1956 Maui UFO Sighting Report Included in Air Force Files

Air Intelligence Information Report. Image courtesy The National Archives, Project Blue Book 1947-1969 via Fold3.

By Wendy Osher

A 1956 UFO report from Maui is included in now unclassified documents that were compiled and investigated by the US Air Force.

According to the Air Intelligence Information Report, a 56-year-old retired Lahaina woman reported seeing an orange object with a “flame” and “muffled roar” during the night time hours on Jan. 20, 1956.

According to the report, the woman observed the object coming fast from the distance, then slowing and hovering, and finally fading into the distance into a valley on the Island of Molokaʻi, about 10 miles across the channel.

The report states that the woman observed the object at night for about 25 minutes while looking through a screen window.

Investigators noted that, the “color, size and flight path as described by (the) observer leaves little doubt that (the) object was actually an aircraft.”

The report further stated that, “diffusion and refraction of such lights passing through the dense atmosphere close to the Earth’s surface accounts for observer’s generous estimates of size and color.”

The Air Intelligence Information Report is part of the Project Blue Book from the National Archives Archival Research Catalog that is searchable online at the Fold3 website, which provides access to US military records, including the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served.

The Project Blue Book includes US Air Force investigations into unidentified flying object sightings reported between June 1947 and December 1969.

A total of 40 documents surface when the search word Hawaiʻi is entered, with reports filed in Hilo, Honolulu, Kauaʻi, Hickam Air Force Base, Waikīkī Beach, ʻEwa Beach, Pearl Harbor, Haleʻiwa, Barbers Point, and Kunia.