Project Blue Book Case #5857. On June 20, 1958, an unidentified object was observed over Fort Bragg, North Carolina — the U.S. Army's premier Special Operations and airborne warfare installation. Fort Bragg was home to the 82nd Airborne Division, the Special Forces (Green Berets), and the XVIII Airborne Corps, making it one of the most elite military communities in the world.
Pope Air Force Base, adjacent to Fort Bragg, provided the transport aircraft — C-119 Flying Boxcars and C-130 Hercules — that carried paratroopers on training jumps and deployed them to crisis zones worldwide. The combined Fort Bragg-Pope complex generated enormous air traffic, from low-altitude parachute drops to high-altitude transport flights.
The personnel at Fort Bragg were trained warriors whose combat awareness and observation skills were honed to a razor's edge. Airborne soldiers were specifically trained to observe terrain and aerial conditions during parachute operations. Their assessment of an object as unidentified carried particular weight.
June 1958 was during a relatively quiet period for Blue Book. The Fort Bragg case was investigated with standard procedures, and all military and civilian flight operations in the Fayetteville, North Carolina, area were checked.
No identification was made. The case was classified "Unknown" — a notable designation from one of the most elite military installations in the world.