Almy Pond, Newport, April 5, 1955: a Navy physicist and her children watch a silent silver disc descend and vanish into the haze.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTINGS REPORT
1955: Almy Pond, Newport, Rhode Island: A Navy Physicist Watches a Silver Disc
At lunchtime on April 5, 1955, Mrs. Genevieve Mathison stood at the front door of her home near Almy Pond in Newport, Rhode Island, with her children. She was a physicist at the U.S. Navy’s Underwater Ordnance Test Station, and she watched a circular silver object come down out of the northern sky. It left no trail and made no sound. It descended from about 45 degrees above the horizon, seemed to approach, then turned sharply away and disappeared into the haze.
The Almy Pond silver disc is a short daylight sighting, but an unusual one. The primary witness was a working scientist at a Navy weapons-research station, and she was not alone. The report survives in Air Force intelligence files held by the National Archives and is catalogued by researcher Jan Aldrich among UFO reports made by U.S. Navy personnel.
Date: April 5, 1955 (some listings give 1956)
Sighting Time: 12:30 to 12:35 p.m. (EST)
Day/Night: Day
Location: Almy Pond, Newport, Rhode Island
Urban or Rural: Urban (residential Newport)
No. of Entity(‘s): Not Applicable
Entity Type: Not Applicable
Entity Description: Not Applicable
Hynek Classification: DD (Daylight Disc)
Duration: Up to about 5 minutes
No. of Object(s): 1
Description of the Object(s): A circular silver object with no trail and no sound
Shape/Size/Color of Object(s): Circular; size not recorded; silver
Distance to Object(s): Unknown
Height & Speed: It descended from about 45 degrees of elevation in the north toward the horizon. Speed was not recorded.
Number of Witnesses: Mrs. Genevieve Mathison and her children (three according to one listing)
Special Features/Characteristics: Silent and trailless. It descended on an approaching path, then made a sharp turning maneuver (given as about 135 degrees) and receded, disappearing by “whirling” into the haze.
Case Status: Unexplained (Blue Book unknown per index listing)
Source: 4602d Air Intelligence Service Squadron (AISS) UFO files, National Archives; Jan Aldrich, Project 1947 NavCat 2.0 (BBU)
Summary/Description: A Navy Underwater Ordnance Test Station physicist and her children watched a silent, circular silver object descend over Newport, turn sharply and vanish into the haze.
Related Cases: 1956: April UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive (cross-reference entry); April 1955 archive
Detailed Report
Between 12:30 and 12:35 p.m. on April 5, Mrs. Genevieve Mathison was at the front door of her home near Almy Pond, a freshwater pond on the south side of Newport, Rhode Island. She was employed as a physicist at the U.S. Navy Underwater Ordnance Test Station, the Newport facility that tested torpedoes and other underwater weapons. Her children were with her.
They saw a circular silver object in the northern sky at an elevation of about 45 degrees. It left no trail and made no sound. It came down toward the horizon along what looked like an approaching path. It then made a sharp turn, recorded in one listing as about 135 degrees, and appeared to recede along the observers’ line of sight until it disappeared into the haze. One summary describes it as “whirling” into the haze as it went.
The sighting was taken up by the 4602d Air Intelligence Service Squadron, the Air Force unit responsible for field investigation of UFO reports in the mid-1950s. The report is preserved in that unit’s files at the National Archives. Researcher Jan Aldrich, of Project 1947, lists it in his catalogue of UFO sightings by U.S. Navy, Marine and Coast Guard personnel.
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
A Scientist’s Report, With a Date Question
- 1955 or 1956: Some case listings, including the index long used on this site’s April 1956 archive, date this sighting to April 5, 1956. Jan Aldrich’s own Project 1947 NavCat, built from the 4602d AISS files, places it on April 5, 1955, between February and April 1955 Navy reports. This page follows the primary-file date of 1955.
- Witness quality: A professional physicist at a Navy weapons-test station is a trained observer, familiar with the military and experimental hardware tested in the Newport area. She had several companions and the sighting was in daylight, which adds weight.
- Thin detail: The surviving summaries give no size, distance or speed, and differ slightly in their descriptions: one says the object turned about 135 degrees, the other that it receded along the line of sight. The 4602d file itself would supply more.
- Conventional possibilities: In daylight, a silver, silent, trailless object could be a balloon catching the sun. The reported descent, sharp turn and whirling departure are less typical of a balloon, but without distance or size data a balloon cannot be ruled out.
- Navy context: Newport’s Naval Station and Underwater Ordnance Test Station made the area a center of Navy research activity in the mid-1950s. This case belongs to a cluster of Navy-personnel reports that Aldrich catalogued specifically because they came from trained service observers.
The Almy Pond sighting is brief and sparsely documented, but it rests on a credible scientific witness and a surviving Air Force intelligence file. It remains unexplained. The details that would settle it, such as size, distance and any 4602d evaluation, are likely in the original National Archives record.
A circular silver object with no trail or sound.
Description of the Almy Pond object, 4602d AISS UFO files, as catalogued by Jan Aldrich, Project 1947
