From July 12 to July 29, 1952, many people in Washington, D.C., reported seeing unidentified flying objects (UFOs). This event later became known as the Washington flap, the Washington National Airport Sightings, or the Invasion of Washington. The most widely reported sightings happened during two weekends: July 18–19 and July 26–27. UFO historian Curtis Peebles described the event as "the climax of the 1952 (UFO) flap," saying that "Never before or after did Project Blue Book and the Air Force experience such a large number of (UFO) reports." This event became one of the most well-known UFO sightings in history.
1952 UFO flap
The 1952 UFO flap was a time in the summer of 1952 when many people reported seeing unidentified flying objects, and the media paid a lot of attention to these sightings. Before this time, from 1948 to 1951, the US Air Force recorded 615 UFO reports. In 1952 alone, they received more than 717 new reports. Edward J. Ruppelt, who led Project Blue Book, later said that during six months in 1952, 148 major newspapers in the United States published over 16,000 articles about flying saucers.
On April 3, the Associated Press reported that Life magazine would soon publish an article about the Air Force’s serious study of flying saucers. In June, Look magazine included a story by Donald Howard Menzel, an astrophysicist, who suggested that flying saucers might be mirage-like effects caused by changes in air temperature. American newspapers also covered similar ideas from Ernest Esclangon, a French astronomer, who argued that flying saucer reports could not be from supersonic aircraft because no sonic booms were reported.
On April 7, Life magazine, which had Marilyn Monroe on its cover, published an article titled "Have We Visitors From Space?" The piece explored the possibility that flying saucer sightings might be caused by spaceships from other planets. This article is believed to have influenced the large number of UFO reports that followed during the summer of 1952.
Sightings over Washington, D.C.
At the time of the most reported UFO sightings, unidentified objects were seen over the nation's capital on two Saturday nights in a row.
At 11:40 p.m. on Saturday, July 19, 1952, Edward Nugent, an air traffic controller at Washington National Airport, saw seven objects on his radar. The objects were 15 miles (24 km) south-southwest of the city. No known planes were nearby, and the objects did not follow regular flight paths. Nugent’s supervisor, Harry Barnes, a senior air traffic controller, watched the objects on Nugent’s radar screen. He later wrote that the situation was unusual because the objects moved in ways that were completely different from regular airplanes.
Barnes had two other controllers check the radar. They confirmed the radar was working properly. Barnes then called the control tower at Washington National Airport, where controllers Howard Cocklin and Joe Zacko reported seeing unknown objects on their radar and a bright light hovering in the sky. The light moved away quickly. Cocklin asked Zacko, “Did you see that? What the hell was that?”
At this time, more objects appeared on the radar screen. When they moved over the White House and the United States Capitol, Barnes contacted Andrews Air Force Base, which was 10 miles (16 km) from the airport. Although Andrews reported no unusual objects on their radar, an airman later called the base’s control tower to say he saw a strange object. Airman William Brady, who was in the tower, described the object as looking like an orange ball of fire with a tail. He said it moved away at an extremely fast speed.
Meanwhile, S. C. Pierman, a pilot for Capital Airlines, was waiting in his plane’s cockpit on a runway at Washington National Airport. After seeing what he thought was a meteor, he was told by the control tower that radar had detected unknown objects near his plane. Pierman saw six objects—white, tailless, and fast-moving lights—for 14 minutes. He stayed in radio contact with Barnes during the sighting. Barnes later said that each time Pierman reported seeing a light move quickly, the radar showed the object disappearing.
At Andrews Air Force Base, control tower personnel tracked objects on their radar. Some thought the objects were stars or meteors, but others suspected they were something else. Staff Sergeant Charles Davenport saw an orange-red light to the south. The light would appear to stop, then suddenly change direction and altitude several times. At one point, radar centers at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base tracked an object hovering over a radio beacon. The object disappeared from all three radar centers at the same time.
At 3 a.m., shortly before two U.S. Air Force F-94 Starfire jet fighters from New Castle Air Force Base in Delaware arrived over Washington, all the objects vanished from the radar at Washington National Airport. However, when the jets ran low on fuel and left, the objects reappeared. This made Barnes believe the UFOs were monitoring radio traffic and responding to it. The objects were last detected by radar at 5:30 a.m.
The sightings on July 19–20, 1952, were reported on the front pages of newspapers across the country. A headline from the Cedar Rapids Gazette in Iowa read, “SAUCERS SWARM OVER CAPITAL” in large black type. At the same time, USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who led the Air Force’s Project Blue Book investigation into UFO sightings, was in Washington. He learned about the sightings only on Monday, July 21, when he read the headlines in a newspaper. After speaking with intelligence officers at the Pentagon, Ruppelt tried to get a staff car to investigate the sightings but was refused. He was told he could rent a taxi instead. Frustrated, he left Washington and returned to Project Blue Book’s headquarters at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. Upon returning, Ruppelt spoke with an Air Force radar specialist, Captain Roy James, who thought unusual weather conditions might have caused the unknown radar targets. On July 24, two Air Force colonels flew from Hamilton Air Force Base to Colorado Springs and reported seeing unidentified triangular objects.
At 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, July 26, 1952, a pilot and stewardess on a National Airlines flight saw lights above their plane. Soon after, radar centers at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base tracked more unknown objects. USAF master sergeant Charles E. Cummings saw the objects at Andrews Air Force Base. He later said the lights did not look like shooting stars. They had no trails and moved faster than any shooting star he had ever seen.
At the same time, Albert M. Chop, the press spokesman for Project Blue Book, arrived at Washington National Airport. Due to security concerns, he refused reporters’ requests to photograph the radar screens. He then joined the radar center personnel. By 9:30 p.m., the radar center was detecting unknown objects in every direction. Sometimes the objects moved slowly, and other times they reversed direction and traveled across the radar screen at speeds up to 7,000 mph (11,250 km/h). At 11:30 p.m., two U.S. Air Force F-94 Starfire jet fighters from New Castle Air Force Base arrived over Washington. The flight leader, Captain John McHugo, was directed toward the radar blips but saw nothing. His wingman, Lieutenant William Patterson, saw four white lights and chased them. He told investigators that he tried to reach the objects but could not overtake them. Albert Chop said that when ground control asked Patterson what he saw, Patterson replied, “I see them now and they’re all around me. What should I do?” No one answered because they did not know what to tell him.
After midnight on July 27, USAF Major Dewey Fournet, Project Blue Book’s liaison at the Pentagon, and Lieutenant John Holcomb, a U.S. Navy radar specialist, arrived at the radar center at Washington National Airport. During the night, Lieutenant Holcomb received a call from the Washington National Weather Station. They said a slight temperature inversion was present over the city, but Holcomb believed the inversion was not strong enough to explain the clear radar signals. Fournet said everyone in the radar room believed the targets were likely solid metal objects. He noted that weather-related radar signals were common and that controllers usually ignored them. Two more F-94s from New Castle Air Force Base were sent to investigate during the night. One pilot saw nothing unusual; the other saw a white light that vanished when he approached it. Civilian aircraft also reported glowing objects that matched radar blips seen by Andrews Air Force Base operators. As on July 20, the sightings and unknown radar returns ended at sunrise.
Air Force explanation
On July 29, 1952, Air Force Major Generals John Samford and Roger M. Ramey held a press conference at the Pentagon. Samford said that the Air Force had studied hundreds of UFO reports over the years. He explained that some reports came from people who saw unusual things, but none of them were a threat to national security. He said that the lights seen over Washington could be stars or meteors. He also said that radar signals showing unknown objects might be caused by a weather condition called temperature inversion, which was present in the air over Washington during the sightings. Samford added that these radar signals were not from solid objects, so they did not pose a threat. When asked if the Air Force had seen similar radar signals before, Samford said there had been many such cases, but none had led to any discoveries. This was the largest Pentagon press conference since World War II. News reports described Samford and Ramey as the Air Force’s top experts on UFOs.
A crew from a B-25 bomber flying over Washington during the sightings said they saw nothing unusual, even though radar at National Airport showed unknown targets. One crew member said the radar had picked up a steamboat traveling near Mount Vernon. Air Force Captain Harold May, who was at Andrews Air Force Base during the sightings, saw a light that changed colors and seemed to move up and down. He later said the light was likely a star distorted by the atmosphere, and its movement was an illusion. On July 27, an Eastern Airlines flight was told an object was near them, but the crew saw nothing. When they turned to look, the object disappeared from radar.
The Air Force asked the CAA’s Technical Development and Evaluation Center to study the radar sightings. Their report said temperature inversion was likely responsible for most of the radar signals and visual sightings. Project Blue Book later said the radar blips were false images caused by temperature inversion, and the visual sightings were misidentified stars, meteors, or city lights. Later, scientists Donald Menzel and Philip Klass supported the idea that temperature inversion could explain the sightings. Klass said radar technology in 1952 was not advanced enough to distinguish between ordinary objects, like birds or weather balloons, and real UFOs. He also said that improvements in radar technology in the 1970s reduced UFO sightings.
In 1965, UFO researcher Jacques Vallée wrote that the 1952 Washington incident was a poorly understood case that many researchers considered unimportant. In his book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, Edward J. Ruppelt said that some radar operators, control tower personnel, and Air Force officers disagreed with the Air Force’s explanation. In 1966, researcher Michael Wertheimer, who worked on the government-funded Condon Report, said that people who saw the radar signals still questioned the Air Force’s explanation. In 2002, former radar controller Howard Cocklin told the Washington Post that he still believed he saw an object, saying he saw it on the radar screen and out the window at Washington National Airport.
White House concern and CIA interest
The sightings on July 26–27 were reported in major newspapers and caught the attention of President Harry Truman. Truman asked his air force aide to contact Ruppelt and request an explanation for the sightings and unusual radar signals. Truman listened to the conversation between the aide and Ruppelt through a separate phone line but did not ask any questions. Ruppelt later told the president’s assistant that the sightings might have been caused by a temperature inversion, a weather condition where warm, moist air sits above cooler, drier air near the ground. This can cause radar signals to bend and create false readings. However, Ruppelt had not yet spoken to any witnesses or officially investigated the events.
In 1997, CIA historian Gerald Haines wrote about Truman’s concern over the 1952 UFO sightings. He noted that a large number of sightings in July 1952, especially on July 19–20, worried the Truman administration. Radar screens at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base detected strange signals during these dates, and similar signals appeared again on July 27. In response, the CIA created a special study group within the Office of Scientific Intelligence and Office of Current Intelligence to examine the situation. Edward Tauss, who worked on the group, reported that most UFO sightings had simple explanations. However, he advised the CIA to continue monitoring the issue. This concern led to the formation of the Robertson Panel in January 1953.
The Robertson Panel
In 1952, the very high number of UFO reports worried both the Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). These groups were concerned that an enemy country might intentionally overwhelm the United States with fake UFO reports, causing widespread fear and allowing a surprise attack. On September 24, 1952, the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) sent a letter to Walter B. Smith, the CIA's Director. The letter explained that the flying saucer situation had important implications for national security because public interest in UFOs could lead to widespread fear and panic. This letter led to the formation of the Robertson Panel in January 1953. Howard P. Robertson, a physicist, led the panel, which included other respected scientists. The panel spent four days reviewing the best UFO cases collected by Project Blue Book. The panel concluded that most of the UFO cases it studied were not unusual or a threat to national security. The panel also suggested that the Air Force and Project Blue Book should focus less on analyzing UFO reports and more on publicly explaining them. It recommended that the Air Force and Project Blue Book take steps to remove the special status and the mysterious image that UFOs had gained. After this recommendation, Project Blue Book rarely shared information about UFO cases that had not been labeled as "solved." Unexplained cases were rarely discussed by the Air Force.