The Washington, DC UFO Wave
Date: July 1952
Location: Washington, DC, United States
In the summer of 1952, one of the most publicized UFO sightings took place in the capital of the United States, Washington, DC. For two weeks, reports of strange lights in the sky were made by numerous individuals, including high-level officials. The sightings were given so much attention by the media that President Harry S. Truman himself had contacted Edward Ruppelt, the head of Project Blue Book, to inquire into what the mysterious lights were.
The first wave of sightings started on July 19, 1952. At 23:40, Edward Nugent, an air traffic control operator who worked at the Washington National Airport, noticed seven unidentified objects on radar. The objects were fifteen miles south of the city and there were no aircraft in the vicinity at the time. The unidentified objects were also not following a preestablished flightpath, which is necessary for every aircraft when it enters a country’s airspace. Nugent immediately informed his superior, Harry Barnes, who was the senior air-traffic control operator on duty. Barnes observed the objects and noticed bizarre characteristics that were dissimilar to conventional aircraft. From the get-go, Barnes knew that whatever these seven objects were, they certainly were not a conventional or military aircraft.
“We knew immediately that a very strange situation existed,” Barnes said. “Their movements were completely radical compared to those of an ordinary aircraft.” 28
Before contacting the air force, Barnes checked whether it could have been the case that Nugent’s radar had in some way malfunctioned. When contacting the Washington National Airport’s radar-equipped tower, Howard Cocklin and Joe Zacko, two of the radio operators working there, confirmed that this was not a glitch. They, too, had been tracking the seven objects on their radar, and they had also made visual contact with the objects. Outside the tower’s windows, Cocklin and Zacko had seen a bright white light in the sky that proceeded to accelerate at a rapid speed and disappear.
The mysterious light was also observed by S. C. Pierman, a Capital Airlines pilot, who was awaiting approval to take off from Dulles International Airport. Pierman had been waiting for take-off approval for several minutes, but it was delayed as the radio control operators ha informed him that there was an unidentified aircraft flying above the runway. Outside the cockpit windows, Pierman noticed “white, tailless, fast moving lights” that were flying above the runway.29 The shape, color and speed of the aircraft seemed to be something out of a science fiction movie. Throughout Pierman’s sighting, he was in contact with Barnes who was tracking the objects on the radar. The second that the objects disappeared from the sky, Barnes noted that they had disappeared off the radar scope too.
It was now time for Barnes to forward the report to the air force. He contacted Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, informing them of the situation. Barnes notified them that two separate radars had been tracking several unidentified objects and that visual contact had been made by three individuals. William Brady, the radio control officer at the Air Force Base, had also seen the lights in the sky. For the next two hours the unidentified lights remained visible in the Washington sky. Brady described the phenomenon as an “object that appeared to be like an orange ball of fire.” 30
Throughout the two hours, more high-level officials had seen the lights, one of them being Sergeant Charles Davenport. At around 02:00, Davenport reported seeing a bright light traveling at a very high speed, carrying out erratic maneuvers, such as moving from side-to-side. At one point in the encounter, Davenport noted that next to the main bright light was a secondary silver-colored object, which was carrying out similar erratic maneuvers before it accelerated at an incredible speed. The main bright light followed shortly thereafter and the two lights had disappeared out of the sky.
It was around 03:00, over three hours after the initial sighting, when an F-94 military jet was scrambled from New Castle Air Force Base. The pilot was instructed to patrol the sky and pursue the lights if they had reappeared. Just like the previous UFO cases, the second the fighter-jet took off from the base, the targets disappeared off the radar.
The UFOs returned to the Washington sky the following week-end, making it even more eventful than the previous one. On July 26, 1952, an unnamed pilot, flying a National Airlines aircraft, was flying over the capital, when at around 20:15 he observed a number of bright lights outside the cockpit window, flying at a higher altitude than the aircraft. The objects also showed up on the airborne radar as well as the radar at Andrews Air Force Base. At the base, Sergeant Charles Cummings made visual contact with the UFOs that were moving significantly faster than a shooting star, however, they left no trails behind. On radar, the objects were travelling at roughly seven thousand miles per hour, and at approximately 23:30, two F-94 fighter-jets were scrambled from New Castle Air Force Base.
Captain John McHugo and Lieutnenant William Patterson were instructed to pursue the objects as they were flying toward the capital city. Patterson was able to make visual contact with four glowing white objects outside his cockpit window, and although he was tracking them on his radar, he was unable to lock-down with them. Interestingly enough, as Patterson was closing down the distance, the objects responded and surrounded his fighter-jet, two on each side. Speaking to the air traffic control operators, Patterson stated: “… they’re all around me. What should I do?” 31
His question was left unanswered; no one provided him with instructions. Each time the objects retreated from the fighter-jet and Patterson attempted to close down on them once again, they would surround his aircraft each time. Even though the objects were at an extremely close proximity, Patterson could not describe them in any other way except for bright glowing spheres. The cat-and-mouse chase was terminated after numerous minutes as it was evident that Patterson was clearly unable to identify them or pursue them. It was clear that the unidentified flying objects were the ones in control of the airspace.
The Air Force’s Explanation
National and international newspapers were covering the stories, each coming to their own conclusions, some claiming they were meteorites, others claiming they were alien aircraft. Everyone was waiting for an explanation, even President Truman himself, who had contacted Captain Edward Ruppelt.
The air force stated that the blips on the radar were caused by a temperature inversion, a phenomenon that occurs when a layer of warm air and a layer of moist air cover a layer of cool and dry air, causing blips to appear on radar. A press conference was also held on July 29 by Major General John Samford, the Director of Intelligence. During the press conference, Samford took questions and also gave a second possibility of what the lights could have been. Samford stated that the lights and the objects on radar could also have been a flock of birds, which radio control operators mistook for aircraft: “The radar screen has been picking up things for many years that, well, birds, a flock of ducks. I know there’s been one instance in which a flock of ducks was picked up and was intercepted and flown through as being an unidentified phenomenon.” 32
What is interesting about this press conference and the explanations given, is that on the same day, Gilbert Levy, the chief of the counterintelligence divisions of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, wrote a report about the wave of the UFO sightings. His report, which was released in 1975, stated that the air force did not know what the lights were and that the temperature inversion explanation was provided just to keep the public off the air force’s back. His report stated “The Director of Intelligence advises that no theory exists at the present time as to the origin of the objects and they are considered to be unexplained.” 33
On the same day, even the FBI asked the Air Force Intelligence for a debriefing session. N. W. Philcox, who was the FBI liaison officer, wrote in his report “[Commander Boyd] advised that it is not entirely impossible that the objects sighted may possibly be ships from another planet such as Mars. He advised that at the present time there is nothing to substantiate this theory, but the possibility is not being overlooked. He stated that Air Intelligence is fairly certain that these objects are not ships or missiles from another nation in this world. Commander Boyd advised that intense research is being carried on presently by Air Intelligence, and at the present time when credible reporting’s of sightings are received, the Air force is attempting in each instance to send up jet interceptor planes in order to obtain a better view of these objects. However, recent attempts in this regard have indicated that when the pilot in the jet approaches the object it invariably fades from view.” 34
Conclusion
In this case, the air force provided two explanations: one for the public and another for the security and intelligence wings of the United States government. The two explanations are vastly different. The one given to the public stated that the lights and radar targets were a result of a temperature inversion, whereas the one given to the security departments stated that the air force did not have an explanation as to what the phenomenon was, and it could have been the case that the UFOs were extraterrestrial in origin.
Many high-level officials, such as Barnes, did not accept the temperature inversion explanation. Those who had seen the objects with their own eyes knew that these objects were piloted by an intelligent being. The characteristics and maneuvers were unnatural and could not have been a natural phenomenon. Barnes said, “The UFOs were monitoring radio traffic and [behaved] accordingly since the objects disappeared as soon as the jets were scrambled.” 35
28. Jerome Clark, The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1998), 653.
29. Peter Carlson, “50 Year Ago, Unidentified Flying Objects from Way Beyond the Beltway Seized the Capital’s Imagination,” The Washington Post, June 21, 2002.
30. Carlson, “50 Years Ago.”
31. Dan Gilgoff, “Saucers Full of Secrets,” Washington City Paper, December 14, 2001, https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/13023374/saucers-full-of-secrets.
32. Press conference held by Major General John Samford, July 29, 1952.
33. Loren Gross, UFO’s: A History 1952: July 21st - July 31st (Fremont, CA: Privately published, 1986), 56.
34. N. W. Philcox, FBI Memorandum, 1952.
35. Clark, The UFO Book, 656.