UFO Sunday! Ever heard of the Washington Flap? The 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident, also known as the Washington flap, was a series of unidentified flying object reports from July 12 to July 29, over Washington, D.C. The most publicized sightings took place on consecutive weekends, July 19–20 and July 26–27. At 11:40 p.m. on Saturday, July 19, 1952, Edward Nugent, an air traffic controller at Washington National Airport spotted seven objects on his radar. The objects were located 15 miles (24 km) south-southwest of the city; no known aircraft were in the area and the objects were not following any established flight paths. Nugents superior, Harry Barnes, a senior air-traffic controller at the airport, watched the objects on Nugents radarscope. He later wrote: We knew immediately that a very strange situation existed . . . their movements were completely radical compared to those of ordinary aircraft. Barnes had two controllers check Nugents radar; they found that it was working normally. Barnes then called National Airports other radar center; the controller there, Howard Cocklin, told Barnes that he also had the objects on his radarscope. Furthermore, Cocklin said that by looking out of the control tower window he could see one of the objects, a bright orange light. I cant tell whats behind it. Airman William Brady, who was in the tower, then saw an object which appeared to be like an orange ball of fire, trailing a tail . . . [it was] unlike anything I had ever seen before. As Brady tried to alert the other personnel in the tower, the strange object took off at an unbelievable speed. Meanwhile, another person in the National Airport control tower reported seeing an orange disk about 3,000 feet altitude. On one of the airports runways, S.C. Pierman, a Capital Airlines pilot, was waiting in the cockpit of his DC-4 for permission to take off. After spotting what he believed to be a meteor, he was told that the control towers radar had picked up unknown objects closing in on his position. Pierman observed six objects — white, tailless, fast-moving lights — over a 14-minute period. The sightings of July 19–20, 1952, made front-page headlines in newspapers around the nation. A typical example was the headline from the Cedar Rapids Gazette in Iowa. It read SAUCERS SWARM OVER CAPITAL in large black type. By coincidence, USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the supervisor of the Air Forces Project Blue Book investigation into UFO sightings, was in Washington at the time. However, he did not learn about the sightings until Monday, July 21, when he read the headlines in a Washington-area newspaper. At 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, July 26, 1952, a pilot and stewardess on a National Airlines flight into Washington observed some strange lights above their plane. Within minutes, both radar centers at National Airport, and the radar at Andrews AFB, were tracking more unknown objects. A master sergeant at Andrews visually observed the objects; he later said that these lights did not have the characteristics of shooting stars. There was [sic] no trails . . . they traveled faster than any shooting star I have ever seen.At 11:30 p.m., two jet fighters from Newcastle AFB in Delaware arrived over Washington. Capt. John McHugo, the flight leader, was vectored towards the radar blips but saw nothing, despite repeated attempts. However, his wingman, Lt. William Patterson, did see four white glows and chased them. Suddenly, the glows appeared to turn and surround his fighter. Patterson asked the control tower at National Airport what he should do; according to Chop, the towers answer was stunned silence. According to Patterson, the four glows then sped away from his jet and disappeared. The sightings of July 26–27 also made front-page headlines, and even led President Harry Truman to personally call Capt. Ruppelt and ask for an explanation of the sightings. Ruppelt, remembering the conversation he had with Capt. James, told the President that the sightings might have been caused by 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. Hundreds of witnesses experienced the UFO flap over Washington.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 03:10:56 +0000
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