kecksburg UFO incident happened on December 9, 1965, in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, United States. People in six U.S. states and Canada saw a bright fireball over Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario. Scientists believed the fireball was a large meteor burning up in the atmosphere and falling quickly. In 2005, NASA said experts studied pieces found in the area and concluded they came from a Soviet satellite. However, records of their findings were lost in 1987. NASA searched for these records in response to court orders and Freedom of Information Act requests. The event became well-known in popular culture and among those who study UFOs. People guessed it could be from alien spacecraft or debris from a Soviet space probe called Kosmos 96. It is often called "Pennsylvania's Roswell."
Initial reports
On the evening of December 9, 1965, a large, bright fireball was seen in Idaho, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New York as it moved quickly across the Detroit, Michigan – Windsor, Ontario area. People reported finding hot metal pieces in Michigan and northern Ohio, grass fires, and loud noises called sonic booms near Pittsburgh. In the village of Kecksburg, about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Pittsburgh, some people saw blue smoke, felt vibrations, heard a loud "thump," and said something had fallen from the sky into the woods.
An early article in the Greensburg Tribune-Review said that U.S. Army and State Police officials blocked off the area where the object landed, expecting experts to examine it. State Police ordered the area roped off to wait for U.S. Army engineers and possibly scientists. When state troopers and Air Force personnel searched the woods, they found "nothing." A later edition of the Tribune-Review had the headline "Searchers Fail to Find Object."
Authorities ruled out ideas like a plane crash, a lost missile test, or debris from a satellite. They believed it was a meteor. Astronomer Paul Annear said the fireball was likely a meteor entering Earth's atmosphere. Geophysicist George Wetherilo disagreed with claims it was satellite debris and agreed the reports were probably from a meteor. Astronomers William P. Bidelman and Fred Hess said it was definitely a meteor bolide. A Defense Department spokesman said early reports suggested the fireball was a natural event.
The February 1966 issue of Sky & Telescope reported that the fireball was seen over the Detroit-Windsor area at about 4:44 p.m. EST. The Federal Aviation Administration received 23 reports from pilots starting at 4:44 p.m. A seismograph 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Detroit recorded shock waves from the fireball as it passed through the atmosphere. The Sky & Telescope article concluded that the fireball's path stretched roughly from northwest to southeast and ended "in or near the western part of Lake Erie."
Scientific articles
Many science articles were written about the fireball. A 1967 article by two astronomers in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (JRASC) used seismograph data to determine the exact time the fireball passed over the Detroit area, which was 4:43 p.m. They also used photographs of the fireball’s trail taken at two different locations north of Detroit to find the path of the object. The scientists concluded that the fireball was falling at a very steep angle, moving from the southwest to the northeast, and likely landed on the northwestern shore of Lake Erie near Windsor, Ontario.
NASA statements
In December 2005, close to the 40th anniversary of the Kecksburg event, NASA shared a statement saying that experts had studied metal pieces found in the area. They concluded the pieces came from a Soviet satellite that entered Earth’s atmosphere and broke apart. However, records of their findings were lost in the 1980s.
Leslie Kean, described as an investigative reporter supported by the Sci-Fi Channel, reportedly filed a lawsuit against NASA using the Freedom of Information Act to request the lost records. On October 26, 2007, NASA agreed to search for the documents after a court ordered it to do so. During the court hearing, Steve McConnell, NASA’s public liaison officer, said that two boxes of papers from the time of the Kecksburg event were missing. NASA is not the only organization that has lost records; for example, the original tapes from the Apollo 11 Moon landing were misplaced or reused.
In 2008, space writer James Oberg suggested that NASA likely did not have any such documents. He believed that the group that supposedly investigated the site were actually Air Force personnel who pretended to be NASA workers, a common practice in the 1960s. He also claimed that Kean’s actions were likely a "publicity stunt" for her employers.
John Ventre of MUFON and Owen Eichler from Shafton said their recent research led them to think the object that landed in Kecksburg might have been a General Electric Mark 2 Re-entry Vehicle launched by the Air Force as a spy satellite that fell out of orbit. However, they said confirmation from NASA or the Air Force is needed.
More recent NASA comments are less certain about a link to a Soviet satellite:
Some people believe the reentry of the Cosmos 96/Venera-type spacecraft caused a fireball seen over southwestern Ontario, Canada, and at least eight U.S. states from Michigan to New York at 4:43 p.m. EST on December 9, 1965. Studies of photos and eyewitness accounts suggested the fireball’s path through the atmosphere was too steep to match a spacecraft re-entering from Earth orbit. Instead, it was more likely a meteor traveling from the asteroid belt in a prograde orbit. Analysis of the spacecraft’s orbit also shows it could not have been Cosmos 96. Some unconfirmed reports say the fireball landed in Pennsylvania, southeast of Pittsburgh, near Kecksburg (40.2 N, 79.5 W), at 4:46 p.m. EST.