The Seymour, Indiana Flying Object Report: Two Cloudy Objects with Four Rotating Lights
A small-town druggist and his wife described two large gaseous objects carrying four rotating points of light each, and the Air Force only heard about it because a doctor mentioned his own son's sighting in Saudi Arabia.
What did witnesses see at Seymour?
Some time in December 1953, a married couple driving east near Seymour, Indiana stopped their car to watch two large objects in the northern sky. The account reached the United States Air Force more than a month later and was filed on 13 January 1954 by the Reserve Information Office at Headquarters, 2466th Air Force Reserve Combat Training Center, Atterbury Air Force Base, Columbus, Indiana, under the control number AF607182. It was declassified under authority NND 57597 and published by the Department of War on 23 October 2026 as DOW-UAP-D164, in the seventh tranche of the PURSUE release programme.
The document is not an AF Form 112. It states that in lieu of AF Form 112b as required by Air Force Regulation 200-2 of 26 August 1953, the information is submitted to conform to paragraph 6b of that regulation, and it answers the regulation's headings one by one.
The objects are described as a circular ring of smoke, a cloudy substance that stayed in a plane, with no upper or lower structure visible. The observer would not estimate size beyond the word "large" and offered no relative comparison. Colour is given as white, cloudy and gaseous, number as two, and formation as "staggered like two jets in flight, tightly following each other". The entry that gives the case its character is the one headed discernable features: "Four bright or brilliant equidistant points of light within the same plane, rotating slowly clockwise and seeming to be the source of cloudy aura, white in color." The trail is recorded as comparing favourably with a jet take-off seen at night, bluish white with a vaporous trail. Sound is given as none to the ear, with the note that the observers stood outside of the car to make sure.
More footage and images of this sighting
What is the official explanation?
The Air Force recorded the event and does not appear to have resolved it. The report carries no evaluation, no identification and no conclusion, and the published file contains no follow-up.
The form's own answers close off the easy checks rather than supporting them. Physical evidence of the sighting is recorded as none. Air traffic in the area is given as none according to the observers, with the preparing NCO noting that it was "impossible to verify without exact date through ACS and 2466th Operations". Other unusual activity or conditions in the area is answered "no noticeable disturbances".
Weather was supplied by S/Sgt Billy R. Egger, Chief Observer at Detachment 21, Ninth Weather Group, Atterbury Air Force Base, and it covers a period rather than a date, which is the single most important limitation in the file. For 8 to 15 December 1953 it records: 8 to 10 December overcast; 10 to 12 December clear between 1800 and 2400 and otherwise overcast; 11 to 12 December overcast; 13 to 15 December overcast, with light rain, drizzle, light snow and fog prevailing intermittently. Winds were south through west from 8 to 13 December, switching to north on 14 to 15 December, at 10 to 12 knots, with visibility variable through the week between one and a half and fifteen miles.
The report was prepared by S/Sgt Bruce C.F. Butler, NCOIC of the Reserve Information Office, who noted that no officer was assigned at the time of report contact.
What did the witnesses think it was?
The observers are named in full. They are Mr Hiram Jones, aged 60, and Mrs Gladys Jones, of 100 South Chestnut Street, Seymour, Indiana. The form records that Mr Jones is a druggist, the owner-operator of Jones Drug Store, and assesses him in the Air Force's own words as "not prone to exaggeration; direct forthright attitude toward people; within his knowledge, he is truthful, honest".
Their attention was caught by a brilliant moving light. They were travelling east in a moving car and looked north at approximately 20 degrees elevation. The flight path is described as an in-line approach with a steady descent, then a stationary attitude at one spot, then tremendous acceleration on in-line flight at an abrupt angle, departing in a southwesterly direction having approached from the north. The manner of disappearance is recorded as a "seemingly instantaneous surge to maximum speed, keeping formation".
The form also records a controlled downward tilt from the direction of approach to the hovering point, complete level stability while hovering, and take-off in an upward tilt with the bright points of light fixed, two to the rear and two forward, with "incredible speed when disappearing".
The objects were observed for approximately three to four minutes. The observation period included two moves of the car and one change of direction of travel, figured at about two minutes elapsed time, giving a total of five to six minutes. The time of sighting is given as 0002 to 0008Z, with light conditions between dusk and night. Against the question of date the form records simply that the observers were unable to remember exactly.
How the Air Force came to hear of it is the most human part of the file. Contact with Mr Jones developed on the advice of Dr W.S. Fisher of 422 Ninth Street, Columbus, Indiana, through a telephone call to Lt Marvin Satin, the Adjutant, on 9 January at approximately 16:50 Central Standard Time. Mr Jones was a patient in Bartholomew County Hospital under Dr Fisher's care and was due to be released on 10 or 11 January after a short convalescence. The report states that Mr Jones had told nobody of his experience other than three personal friends, desiring to avoid ridicule, but that he firmly believed in what he saw and that his wife held the same attitude. Dr Fisher uncovered the story, in the report's words, "by saying he had a letter from his son in the Air Force in Saudi Arabia, who claimed to have seen a Flying Saucer. Thereupon, Mr Jones divulged his experiences."
Is the Seymour, Indiana Flying Object Report: Two Cloudy Objects with Four Rotating Lights real? The two-pass assessment
Pass one, how could this be mundane.
The report itself names the strongest prosaic candidate in its own description of the trail, which it says compared favourably with a jet take-off observed at night, bluish white with a vaporous trail. Two aircraft in close staggered formation, afterburners lit, seen at low elevation in poor December light against overcast, would produce a bright moving light, an apparent cloudy aura around hot exhaust, and a rapid departure. Four equidistant points of light rotating slowly clockwise is harder to fit, but a pair of aircraft turning relative to a moving observer can change the apparent arrangement of navigation and exhaust lights, and the witnesses were themselves in a moving car that changed direction during the observation.
Two features cut the other way and should not be smoothed over. The report records a stationary period, described as complete level stability while hovering, which is not a jet formation behaviour at the implied range. And it records no sound, with the specific note that the observers got out of the car to check, which rules out low jets directly overhead though not aircraft at distance.
The largest problem with the case is not the object, it is the date. The witnesses could not remember it, the Air Force could not establish it, and the weather entry covers an eight day window rather than a night. That single gap disables every instrument this archive would normally reach for. Without a date there is no ephemeris run, no cloud observation for the actual hour, no air traffic check, and, as the preparing NCO wrote at the time, no way to verify air traffic through Air Communications Service or 2466th Operations. The event date is therefore left as December 1953 and nothing more precise is asserted.
There is also a clerical error on the form worth recording, because it is the kind of thing that sends later researchers to the wrong place. The location of observers is given as "85 degrees 49 minutes East, 39 degrees 03 minutes North". Seymour, Indiana is at about 85 degrees 53 minutes West and 38 degrees 58 minutes North. The longitude is labelled East where it should be West, and the latitude is about five minutes north of the town. This case is pinned on Seymour itself.
A note on the press coverage that surfaced this document. The story circulating on 26 October 2026 describes the witness as an Indiana chemist. The form says druggist, and names the business as Jones Drug Store, which in American usage of the period means a pharmacist and retail proprietor rather than a research chemist. The coverage also treats a single witness, where the form names two.
Pass two, if real, what is it.
If the description is accurate, two large, silent, self-luminous masses each carrying four slowly rotating equidistant lights descended, held station, and then accelerated away in formation. Nothing in the 1953 inventory of either air force matches that, and the Air Force filed the account without offering an identification.
The tier is Unknown. There is no official narrative, no physical evidence, no imagery, and no date precise enough to test. What the file does carry is two named witnesses with an address and an occupation, an explicit Air Force assessment of the principal witness's honesty, a full regulation-format description taken down within weeks, and the record of a man who said nothing for a month because he did not want to be laughed at.
Sources
- www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release-07/documents/DOW-UAP-D164-Flying_Object_Report_Indiana-1954.pdf
- www.war.gov/UFO/
- www.war.gov/Portals/1/Interactive/2026/UFO/uap-data.csv
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