1952.07.19
23.40
Hardly had the concerns about this this worrying case died away when radar screens all around the capital started to pick up UFOs.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
It was nearly midnight when staff of the Air Route Traffic Control (ARTC) at Washington National Airport noticed a formation of seven objects on the radar screen, at a position slightly southeast of Andrews Air Force Base. The objects seemed to be moving at approximately 100 – 130 miles (160 – 209 km) per hour and were therefore assumed to be a flight of ordinary small aircraft.
Suddenly two of the objects accelerated forward and off the screen at an amazing rate, later calculation indicated in excess of 7,000 miles (11,265 km) per hour, and at this point the radar monitor knew that he was not witnessing normal aircraft movements.
He called for his senior officer and together with two other experts they watched the remaining objects. A suggestion was made that the scope may not be functioning correctly but the technician examined it and agreed that it was in perfect working order.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
There were three systems in the area – the long-range set-up, which tracked aircraft passing through; the short-range radar at Washington airport tower, which dealt with local landings and take-offs; and a military installation just across the Potomac river into Virginia. All three recorded the objects that night, often simultaneously.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
ARTC called the control tower and a senior officer there confirmed that they were also watching the same unknowns on their radar screens and that they had had information from Andrews Air Force base that that military installation was monitoring the objects.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
At the same time, crews of several airliners in the area reported mysterious lights crossing their flightpaths. Eyewitnesses on the ground confirmed the sightings. Even the colours of the objects were agreed upon: orange, changing to green, to red.
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
As the senior radar controller, Harry Barnes, said in his report: “We knew immediately that a very strange situation existed.” Howard Cocklin, the radar controller in the tower at Washington Airport, looked out above the city as the blips rushed around the sky. He could see a big orange light right where one of the targets was indicated. A similar object like an orange ball of fire trailing a “tail” was reported by phone by an airman to Andrews Air Force Base; an officer at the base went outside and saw it too, “unlike anything I had ever seen before.”
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
The officer he spoke to stepped out of his office and saw it too, directly above him.
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
As [the airman] tried to bring others to watch it stopped dead, then shot off at an incredible speed and vanished.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
01.00
At one am a Capital Airline DC-4 piloted by Captain Casey Pierman was directed towards the intruders by radar control and spotted several lights in the sky.
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
Captain S “Casey” Pierman of Capital Airlines was flying Flight 807 from Washington to Detroit and sighted the seven objects between Washington and Martinsburg. He reported the objects as “like falling shooting stars without tails”.
Pierman observed the objects for some twelve minutes before they disappeared at remarkable speed and confirmed much of the detail of the radar reports. He said of the incident “in all my years of flying I’ve seen a lot of falling or shooting stars… But these were much faster than anything like that I’ve ever seen. They couldn’t have been aircraft… They were moving too fast for that.”
Pierman’s confirmation of the radar sightings is all the more impressive for his impartiality. He stated “Please remember I didn’t speak of them as flying saucers. Only very fast-moving lights.”
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
Panic set in when two of the objects broke away and began flying down the no-go zone over the White House while another hovered over the Capitol. Chief radar controller Harry Barnes decided to call Air Force high command…
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
The nearest military base was undergoing runway repairs and was out of action. Three calls were made to urge the Air Force to send some interceptors into the area.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
03.30
Government inactivity – or was it?
The radar and Air Force personnel were extremely puzzled by the slow response of the Government authorities, who took a very long time to do very little. Indeed, when the interceptor[s] from Delaware finally arrived, three hours into the affair, the UFOs had vanished – just minutes before, in fact. The jet[s] flew around Washington for a while, using up fuel and seeing nothing, then returned to base. Almost as soon as [they] left the area the UFOs returned to the radar screens!
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
Jet interceptors, delayed by an earlier investigation of UFOs over New Jersey, arrived at 3.30 am; the UFOs disappeared, then reappeared after the jets departed.
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
Senior air traffic controller Harry G Barnes at the ARTC made the observation that it seemed as though the UFOs were monitoring radio communication between ground and aircraft and were able to take appropriate action based on what they could hear.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
Later Barnes described the UFOs’ behaviour as “like a bunch of small kids out playing”.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
In the pre-dawn light further confirmation was approaching. A new blip had appeared on the ARTC radar screen above Andrews Air Force Base and tower personnel there, when notified, visually observed a large globular orange sphere hovering directly above them. ARTC called for Air Force interceptors which arrived too late; the objects had gone.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
The chaos went on until dawn. At least one of the strange objects was simultaneously tracked by two radar stations at Washington’s National airport and by a third at Maryland Airbase, three miles north of the city.
There were other sightings that night, too…