Project Blue Book Case #758. On July 13, 1950, an unidentified aerial object was observed over Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama — the U.S. Army's rocket and missile development center and the workplace of Wernher von Braun and his team of German rocket scientists brought to America under Operation Paperclip. No location in the country was more closely associated with cutting-edge aerospace technology.
Redstone Arsenal was where the Army was developing the Redstone ballistic missile, the Jupiter intermediate-range missile, and the foundations of what would become America's space launch capability. The scientists and engineers working at the arsenal were among the most technically sophisticated observers imaginable — men who had designed and built the V-2 rocket and were now pushing the boundaries of propulsion and guidance technology.
The Korean War had begun just weeks earlier on June 25, 1950, and military installations across the country were on heightened alert. Any unidentified object over a sensitive weapons development facility during wartime conditions demanded serious attention.
The object observed over Redstone Arsenal could not be identified as any known aircraft, missile, or test vehicle. The arsenal's comprehensive records of all test launches and experimental flights were checked — Redstone kept meticulous logs of every object that entered its airspace. Nothing matched. The case was classified "Unknown" by investigators, who noted the exceptional credibility of observers at what was essentially the birthplace of the American space program.