On This Night in 1952 - "The Night of the Flying Saucers" - UFOs Hovered Over The White House
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On This Night in 1952 - "The Night of the Flying Saucers" - UFOs Hovered Over The White House
July 26th, 1952 - The Night that Extraterrestrials "Spooked" The President of the United States
On July 26th, 2023, a historic meeting, an Official US Congressional Hearing, was held in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC, revealing the reality of UFOs to the world public and opening the discussion to identify the source and origin of these mysterious spacecraft that have been visiting the Earth and intervening in human affairs openly at least since 1947.
What has been missed by most people regarding this Congressional Hearing on “Unidentified Aeriel Phenomena,” more popularly known an UFOs is the significance of the date chosen to hold the hearing.
July 26th -27, 1952 - “The Night of the Flying Saucers over D.C.”
On this night in 1952, the Capitol of the most powerful city on Earth was penetrated and National Security Air Space was breached by fleet of Flying Saucers.
Jet interceptors were scrambled and vectored to confront the UFOs. The UFOs eluded them and then came back, repeatedly, playing a “cat & mouse game” with the US Air Force throughout the night. At one point, UFOs outpaced the F-94 Starfires so quickly that one disheartened USAF “Starfire” pilot gave up the chase with a sense of futility.
Then a short time later, the UFOs returned quickly to surround one of the jets, leaving the pilot stressed and mystified by their close approach and their strange behavior.
The supurb video of the 1952 16 mm. DC UFO Flyover Film shown above was enhanced by Wilbur Allen using a secret film enhancement technique and can be accessed directly at UFODC.Com.
To see detailed photos of UFOs over Washington D.C. dating from 1952 through the present time, visit the UFO DC website . Click the link below to go directly to UFODC.COM:
Wilbur Allen's UFO DC -A Historic Chronicle OF UFOs Over the US Capitol
Cited below, drawn from Wikipedia and many other sources, including the writer’s memory, is a detiled, time marked report of the sequence of UFO activities and the Flying Saucer antics that went on that night over a cloudy Washington, DC., turning things topsy-turvy over the thermally inverted Capitol.
UFO: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956)
UFO: the True Story of Flying Saucers was produced by Clarence Greene with Russell Rouse and directed by Winston Jones with the full cooperation of the US Air Force.
Real people who were involved in these events appear as themselves in this historic film, including General John A. Samford, USAF Director of Intelligence, Capt. Edward Ruppelt, Director of Project Bluebook, Major Dewey Fournet, USAF liaison to Project Bluebook, airline pilot Captain Willis Sperry, National Airport ATC radar expert Wendell Swanson, US Navy Warrant Officer Delbert Newhouse, Mr. Nicholas Mariana (who were the first men to film UFOs in flight), and, significantly, with a cameo appearance by Major Donald Kehoe (USMC), Director of NICAP, who appears briefly in the segment depicting The Mantell Incident that took place over Fort Knox, Kentucky on January 7th, 1948.
NICAP was the National Investigative Committee on Aerial Phenonomena, composed primarily of US Navy, US Marine and US Army officers, including Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoeter (USN), Diretor of Central Intelligence (DCI) and first Director of the Cental Intelligence Agency, RADM Delmer S. Fahrney USN who was the former Chief of the US Navy's Guided Missile Program (Ret.), and Major Donald Keyhoe who became the principal spokesman for NICAP. General Albert Coady Wedemeyer representeed the US Army on the NICAP Board of Directors.
The attempt to intercept the UFO, which was observed loitering over Fort Knox at high altitude, was directed by and monitored from Godman Air Force Base on January 7th, 1948. A squadron of four (4) P-51 Mustangs were vectored by Godman Air Traffic Control (ATC) to intercept the UFO. The UFO chase resulted in the tragic death of Captain Thomas Mantell (USAF) who was a seasoned pilot and World War 2 fighter pilot with the US Army Air Forces in Europe.
UFO: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956)
All this was happening while Harry S. Truman was President and residing in the White House.
As President Harry Truman prepared for sleep that night, UFOs swarmed Washington, DC and …
The Events of the Night of July 26–27 Began to Unfold - The Night of the Flying Saucers
At 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, July 26, 1952, a pilot anda flight attendant on a National Airlines flight into Washington, D.C. observed and reported unusual lights above their air liner.
Within minutes, radar centers at both National Airport, and the radar control room at Andrews AFB, began tracking more unknown objects over the nation’s capital.
USAF Master Sergeant Charles E. Cummings visually observed the objects from Andrews AFB.
Master Sergeant Cummings later stated that "these lights did not have the characteristics of shooting stars. There was no trails . . . They traveled faster than any shooting star I have ever seen."
Meanwhile, Albert M. Chop, the Pentagon’s press spokesman for Project Blue Book, arrived at National Airport and, due to security concerns, denied several reporters' requests to photograph the radar screens. Chop then joined the radar center personnel.
By that time (9:30 p.m.) the radar centers were detecting unknown objects in every sector. At times the objects traveled slowly; at other times they reversed direction and moved across the radarscope at speeds calculated at 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 in Delaware arrived over Washington, DC.
Captain John McHugo, the flight leader, was vectored towards the radar blips but saw nothing, despite repeated attempts. However, his wingman, Lieutenant William Patterson, did see four white "glows" and chased them.
Lt. Patterson said to investigators that:
"I tried to make contact with the bogies below 1,000 feet" … "I was at my maximum speed, but I ceased chasing them because I saw no chance of overtaking them."
According to Albert Chop, when ground control asked Patterson "if he saw anything",
Patterson replied:
"'I see them now and they're all around me. What should I do?” But nobody answered, Al Chop recalled, “because we didn't know what to tell him."
After midnight on July 27, USAF Major Dewey Fournet, Project Blue Book's liaison at the Pentagon, and Lt. John Holcomb, a United States Navy radar specialist, arrived at the radar center at National Airport.
During the night, Lieutenant Holcomb received a call from the Washington National Weather Station.
They told him that a slight temperature inversion was present over the city, but Holcomb felt that the inversion was not "nearly strong enough to explain the 'good and solid' returns" on the radar scopes.
Major Dewey Fournet relayed that all those present in the radar room were convinced that the targets were most likely caused by solid metallic objects.
Major Fournet stated that there had been weather targets on the radar scope as well, but this was a common occurrence and the controllers "were paying no attention to them.".
Two more F-94s from New Castle Air Force Base were scrambled during the night.
One pilot saw nothing unusual; the other pilot saw a white light which "vanished" when he moved towards it. Civilian aircraft also reported glowing objects that corresponded to radar blips observed by Andrews AFB radar operators.
As on July 20, the UFO sightings and unknown Flying Saucer radar returns ended at sunrise.
White House Concerns and CIA Interest
The sightings of July 26–27 also made front-page headlines, and led President Harry Truman to have his US Air Force aide call Ruppelt and ask for an explanation of the sightings and unknown radar returns. Truman listened to the conversation between the two men on a separate phone, but the President did not ask questions himself.
Ruppelt, remembering the conversation he’d had with Captain James, told the President's assistant that the sightings might have been caused by a temperature inversion, in which a layer of warm, moist air covers a layer of cool, dry air closer to the ground.
This condition can cause radar signals to bend and give false returns. However, Ruppelt had not yet interviewed any of the witnesses or conducted a formal investigation.
Unbeknownst to Captain Ruppelt who was not present in the radar center, Major Dewey Fournet had dismissed that theory out of hand and like other radar experts in the National Airport radar center believed that the returns were coming from “sold metal objects.”.
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CIA historian Gerald Haines, in his 1997 history of the CIA's involvement with UFOs, also mentions Truman's concern.
"A massive buildup of sightings over the United States in 1952, especially in July,“ alarmed the Truman administration.
On 19 and 20 July, radar scopes at Washington National Airport and And
rews Air Force Base tracked mysterious blips.
On 27 July, the blips reappeared."
The CIA reacted to the 1952 wave of UFO reports by "forming a special study group within the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) and Office of Current Intelligence (OCI) to review the situation.
Edward Tauss reported for the group that most UFO sightings could be easily explained. Nonetheless, he recommended that the Central Intelligence Agency continue monitoring the problem. The CIA's concern with the issue would lead to the creation, in January 1953, of the Robertson Panel.
The Robertson Study Group: Note Werner Von Braun, seated front and center.
The Robertson Panel: UFOs and Ridicule
Above Top Secret: The Robertson Panel & Ridicule
The <Fake> US Air Force Explanation Given to President Truman
U.S. Air Force Major Generals John A. Samford, USAF Director of Intelligence, and Roger M. Ramey, USAF Director of Operations, held a well-attended press conference at the Pentagon on July 29, 1952.
In his opening comments, he noted that, out of the hundreds of UFO reports in recent years investigated by the Air Force, there was "a certain percentage of this volume of reports that have been made by credible observers of relatively incredible things" but that none of them posed any national security threat.
At the event, General Samford stated that the visual sightings over Washington could be explained as misidentified aerial phenomena such as stars or meteors, and unknown radar targets could be explained by temperature inversion, which was present in the air over Washington on both nights when the radar returns were reported.
In addition, even though Major Fournet and the radar experts at National Airport concluded that the radar returns on their scopes were from “solid metal objects,” Samford stated that the unknown radar contacts were not caused by solid material objects, and therefore posed no threat to national security!
In response to a question as to whether the Air Force had recorded similar UFO radar contacts prior to the Washington incident, Samford said that there had been "hundreds" of such contacts where Air Force fighter interceptions had taken place, but stated that they were all "fruitless".
General Samford’s public press conference on July 29th, 1952 was the largest Pentagon press briefing given since World war II.
Press stories called Samford and Ramey the U.S. Air Force's two top UFO experts.
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Transcript of USAF General John A. Samford's UFO Statement - July 27th, 1952
Original Video of USAF General John A. Samford July 27th, 1952 UFO Press Conference in Washington D.C:
“However, there have remained a percentage of this total, in the order of twenty per cent of the reports, that have come from credible observers of relatively incredible things. And because of those things not being possible for us to move along and associated with the kind of things that we've found can be associated with the bulk of these reports, we keep on being concerned about them.” - General John A. Samford.
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Editor’s note: General Samford stated that the objects posed no threat to national security, but then went on to state: …“we keep on being concerned about them.”
Here is an important question:
If, indeed, Flying Saucers posed “no threat to national security,” then why should “we keep on being concerned about them”?
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Written, Compiled & Edited by Robert D. Morningstar
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On This Night in 1952 - "The Night of the Flying Saucers" - UFOs Hovered Over The White House
I was born July 26 but 1967zzz
Good article Robert. There is much more to this story. Much more. https://robertstanley.substack.com/p/you-can-handle-the-truth