Project Blue Book Case #1331. On June 23, 1952, witnesses in Spokane, Washington, observed a bright object in the sky above eastern Washington's largest city. Spokane was home to Fairchild Air Force Base, a Strategic Air Command installation that housed bomber wings armed with nuclear weapons.
Fairchild AFB, located approximately 12 miles southwest of Spokane, was a critical node in SAC's global nuclear deterrent. B-36 and later B-52 bombers operated from the base, and the security of its airspace was of paramount importance. Any unidentified object over the Spokane area was treated as a potential threat to the nuclear mission.
The Pacific Northwest had been the birthplace of the modern UFO era with Kenneth Arnold's 1947 sighting, and the region continued to produce significant reports throughout the 1950s. Spokane's position east of the Cascades, in the arid Columbia Plateau, provided clear skies and excellent visibility.
June 23, 1952, was part of the accelerating buildup toward the July wave. Multiple sightings were being reported from the Pacific Northwest during this period, contributing to the wave pattern that Blue Book's Captain Ruppelt was beginning to recognize as unprecedented.
The object over Spokane could not be correlated with any Fairchild AFB operations, civilian flights, or weather phenomena. The case was classified "Unknown."