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Case · C-011

Washington, July 1952: radar targets and lights over the capital

Washington (National Airport) and Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland · United States · Jul 19, 1952 – Jul 27, 1952

In flight Mixed witness types Radar

Disputed explanation

What happened
On the nights of July 19–20 and 26–27, 1952, the radars of Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base recorded unidentified targets, in part associated with lights seen by controllers and airline pilots; F-94 fighters that took off from New Castle Air Force Base (Delaware) found nothing or saw lights they could not reach. The case, which made the front pages, led the CIA to create an internal study group and contributed to the convening of the Robertson panel of January 1953.
Proposed explanation
At the July 29 press conference General John Samford, flanked by Roger Ramey, attributed the radar echoes to temperature inversions and the lights to stars and meteors; a technical study by the Civil Aeronautics Administration found an inversion in nearly all the reported cases, a conclusion supported by Donald Menzel and Philip Klass. According to Ruppelt, controllers and radar personnel did not accept the explanation; the physicist Bruce Maccabee maintains that a 1969 Air Force study found inversions too weak to produce the effect.
Official investigation
U.S. Air Force (Project Blue Book), Civil Aeronautics Administration, CIA (Office of Scientific Intelligence)
Words of the document
radar scopes at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base tracked mysterious blips

Official documents

  1. CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 (Gerald K. Haines, Studies in Intelligence) · CIA – Center for the Study of Intelligence (FAS copy) · 1997
  2. Appendix I to Project Blue Book Status Report No. 8 – frequenza delle segnalazioni, giugno–settembre 1952 (NAID 595542) · U.S. Air Force – Project Blue Book (National Archives) · 1952

Sources

  1. Wikipedia – 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident (other)
  2. The Washington Post (via The Seattle Times), Peter Carlson – the UFOs over Washington 50 years later (2002) (press)

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