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2008: Freedom Statue In U.S.A., Buzzed By Three
Spacecraft
JULY 2002 SIGHTINGS IN THE SKY
AROUND WASHINGTON D.C.
Note: It all started 50 years ago, in 1952 & 1953:
JULY 13 - JULY 29, 1952 - WASHINGTON
DC, USA
WASHINGTON POST: WASHINGTON DC JULY
1952 REPORT
1952, TOP
SECRET MEMO:
FLYING SAUCERS EXIST"
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FIRST - THE PRESENT: 26 JULY 2002
Bright Blue UFO Scrambles 113th Squadron Near D.C.
"Routine" Exercise Chasing High Speed UFOs?
http://www.rense.com/general27/bblue.htm
7-26-2
Update: F-16s Pursue Unknown Craft Over
Region
By Steve Vogel, Washington Post Staff Writer
7-27-2
For Renny Rogers, it was strange enough that military
jets were flying low over his home in Waldorf in the
middle of the night. It was what he thinks he saw when
he headed outside to look early yesterday that floored
him.
"It was this object, this light-blue object, traveling
at a phenomenal rate of speed," Rogers said. "This Air
Force jet was right behind it, chasing it, but the
object was just leaving him in the dust. I told my
neighbor, 'I think those jets are chasing a UFO.' "
Military officials confirm that two F-16 jets from
Andrews Air Force Base were scrambled early yesterday
after radar detected an unknown aircraft in area
airspace. But they scoff at the idea that the jets
were chasing a strange and speedy, blue unidentified
flying object.
"We had a track of interest, so we sent up some
aircraft," said Maj. Douglas Martin, a spokesman for
the North American Aerospace Defense Command in
Colorado, which has responsibility for defending U.S.
airspace. "Everything was fine in the sky, so they
returned home."
At the same time, military officials say they do not
know just what the jets were chasing, because whatever
it was disappeared. "There are any number of
scenarios, but we don't know what it was," said Maj.
Barry Venable, another spokesman for NORAD.
Radar detected a low, slow-flying aircraft about 1
a.m. yesterday, according to a military official.
Controllers were unable to establish radio
communication with the unidentified aircraft, and
NORAD was notified. When the F-16s carrying air-to-air
missiles were launched from Andrews, the unidentified
aircraft's track faded from the radar, the military
official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Pilots with the D.C. Air National Guard's 113th Air
Wing, which flew the F-16s from Andrews, reported
nothing out of the ordinary, NORAD officials said.
"It was a routine launch," said Lt. Col. Steve Chase,
a senior officer with the wing, which keeps pilots and
armed jets on 24-hour alert at Andrews to respond to
incidents as part of an air defense system protecting
Washington after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Rogers remains convinced that what he saw was not
routine. "It looked like a shooting star with no
trailing mist," he said. "I've never seen anything
like it."
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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What was that bright light in
Maryland's sky?
WTOP has learned that residents near Andrews Air Force
base were shaken from their beds early Friday morning
by some strange activity in the air.
"Incredible. Absolutely incredible" is what Renny
Rogers of Waldorf calls it. Just before two in the
morning, Rogers says he saw a large blue ball of light
streaking across the sky. But it was the military jets
that really startled him.
"(The jets) were right on its tail. As the thing would
move, a jet was right behind it," Rogers recalls.
He is not the only one who saw it. Several people
called WTOP Radio reporting seeing a bright blue or
orange ball moving very fast, being chased by jets.
Rogers says there was no smoke coming from the object,
no flashing lights, and says it was smooth, and eerily
silent.
The Air National Guard confirms they scrambled the
113th squadron.
Spokesman Sheldon Smith says they are investigating
and in contact with NORAD.
WTOP Radio, 2002
http://devtoolkit.wtop.com/news/newsdetail.cfm?newsID=584517
(2008 note: Above website has gone)
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Comment From Rex 7-27-2
I see that 113th will scramble Jets for UFOs but not
for the Pentagon on 911. Maybe they thought bin Laden
was in that UFO? Well, it is good too see our boys up
and ready anyway. :)
Rex
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Comment Alton Raines 7-27-02
Once again we see the classic obfuscation required of
AF and Gov't officials on the UFO issue.
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Comment From Walumu 7-27-2
It's about damn time... It was a UFO. I tend not to
jump to conclusions but based on the evidence it was,
without a doubt, a UFO. The government cannot deny
this one and say it's some sort of secret military
aircraft because they wouldn't chase their own. And if
it was a test chase they would not do it over such a
heavily populated area as DC.
They cannot hide this one at all. I'm sure as you well
know this is just the tip of the iceburg when it comes
to the UFO Phenomena and the subsequent 50+ year
govenment coverup. We must not let these stories go
unheard. It's our job, the people of this country, the
people of this planet, to bring attention to these
events. There's no better time than now to start. I
ask you to tell everyone you know and do your best to
get this article out there. For the sake of freedom.
--------------------------------------------------------
All above reports at Rense.com:
http://www.rense.com/general27/bblue.htm
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JULY 13, 2002 :
'NEW JERSEY UFO MANOEUVRES'
PARAMUS -- Three unknown objects manoeuvre, pulse,
then fade out on a clear night on July 13, 2002, over
northern New Jersey.
At 11:10 PM, two bright lights, which appeared to be
stars, were seen moving slowly in formation on a
northeast heading.
The atmospheric conditions were clear with visibility
unlimited.
The two objects appeared high up, and were very
bright. Within moments of the sighting, a third, less
brilliant object, appeared from the northwest sky
behind the first two objects, and flew between them.
It also appeared to be a star. This third object then
changed direction to the north and faded completely.
The objects flying in formation then faded completely,
and could not be seen.
Several moments later one of these brilliant white
light objects pulsed brightly, then faded.
Moments later the third object pulsed brightly, then
faded as it continued toward the north. None of
the objects was seen again, though the first two must
have been directly overhead. Observers include a
police officer and two security officers. One observer
holds a private pilot license. All concur that the
sighting was not that of a conventional aircraft.
Thanks to Peter Davenport NUFORC
----------------------------------------
NOW JUMP BACK 50 YEARS TO:
JULY 1952
'ET ARMADA OVER WASHINGTON DC'
- JULY 1952 -
Washington Post staff writer Peter Carlson reports on
Sunday that,
In the control tower at Washington National Airport,
Ed Nugent saw seven pale violet blips on his radar
screen. What were they? Not planes -- at least not any
planes that were supposed to be there.
He summoned his boss, Harry G. Barnes, the head of
National's air traffic controllers. "Here's a fleet of
flying saucers for you," Nugent said, half-joking.
Upstairs, in the tower's glass-enclosed top floor,
controller Joe Zacko saw a strange blip streaking
across his radar screen. It wasn't a bird. It wasn't a
plane. What was it? He looked out the window and
spotted a bright light hovering in the sky.
He turned to his partner, Howard Cocklin, who was
sitting three feet away. "Look at that bright light,"
Zacko said. "If you believe in flying saucers, that
could sure be one." And then the light took off,
zooming away at an incredible speed. "Did you see
that?" Cocklin remembers saying. "What the hell was
that?"
It was Saturday night, July 19, 1952, fifty years ago
-- one of the most famous dates in the bizarre history
of UFOs. Before the night was over, a pilot reported
seeing unexplained objects, radar at two local Air
Force bases -- Andrews and Bolling -- picked up the
UFOs, and two Air Force F-94 jets streaked over
Washington, searching for flying saucers. Then, a week
later, it happened all over again -- more UFOs on the
radar screen, more jets scrambled over Washington.
Across America, the story of jets chasing UFOs over
the White House knocked the Korean War and the
presidential campaign off the front pages of
newspapers. " 'Saucer' Outran Jet, Pilot Reveals,"
read the banner headline in The Washington Post. "JETS
CHASE D.C. SKY GHOSTS," screamed the New York Daily
News. "AERIAL WHATZITS BUZZ D.C. AGAIN!" shouted the
Washington Daily News. As rumors spread, President
Truman demanded to know what was flying over his
house. Soon the federal government was fighting the
UFOs with the most powerful weapons in the Washington
arsenal -- bureaucracy, obfuscation and gobbledygook.
That seemed to work. The UFOs never returned. Snip.
Dr. Bruce Maccabee isn't laughing. "One thing you have
to understand: This is serious business," he says.
"The sceptics like to make fun of us." Maccabee, 60,
is a civilian physicist for the Navy and a prominent
UFO believer. Maccabee buttresses his argument with an
official government report. It's called "Quantitative
Aspects of Mirages" and it was issued by the Air Force
in 1969.
"They proved in their own study that there wasn't
enough temperature inversion to cause this effect," he
says. "The Washington sightings cannot be explained as
a radar mirage."
In the '70s, he filed the Freedom of Information Act
request that led to the release of the FBI's file on
UFOs. The file was called "Security Matter X" -- "the
real X-Files," he says.
Maccabee believes there were "solid objects" in the
air over Washington 50 years ago. "And I think those
solid objects were not made by us," he says. "And by
us, I mean human beings."
After 50 years, the debate over the Washington UFOs
goes on and on. "You have duelling experts and
duelling reports," says Kevin D. Randle, author of
"Invasion Washington: UFOs Over the Capitol," a new
book on the 1952 sightings. "One expert says it was
temperature inversion. Another says it wasn't. In that
situation, you have to refer back to the air traffic
controllers and the pilots who actually saw the
objects."
Former controller Howard Cocklin is still convinced
that he saw an object over National that night. "I saw
it on the screen and out the window," he says. "It was
a whitish-blue object. Not a light -- a solid form. An
object. A saucer-shaped object."
Now 83 and retired, Cocklin says he never saw anything
like that saucer -- not before, not since. "It just
went away," he says, sitting in an armchair in his
Fairfax living room. "Where did it go? Why don't
people see these things today? Why 50 years ago?"
Thanks to Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31625-2002Jul19.html
-------------------------------
FULL WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE:
|
50 Years Ago, Unidentified
Flying Objects From Way Beyond the Beltway
Seized the Capital's Imagination
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31625-2002Jul19.html
2008: This article has been archived / moved to
purchase only availability:
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/search.html |
By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 21, 2002; Page F01
In the control tower at Washington National Airport,
Ed Nugent saw seven pale violet blips on his radar
screen. What were they? Not planes -- at least not any
planes that were supposed to be there.
He summoned his boss, Harry G. Barnes, the head of
National's air traffic controllers. "Here's a fleet of
flying saucers for you," Nugent said, half-joking.
Upstairs, in the tower's glass-enclosed top floor,
controller Joe Zacko saw a strange blip streaking
across his radar screen. It wasn't a bird. It wasn't a
plane. What was it? He looked out the window and
spotted a bright light hovering in the sky. He turned
to his partner, Howard Cocklin, who was sitting three
feet away.
"Look at that bright light," Zacko said. "If you
believe in flying saucers, that could sure be one."
And then the light took off, zooming away at an
incredible speed.
"Did you see that?" Cocklin remembers saying. "What
the hell was that?"
It was Saturday night, July 19, 1952 -- 50 years ago
this weekend -- one of the most famous dates in the
bizarre history of UFOs. Before the night was over, a
pilot reported seeing unexplained objects, radar at
two local Air Force bases -- Andrews and Bolling --
picked up the UFOs, and two Air Force F-94 jets
streaked over Washington, searching for flying
saucers.
Then, a week later, it happened all over again -- more
UFOs on the radar screen, more jets scrambled over
Washington. Across America, the story of jets chasing
UFOs over the White House knocked the Korean War and
the presidential campaign off the front pages of
newspapers.
"'Saucer' Outran Jet, Pilot Reveals,"
read the banner headline in The Washington Post.
"JETS CHASE D.C. SKY GHOSTS,"
screamed the New York Daily News.
"AERIAL WHATZITS BUZZ D.C. AGAIN!"
shouted the Washington Daily News.
As rumors spread, President Truman demanded to know
what was flying over his house. Soon the federal
government was fighting the UFOs with the most
powerful weapons in the Washington arsenal --
bureaucracy, obfuscation and gobbledygook.
That seemed to work. The UFOs never returned. At
least, not that we know of.
As Big as Life
In a way, this whole strange episode began with
Marilyn Monroe.
The actress appeared on the cover of Life magazine's
April 7, 1952, issue, looking sultry in a diaphanous,
low-cut dress, her eyelids drooping seductively. It
was the kind of cover that attracts attention. And
just above Monroe's left shoulder was a cover line
touting a different story:
"There Is a Case for Interplanetary
Saucers."
The article was titled "Have We Visitors From Outer
Space?" It reviewed 10 recent UFO sightings and
concluded that they could not be written off as
hallucinations, hoaxes or earthly aircraft. An unnamed
Air Force intelligence officer was quoted saying, "The
higher you go in the Air Force, the more seriously
they take the flying saucers."
The story ended with a series of questions that sound
like something Rod Serling might intone at the end of
a "Twilight Zone" episode:
"Who, or what, is aboard? Where do they come from? Why
are they here? What are the intentions of the beings
who control them?"
It wasn't the first media account of UFOs -- there had
been lots of publicity since several well-known
sightings in 1947, including one in Roswell, N.M. --
but the Life article marked the first time that a
trusted, mainstream magazine had given credence to the
theory that UFOs might be alien spacecraft.
The Life story was big news, covered in more than 350
newspapers across America. Soon, the number of UFO
sightings reported to the Air Force skyrocketed --
from 23 in March, before Life's article appeared, to
82 in April, 79 in May, 148 in June.
Were these increases due to saucers swarming over
America? Or did Life's story make Americans more
likely to report strange things they saw in the sky?
By mid-July, Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt -- the head of
Project Blue Book, the Air Force's official UFO study
team -- was getting 40 reports of UFO sightings a day.
Many were bogus but some came from pilots and other
respectable citizens, and Ruppelt took them seriously.
Then -- a few days before the first sightings at
National Airport -- Ruppelt interviewed a government
scientist who made a startling prediction that Ruppelt
recorded in his 1956 memoir, "The Report on
Unidentified Flying Objects."
"Within the next few days," the unidentified scientist
said, banging his hand on his desk for emphasis,
"you're going to have the granddaddy of all UFO
sightings. The sighting will occur in Washington or
New York -- probably Washington."
'Falling Stars Without Tails'
The blips first appeared on radar screens at National
at 11:40 that Saturday night -- seven unidentified
targets about 15 miles southeast of the city.
It was a clear, hot, humid night with very little air
traffic, and the controllers at National watched the
strange blips amble across their screens. They'd
cruise at a leisurely rate of about 100 to 130 miles
per hour, then abruptly zoom off in an extraordinary
burst of speed.
"They acted like a bunch of small kids out playing,"
Barnes, the head controller, wrote a few days later in
a piece for a New York newspaper. "It was
helter-skelter, as if directed by some innate
curiosity. At times, they moved as a group or cluster,
at other times as individuals."
Barnes called his counterparts at Andrews and Bolling
to ask if they saw anything unusual on their radar
screens. They did. They were getting blips in the same
places.
At Andrews, controller William Brady looked out the
control tower window and saw what looked like "an
orange ball of fire, trailing a tail." It was, he
later told Air Force investigators, "unlike anything I
had ever seen before."
At National, Cocklin looked out his window and saw
what he recalls as a "whitish blue light" that
emanated from a solid object that was "round with no
distinguishing marks such as wings or a nose or a
tail." It looked, he says, "like a saucer."
Sometime after 1 a.m, National's control tower radioed
Capital Air Flight 807, from Washington to Detroit,
and asked the pilot if he saw any unusual objects.
Captain S.C. "Casey" Pierman, a pilot with 17 years of
experience, radioed back: "There's one -- and there it
goes."
For the next 14 minutes, as he flew between Herndon
and Martinsburg, W.Va., Pierman saw six bright lights
that streaked across the sky at tremendous speed.
"They were," he said, "like falling stars without
tails."
Watching the radar blips flying over the Capitol and
the White House, Barnes called the Air Force to report
unidentified aircraft in restricted air space. But it
was very late on a Saturday night and the Air Force
bureaucracy responded sluggishly. By the time F-94
interceptor jets left New Castle Air Force Base in
Delaware -- the runways at Andrews were closed for
repairs -- it was after 3 a.m.
When the F-94s soared over Washington, the strange
blips disappeared from the radar screens at National.
The F-94 pilots cruised around the area for a while
but saw nothing. When they headed back to New Castle,
the blips reappeared.
The controllers watched the UFOs flit across their
screens until dawn, then disappear.
Trying to Clear the Air
Nobody bothered to call Ruppelt about the sightings.
When he flew to Washington a couple of days later on
unrelated Project Blue Book business, he learned about
them by reading newspapers at the airport.
"Radar Spots Air Mystery Objects Here," read
the headline on the front page of The Washington Post.
"Air Force 'Saucer' Expert Will Probe Sightings
Here," said the Washington Daily News.
Ruppelt asked his colleagues who the expert was. You
are, they told him.
At the Pentagon, Ruppelt found the Air Force brass
deeply concerned about one particular aspect of the
sightings: What should they tell the press?
Nobody had any idea what -- if anything -- had been in
the air over Washington on July 19, but the newspapers
were demanding answers. Reporters, Ruppelt wrote,
"were now beginning to put on a squeeze by threatening
to call congressmen -- and nothing chills blood faster
in the military."
Ruppelt volunteered to stay overnight to interview the
controllers at National and Andrews, then report what
he learned to the press. But Ruppelt got entangled in
the thicket of military bureaucracy.
He called the Pentagon's transportation section to get
a car so he could travel to the various airports. Only
colonels and generals can get cars, he was told. He
called two generals, but it was after 4 p.m. and they
were gone for the day.
He went to the finance office to get permission to
rent a car. Take a bus, the woman there told him. It
takes a lot of buses to go from the Pentagon to
National to Andrews, he replied. Take a cab, she said,
and pay for it out of your per diem. But his per diem
was $9, he said, and he had to pay for food and
lodging.
The woman then informed Ruppelt that his orders were
to fly back to Ohio that night, and unless he got
those orders amended, he'd technically be AWOL. He
asked to talk to her boss. He'd left at 4:30 to avoid
traffic, she said, and now it was 5 and she was
leaving, too.
Ruppelt gave up. "I decided that if flying saucers
were buzzing Pennsylvania Avenue, I couldn't care
less," he wrote. "I caught the next airliner to
Dayton."
A Return Engagement
About 10 o'clock Saturday night, July 26, Ruppelt was
at home in Dayton when a reporter called to say that
UFOs were back in the sky over Washington.
What, the reporter asked, did the Air Force plan to do
about it?
"I have no idea what the Air Force is doing," Ruppelt
replied. "In all probability, it's doing nothing."
He hung up, then called the Pentagon and learned that
he was right: The Air Force was doing nothing. He made
more calls, dispatching two officers -- Maj. Dewey
Fournet and Lt. John Holcomb, a radar expert -- to
National's control tower to see what was happening.
Fournet and Holcomb arrived to find National's
controllers tracking a dozen unexplained blips. An Air
Force B-25 happened to be passing through the area, so
the controllers asked it to check out some of the
radar targets. The B-25 went to one site and spotted
nothing except a tourist boat cruising the Potomac.
Perhaps, the controllers surmised, a temperature
inversion -- a layer of hot air between two layers of
colder air in the sky -- had bent the radar beam,
causing it to mistake objects on the ground for things
in the air. Temperature inversions were common in
Washington on hot days, and the controllers were
familiar with the phenomenon.
But Fournet and Holcomb were convinced that some of
the radar blips were solid metal objects, not
inversion-induced mirages. Radar operators at Andrews
saw them, too. And civilian planes flying into
Washington reported seeing strange glowing objects in
places where the radar was getting blips.
The controllers called for interceptors, and about 11
p.m. the Air Force dispatched F-94s to search the sky
over Washington. When the first jets arrived, the
blips disappeared from National's radar screens and
the F-94 pilots saw nothing unusual. But when they
returned to New Castle, the blips returned to the
radar screens.
About 1:30 a.m., the jets soared back over Washington.
This time, pilots saw several strange lights. One
pilot gave chase but he couldn't catch the streaking
light.
"I tried to make contact with the bogies below 1,000
feet," pilot William Patterson told investigators. "I
was at my maximum speed but... I ceased chasing them
because I saw no chance of overtaking them."
Trading on Hot Air
On Monday morning, the story of UFOs outrunning
fighter planes was splashed across front pages all
over America. In Iowa, the headline in the Cedar
Rapids Gazette read like something out of a sci-fi
flick: "SAUCERS SWARM OVER CAPITAL."
"We have no evidence they are flying saucers," an
unidentified Air Force source told reporters.
"Conversely we have no evidence they are not flying
saucers. We don't know what they are."
In the absence of hard information, the Washington
Daily News printed a roundup of rumors. The "most
persistent rumor" was that the saucers were American
aircraft secretly produced by Boeing "at some remote
site." An "absolutely weird" rumor was that the
saucers were alien aircraft that had crashed and then
been repaired and flown by the Air Force.
That Monday, the Air Force tried to reassure the
nation by promising to keep jet fighters poised to
chase the saucers at a moment's notice. But that
statement didn't reassure Robert L. Farnsworth,
president of the United States Rocket Society, who
warned President Truman not to attack the UFOs.
"Should they be extra-terrestrial, such actions might
result in the gravest consequences, as well as
possibly alienating us from beings of far superior
powers," Farnsworth telegraphed Truman. "Friendly
contact should be sought as long as possible."
Truman was as baffled as everyone else. He asked his
Air Force aide, Brig. Gen. Robert B. Landry, to find
out what the UFOs were. On Tuesday morning, Landry
called Ruppelt, who'd flown back to the Pentagon.
Ruppelt said the sightings might be weather-related
mirages but he didn't really know.
Nobody knew, not even Maj. Gen. John Samford, the Air
Force's director of intelligence. But Samford called a
press conference at the Pentagon at 4 o'clock Tuesday
afternoon. It was the largest Pentagon press
conference since World War II, Ruppelt wrote, and
Samford's performance proved to be a brilliant
demonstration of the art of bureaucratic balderdash.
He arrived in Room 3E-869 precisely at 4, accompanied
by Ruppelt and several other officials. He opened with
a rambling monologue on the history of UFOs, which, he
noted, dated "to biblical times." He mentioned UFO
sightings in 1846 but never got around to the UFO
sightings of 1952.
When reporters asked about the Washington sightings,
Samford told a story about radar picking up a flock of
ducks in Japan in 1950. When they asked if radar at
National and Andrews had seen the same blips
simultaneously, he speculated about the definition of
the word "simultaneously." When they asked if the UFOs
could be material objects, he mused about the
definition of the word "material." When they asked if
the F-94 pilot who chased the strange light was a
qualified observer, he wondered about the meaning of
the word "qualified."
Speaking about what that pilot saw, Samford uttered a
sentence that ought to have a place in the
Bureaucratic Gibberish Hall of Fame: "That very likely
is one that sits apart and says insufficient
measurement, insufficient association with other
things, insufficient association with other
probabilities for it to do any more than to join that
group of sightings that we still hold in front of us
as saying no."
Along the way, Samford mentioned the "temperature
inversion" theory -- that a layer of hot air in the
sky might have caused radar to mistake things on the
ground for flying objects. First, he said it was a
"possibility." Later, he said it was "about a 50-50
proposition." Then he said it was a "probable"
explanation.
He talked until 5:20, then the reporters dashed back
to their offices to meet their deadlines. Sifting
through notebooks full of gobbledygook, they seized on
temperature inversion. It was an irresistible concept
for newspapermen. The UFOs, they wrote, were caused by
Washington's famous "hot air."
Ruppelt was amazed. Samford hadn't really explained
anything, but whatever he had done, it worked.
"Somehow," Ruppelt wrote, "out of this chaotic
situation came exactly the result that was intended --
the press got off our backs."
When newspapers stopped writing about the UFOs, people
stopped reporting UFOs. "Reports dropped from 50 per
day to 10 a day within a week," Ruppelt noted.
And the UFOs never returned to the sky over
Washington. Perhaps they'd seen enough.
The Arguments Still Fly
Sitting at his desk, wearing blue pajamas and a gray
bathrobe, Philip J. Klass holds up a government report
and smiles mischievously. "I will let you borrow
it," he says, "provided that you provide one testicle
as security."
The report is called "A Preliminary Study of
Unidentified Targets Observed on Air Traffic Control
Radars." Not many people would trade a testicle for
it.
The report was issued by the Civil Aeronautics
Administration in 1953, shortly after Klass began
writing for Aviation Week. He's still writing for that
magazine, but not often these days because he is 82
and ailing.
"The gist of the report," he says, "is that the
Washington sightings were temperature inversions."
He wrote about the report in Aviation Week in 1953.
That began his career as America's most prominent UFO
debunker. Over the past 49 years, he's written five
books on UFOs and engaged in countless debates with
UFO believers. He can cite evidence and quote reports
all day long, but he seems to prefer rattling off
one-liners.
He says: "If there are UFOs and they want to make
themselves known, land! And if they don't want to make
their visits known, turn off the lights!"
He says: "If UFOs are abducting people, why do they
choose only ugly people? If they abducted Olympic
athletes, I could understand."
Bruce Maccabee isn't laughing. "One thing you have to
understand: This is serious business," he says. "The
skeptics like to make fun of us."
Maccabee, 60, is a civilian physicist for the Navy and
a prominent UFO believer. In the '70s, he filed the
Freedom of Information Act request that led to the
release of the FBI's file on UFOs. The file was called
"Security Matter X" -- "the real X-Files," he says.
Maccabee believes there were "solid objects" in the
air over Washington 50 years ago. "And I think those
solid objects were not made by us," he says. "And by
us, I mean human beings."
Like Klass, Maccabee buttresses his argument with an
official government report. It's called "Quantitative
Aspects of Mirages" and it was issued by the Air Force
in 1969.
"They proved in their own study that there wasn't
enough temperature inversion to cause this effect," he
says. "The Washington sightings cannot be explained as
a radar mirage."
After 50 years, the debate over the Washington UFOs
goes on and on.
"You have dueling experts and dueling reports," says
Kevin D. Randle, author of "Invasion Washington: UFOs
Over the Capitol," a new book on the 1952 sightings.
"One expert says it was temperature inversion. Another
says it wasn't. In that situation, you have to refer
back to the air traffic controllers and the pilots who
actually saw the objects."
Former controller Howard Cocklin is still convinced
that he saw an object over National that night. "I saw
it on the screen and out the window," he says. "It was
a whitish-blue object. Not a light -- a solid form. An
object. A saucer-shaped object."
Now 83 and retired, Cocklin says he never saw anything
like that saucer -- not before, not since.
"It just went away," he says, sitting in an armchair
in his Fairfax living room. "Where did it go? Why
don't people see these things today? Why 50 years
ago?"
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
Thanks to Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31625-2002Jul19.html
2008: This article has been archived / moved to
purchase only availability:
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/search.html
---------------------------------------------
1952: A UFO OVER MICHIGAN
UFO ROUNDUP - Volume 5, Number 15
April 13, 2000. Editor: Joseph Trainor
http://ufoinfo.com/roundup/v05/rnd05_15.shtml
Here's an entry from Project Blue Book, one of the
most detailed UFO sightings of the 1950s.
"On Sunday night, April 27 (1952), my wife, two
children and myself were proceeding home. My wife and
I both spotted a brilliant white object coming towards
us out of the sky from the northeast. It descended so
fast that by the time my wife could realise and state
that it was a flying saucer, it had descended to its
minimum height of a transport plane in flight."
"It stopped abruptly and rocked slightly, similar to a
rowboat in choppy water. It then settled at an
approximate thirty-degree angle and the brilliant
whiteness diminished as to what appeared to be window
lights."
"It sat in this exact position and spot for what was
approximately three or four minutes, making it very
easy for us to judge its size, shape, etc. We
estimated it to be about two miles north of us, and
three thousand feet high. The angle at which it rested
made it very easy for us to estimate its thickness and
diameter. It appeared to have two tiers of windows,
each about ten feet high, which resembled looking into
the playing section of a mouth organ (harmonica--J.T.)
The windows were all around the entire diameter,
making visible the round flatness. We estimate
conservatively that the diameter of the ship was at
least two hundred feet (60 meters)."
"After what seemed to me that they were getting their
bearings, they started drifting northwest towards the
city of Pontiac (Michigan), about one hundred miles
per hour (160 kilometres per hour) but they stopped
two or three times during the time of observation."
"At no time did it make a noise."
"Immediately, I realised that I should have witnesses
to this phenomenon, so I speeded west on Fifteen Mile
Road to a drive-in restaurant about a mile away. I ran
in and asked some young men if they would come out and
witness my experience. After persuasion, two of them
went out and were amazed, causing others to follow."
"By this time it had drifted at least five miles
northwest. At this point I called the Birmingham
(Michigan) police and asked them to alarm all the
airfields in this direction which they said they would
do."
"I returned to my car and continued to follow it,
driving west on Fifteen Mile Road. During the next
five minutes, the lights in the saucer went off and on
three times. The fourth time, the lights changed from
white to a brilliant yellow-orange, and by this time
we had reached the Grand Trunk Railroad station, a
half-mile from Birmingham. Thinking this experience
would make a good newspaper story, I stopped at the
railroad station and called the Detroit Times, telling
them my story thus far."
"After that, I again called the Birmingham police and
asked them if they had reported the incident as yet.
They said they were thinking about it, so I became
provoked and said I would call (the U.S. Air Force
base at) Selfridge Field myself., which I did. If
anyone ever got the 'brush,' I sure did..."
"During my telephone conversation, my wife had
convinced the station attendant and Railroad Express
(a forerunner of FedEx--J.T.) truck driver to observe
the spectacle. I secured the truck driver's name and
then proceeded west on Fifteen Mile Road and out about
seven miles due west, following the saucer as it
vanished from my vision over treetops in the general
direction of Flint (Michigan) at 11:15 p.m."
"I contacted the Detroit Times on Tuesday a.m. gave
them my complete story. Their reporter phoned
Selfridge Field and Radar Division and they both told
him that it was impossible for anything to be in the
air at that time because nothing was picked up by
radar, so naturally, the Times dropped the story."
(See the book The Hynek UFO Report by Dr. J. Allen
Hynek, Dell Books, New York, N.Y., 1977, pages 70 to
72.)
http://ufoinfo.com/roundup/v05/rnd05_15.shtml
UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 2000 by Masinaigan Productions,
all rights reserved. Readers may post news items from
UFO Roundup on their websites or in newsgroups
provided that they credit the newsletter and its
editor by name and list the date of issue in which the
item first appeared.
----------------------------------------
GEORGE ADAMSKI - 1 MAY 1952:
This craft is estimated to be approximately 1,300 feet
in length.
The small 'V' notch in the base is the portal for 7m
or 8m 'scout' craft.
--------------------------
BOLIVIA - 1952:
--------------------------
1952, United States,
Washington, D.C.
Perhaps the best documented UFO incident in history:
July 13. National Airlines plane en route to National
Airport, about 60 mi. SW of the city observed a blue-
white ball of light hovering to the west. Object then
"came up to 11,000 ft. and then maintained a parallel
course, on the same level, at the same speed, until
the aircraft pilot turned on all lights. Object then
departed from the vicinity at an estimated 1000 mph.
Weather was excellent for observation."
The crew said the object "took off up and away." No
other air traffic was reported in the area at the
time.
July 14. Newport News, Virginia: Southbound Pan
American Airways plane at 8,000 ft. nearing the
Norfolk, Virginia., area observed six glowing red,
circular objects approaching below the airliner;
objects flipped up on edge in unison and then sped
from behind and under the airliner and joined the
in-line formation, which "climbed in a graceful arc
above the altitude of the airliner." "Then the lights
blinked out one by one, though not in sequence." Next
day the crew was thoroughly interrogated and advised
that they already had seven other reports of red discs
moving at high speed and making sharp turns.
July 16. Hampton Roads, Virginia: A Government
aeronautical research engineer observed two amber-colored
lights approaching from the south at about 500 m.p.h.
These slowed and made a U-turn, revolved around each
other at a high rate of speed, then joined by two
other objects from different directions, the four sped
off to the south at about 500 m.p.h. "They moved
jerkily when moving slowly. Their ability to make
tight circling turns was amazing."
July 18. Washington, D. C. Radio station chief
engineer observed 6-7 bright orange discs moving in
single file. Each in turn veered sharply upward and
disappeared.
July 19. National Airport began picking up
unidentified targets on radar.
July 20. Herndon, Va. Capital Airlines flight from
National Airport called by control tower to check on
unidentified radar targets saw three objects, and
three more between there and Martinsburg, W. Va. "like
falling stars without tails [which] moved rapidly up,
down, and horizontally. Also hovered." Chief CAA air
traffic controller Harry Barnes later said in a
newspaper interview: "His [the pilot's] subsequent
description of the movement of the objects coincided
with the position of our pips [radar targets] at all
times while in our range.
July 20. Andrews AFB, Maryland, (Nr. Washington,
D.C.). Five witnesses visually observed three
reddish-orange objects moving erratically.
July 20. Capital Airlines flight incoming to National
Airport reported that an unidentified light followed
his airliner from the vicinity of Herndon, Virginia,
to within about 4 miles west of the airport, confirmed
on radar.
July 20. Additional unidentified targets appear on
radar at National Airport.
July 20. Air Force radar operators at Andrews AFB
weather tower tracked 10 UFOs for 15-20 minutes.
Objects approached runway, scattered, made sharp turns
and reversals of direction.
July 26. Sharp UFO targets on radar at National
Airport. Civilian pilots saw glowing white objects on
four occasions, including a United Airlines pilot near
Herndon, Va., and two CAA pilots over Maryland.
National Airlines pilot near Andrews AFB at 1700 ft.
saw a UFO "flying directly over the airliner."
July 26. Radar at National airport tracked a UFO on
radar ("big target"), confirmed by Andrews AFB radar.
July 26. Radar at National Airport tracked "solid
returns" of "four targets in rough line abreast," and
eight others scattered over the radarscope.
July 26. Andrews AFB, Md., surveillance radar tracked
10-12 UFOs in Washington, D.C. area.
July 26. National Airport, 10-12 objects on radar.
July 26. "Good sharp targets" of 4-8 UFOs on ARTC
radar at National Airport.
July 26. Air Force Command Post notified of
unidentified radar targets. Two F-94 jet interceptors
scrambled from New Castle AFB, Delaware, to
investigate.
July 27. Major Fournet, (Project Blue Book Officer in
Pentagon), and Lt. Holcomb, (Navy electronics expert),
arrived at National Airport Center. Observed "7 good,
solid targets." Holcomb checked on temperature
inversions, but they were minor and could not explain
what was going on. He so advised AF Command Post,
requesting interception mission. By the time the F-94
jets arrived from Delaware, no strong unidentified
targets remained and no visual contacts were made.
July 27. F-94 jet interceptors scrambled from New
Castle AFB, Del., to investigate Washington, D.C.,
radar- UFOs. One F-94 pilot made visual contact and
appeared to be gaining on target; both F-94 and UFO
were observed on radar and "appeared to be traveling
at the same approximate speed." When the F-94 pilot
tried to overtake the UFO, it disappeared visually and
on radar. The pilot remarked about the "incredible
speed of the object."
July 27. Air Force Lieutenant at Andrews AFB saw a
dark disc moving slowly northeast with "oscillating
rolling motion." Clouds were moving southeast. UFO
entered base of clouds.
July 27. Air Force personnel and others at National
Airport saw a large round object reflecting sunlight,
apparently hovering over the Capital Building. After
about a minute, the object "wavered then shot straight
up disappearing from sight."
July 28. Daily papers headlined a United Press story
from Washington, D.C., that the Air Defence Command
had ordered its jet pilots to pursue, and if necessary
"shoot down, " UFOs sighted anywhere in the country.
July 29. Many unidentified targets tracked by CAA
radar, 8-12 on the radarscope at a time, moving
southeast in a belt 15 miles wide near Washington,
D.C.
July 29. Eastern Airlines pilot asked to check on
radar targets, reported seeing nothing. CAA official
said the targets disappeared from the radar screen
when the plane was in their area, "then came back in
behind him."
July 29. Air Force pilot sighted three round white
UFOs 10 miles southeast of Andrews AFB. Other UFOs
tracked by radar during the afternoon.
July 29. Air Force press conference at which the
sightings were attributed to temperature inversions
causing "radar mirages," typically ground lights
reflected in the sky under freak atmospheric
conditions. Also announced new scientific program to
evaluate sightings.
----------------------
OTHER 1952 SIGHTINGS
[World-Action: I'm not sure where I copied this
information
from, probably from
http://www.nationalufocenter.com ]
1952 W. Gordon Graham, astronomer saw an UFO "like a
smoke ring, elliptical in shape, and having two bright
pinpoints of light along its main axis move overhead
from west to east.
1952 James Bartlett, astronomer saw during the
daylight observation of Venus a flight of two disks
with a diameter about 30 minutes of arc; passed
overhead and turned east, followed by two more disks
with dome-like protrusions in center.
1952 Texas, Temple: Grey-white discs changed position
within formation continually, tilted in unison every
15 seconds during a 4 minute sighting on April 6.
1952 Arizona, Tucson: On May 1, a base intelligence
officer at Davis-Monthan AFB, Major Rudy Pestalozzi,
along with an airman, looked up as a B-36 flew
overhead and saw two shiny discs overtake the bomber,
slow to its speed and position themselves alongside.
1952 New Jersey, Passiac: Mr. George J. Stock, in the
yard working on his lawn-mower, around 4:30pm, took a
picture of an unidentified flying object with his box
reflex camera. It was coming directly over his house
from the IT&T tower, and was estimated to be 20 to
25ft above the ground.
1952 Oklahoma, Enid: Sidney Eubank went to the Enid
police station and told Sergeant Vern Bennell that an
enormous disk had buzzed his car as he drove between
Bison and Waukonis on Highway 81. The rush of air made
the car leave the road while the object flew west very
fast.
1952 United States, George AFB, California. Three men
on the arms range, plus one Lt. Colonel 4 miles away
witnessed five flat-white discs about the diameter of
a C-47's wingspan (95') flew fast, made a 90^ turn in
a formation of three in front and two behind, and
darted around, for 15-30 seconds.
1952 United States, Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma State
Patrolman Hamilton in a State Patrol airplane
witnessed three dark discs hovered and then flew away,
silhouetted against a dark cloud. 15 seconds.
1952 United States, Wichita Falls, Texas.: Mr. and
Mrs. Adrian Ellis. witnessed two disc-shaped objects,
illuminated by a phosphorus light, flew at an
estimated l,000 m.p.h. for 15 seconds.
1952 Peru, Puerto Maldonado: On July 19, the attention
of Customs Inspector Sr. Domingo Troncoso, on the
jungle frontier with Bolivia, was called to a very
strange cigar-shaped flying object over the river
area. The big dirigible-shaped craft was flying
horizontally and fairly low in the sky, passing from
right to left from the observers position. It was
leaving a dense trail of thick smoke, vapor, or
substance on its wake. This object was a real,
structured, physical machine and may be seen from its
reflection in the waters of the Madre de Dios river
underneath it. The object was estimated to be over a
hundred feet long.
1952 Argentina, Veronica. Hundreds of residents
witnessed six discs circling above the town, the
disappearing into the night sky. This sighting was
written within hours of a similar report from Captain
Paul Carpenter near Denver. Carpenter reported the
craft were traveling at 3,000 miles per hour, making
it possible for the saucer to have appeared in both
locations.
1952 Florida, West Palm Beach: Scoutmaster J. D.
Desverges told of having his arm singed by the blast
of a UFO near West Palm Beach, Florida.
Desverges, a hardware salesman, scoutmaster, and
former marine, said that he not only sighted a flying
saucer but came so close to one that the hair on his
forearm was singed. He was 30 years old then. He said
he was "blasted" by a "ball of fire" from the object
when he investigated flashes of light near a country
road.
...... ...... ......
THE 100TH MONKEY
PHENOMENON
Sightings in Scotland
2006 to 2008
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