From the Archives: In 1952 UFOs over Washington D.C. made headlines

In the summer of 1952 a series of unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings were reported in Washington, D.C. On July 19 and 20 and again on July 27 radar scopes at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base tracked mysterious blips. When the Air Force sent some jets to investigate they found nothing.

The incidents made headlines across the country. The Pentagon later said the unknown radar blips were false images caused by temperature inversion.

Seventy years later, UFO sightings continue to fascinate the public, although most have similarly down-to-earth explanations.

From the Evening Tribune, Tuesday, July 29, 1952:

Can’t Explain Objects in Sky, Says Radar Expert

Editor’s Note — forty-eight hours of intensive investigation has failed to explain radar and visual observation of unidentified objects accompanied by brilliant white and colored lights on two successive week ends over Washington. The so-called saucers were seen on both Air Force and Civil Aeronautics Authority radarscopes. How the C.A.A. sightings were made is described in the following article by a civilian radar specialist.

By James M. Ritchey

Radar Specialist, Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center

WASHINGTON, July 20 (INS) — Until unidentified objects began moving onto our radarscopes, I thought people who reported “flying saucers” were just seeing things.

Now I don’t know what to think. I have talked to representatives of the Air Force, and they say they can’t explain the appearance of the flying objects.

Neither can we. all we can do is tell you what we saw on our instruments, and what the Air Force and commercial pilots reported when they tried to investigate.

It was 9:08 p.m. Saturday when the latest unidentified objects—we called them targets—moved onto our scopes from the northwest.

These objects were about 30 miles from the airport when we first made contact with them.

We spotted 12 objects, and judged that they were moving in a southeasterly direction at a speed of about 40 miles per hour. the Air force sent some jet planes up to investigate, and we helped “vector” the pilots toward the objects.

I should explain here that our radarscope is about two feet in diameter. When it showed a “plip” contact with a substance in the sky we placed a plastic marker on the spot.

The radar beam swings around in a great circle, and when it returns to the same area it will make another contact with the same object. If the object has moved, we move the marker, and after a number of repetitions we can determine the objects direction and approximate speed.

When we “vector” a plane onto the object, we are in radar contact with both the object and the plane, and also in radio contact with the pilot of the plane. We keep telling the pilot how to turn to approach the object until he makes a sighting.

The first jet pilot to go up Saturday night reported that he sighted a steady white light that appeared to be about 10 miles distant. When he tried to draw closer, the light disappeared.