Kecksburg UFO incident site

OVERVIEW

A village in Mount Pleasant Township, Westmoreland County, south-east of Pittsburgh. On the afternoon of 9 December 1965 a brilliant fireball was seen from Ontario to Pennsylvania; residents of Kecksburg reported blue smoke, a thump and something down in the woods, and the area was sealed by state police and the Army. A model of the acorn-shaped object described by witnesses, built for a 1990 Unsolved Mysteries segment, stands beside the volunteer fire company.

HISTORY

Astronomers attributed the fireball to a meteor bolide. Witnesses described an acorn-shaped object the size of a small car with band-like markings, and a military recovery on a flatbed. NASA said in 2005 that fragments examined had been from a Soviet satellite and that the records were lost; a 2007 court order in a FOIA case made the agency search again. Nothing recovered has ever been produced.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

Kecksburg is a UFO case, not a haunting: the claims are of an object, a military cordon and a recovery, made by named witnesses and argued over for sixty years. The village holds an annual UFO festival. The entry records the case; it does not decide it.

VISITING

The replica is on Route 982 by the fire hall, freely visible; the woods are private land.