A close encounter of the second kind leaves physical evidence of some sort to help validate the event. One such encounter was well documented by a very reliable set of witnesses in the summer of 1986. The United States Navy's Salvage and Rescue Ship, USS Edenton ATS 1 was proceeding through the Atlantic Ocean approximately fifty miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. It was a clear moonlit night with a moderate number of stars helping to brighten the sky.

At about 11:00 p.m. the top lookout, the crewman responsible for reporting all visual contacts on both the surface and in the sky, saw four red lights suddenly appear at about 20% above the horizon and about a mile in front of the vessel. He at first thought they were possibly helicopters, as the lights were stationary. On closer examination through binoculars he realized that the bright red lights were maybe a hundred yards apart and each was about the size of a small plane. He noted also that they were holding formation in a square. His closer examination failed to find any normal green or white running lights as would be visible were this an ordinary terrestrial aircraft.

Doing his duty, he called down to the bridge to report the sighting of a possible UFO off their bows. He heard laughter return across the communication wire but again relayed the information about the location of the objects and hoped they would also see what he reported. It was about then that the lights took a quick "swooshing dip" towards the ocean surface then shot straight up and off into space in the matter of seconds. The bridge crew had seen the object and duly noted the sighting in the ship's log.

About a half-hour later, as the ship steamed into the area where the lights had been hovering, the bridge's radiation detection system began to click rapidly. The device, a gamma radiation roentgen meter, registered the detection of 385 roentgens within one minute. It should be noted that the soldiers who were exposed to the Project Trinity atomic bomb tests in 1945 registered at most only 6 roentgens of gamma radiation from the mushroom clouds.

The Captain of the ship was awoken and brought to the bridge. He was quite upset at the UFO sighting report in the log and insisted that the meter be examined to see if it was broken. The Chief Petty Officer assured him the machine had been serviced only the day before and subsequent checking of the other radiation detectors throughout the ship showed that they had also detected the 385 roentgen blast. Whatever the lookout and bridge crew had seen, it had left behind a fearsome wake of radiation.