Revisiting the 1952 Washington DC UFO Flap

We can all learn from MirageMen's threads, they're awesomely executed and a pleasure to read, thank you for the detailed information on this UFO event.

a reply to: mirageman

A most excellent thread mate and one of the truly fascinating UFO cases - there's a nice vid below taken from the UFO exhibit at the National Archives showing info and news about the Washington flyovers (and the huge spike in UFO sightings during 1952) - also found it interesting that the U.S. Government, the CIA, Project Bluebook, the U.S. Weather Bureau and the Washington radar operators all seemingly rejected the 'temperature inversion' theory which in reality was just an off the cuff remark by Captain Roy James who hadn't even participated in the investigation.


Vid:




This documentary also covers the flap and is a very good watch.

"Scrupulously accurate, intelligently conceived, UFOs: The Secret History is the thinking viewer's guide to the puzzles and paradoxes of an extraordinary phenomenon that continues to haunt our times and trouble our dreams. It is also gorgeously filmed - a feast to eye and mind, a thrilling experience on every level." - Jerome Clark, author of the award-winning, multi-volume UFO Encyclopedia.

Other links:

The 1952 UFO Sighting Wave, Part 1 (pdf) / 2 / 3

Chronological civilian reports

Cheers!

originally posted by: jonnywhite
Nice read. Still doesn't resolve the question: Have ET UFOs ever visited Earth? It's like a blurry photo. It doesn't resolve to anything really.

I think most of us just assume since 95% or more of cases are easily explained as misidentified conventional or terrestrial phenomena that the remaining 5% would also be explained similarly if investigated.

We're a people rich with deceit, stupidity, religion, delusion and induced altered mental states. Real ET's seem too far fetched when it's much easier explained as one of the aforementioned.

Never attribute to ET's that which is adequately explained by Terrestrials.

So you need the government to tell you its happening before you can accept the facts before you?

In the OP's story, the alternative theory put forward by the government was shot down, a temperature inversion would show up on radar as fuzzy indistinct blobs, not distinct radar returns as was the case. A temperature inversion would also not explain the multiple sightings, many which coincided with the radar returns.

Another member put forward an another alternate explanation, that of a classified project which spoofed radar returns. However, again, this would not account for the multiple sightings as reported by witnesses that often coincided with the radar returns.

So, if the supposition, "there IS (not even "may") a case for interstellar travel", is good enough for Time Life magazine, why can't many members on here get to that point? Too much social conditioning?

originally posted by: tetra50
a reply to: Aliensun

I agree that Mirageman has put together an excellent thread with information currently available. But your posts bring up excellent points we all should consider, and are unfortunate reality of dealing with bluebook, now, I think:

This is an excellent thread. One of my biggest complaints is that many today on ATS have no knowledge of the real history of UFOs and exist in near-total ignorance every aspect of the phenomena. In my estimation, the DC UFO "flap" of 1952 was about as close as we have come to an Orson Wells type of "War of the Worlds" level of mass hysteria.

if we indeed, experienced something like that, it's been scrubbed from our "history," currently, and that's exactly what I would expect. If this has happened, and we are under outside influence of some kind, it's predicated and controlled now, and this includes pics and information flow….the happening, the reactions all predicated. So after that, everything probably, is MILAB…..

Thanks for your comments, as well, as you make the point that other pictures have been substituted, now, for what were real happenings, originally..
tetra

I honestly couldn't get past the first quote of the OP:

A few days prior to the incident, a scientist, from an agency that I can't name and I were talking about the build-up of reports along the east coast of the United States". At the end of the two hour conversation, the scientist made a prediction: ..... 'Within the next few days....they're going to blow up and you're going to have the granddaddy of all UFO sightings. The sighting will occur in Washington or New York,' he predicted, 'probably Washington.

Reminds me of:

The past two decades have been marked by a large number of man-made terror events which remain unsolved to this day. Several of these events involved heinous crimes of mass murder and are similar in a remarkable way. These are the disasters which occurred during security drills or military exercises in which the scenario was incredibly similar, if not identical to the real-life terror attack. Understanding the nature of the exercises that created the background and framework for these attacks is essential to understanding how the attacks were carried out. The fact that these real-life terror events occurred within the context of virtually identical terrorism/security exercises has been completely ignored by the media -- as if the exercises had never happened. Of the major terror events that occurred during such exercises, we will look at three specific examples: the aerial attacks of 9/11, the bombings of the London Underground and a bus in 2005, and the sinking of the Baltic ferry Estonia in 1994. - See more at: www.bollyn.com...

A little of:

(From Democracy Now)

GEN. WESLEY CLARK:

I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs ....., and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”

or:

In 2013 I finally grappled with the curse of PhysWar/PW, bringing everything that I had learned professionally, academically, and initiatorily to bear on the project that became the concept and book MindWar. In this book, presently circulating throughout the government and also available to the public, PW is overcome by reaching back into the human subconscious to replace irrational violence with creative cooperation through synchronized application of the numerous mechanisms called PsyControls (PSYCONs). This is integrated with the meticulous sociopolitical prescription of ParaPolitics, originally conceived by Raghavan Iyer (D.Phil. Oxford), to resolve international conflict not merely with no more death, injury, and destruction, but with the most enlightened moral community construction.

MindWar not only outlines the mechanism for this process, but proposes evolutionary successors to the U.S. Army’s three Special Operations branches - MindWar (replacing PSYOP), MetaForce (replacing Special Forces), and ParaPolitics (replacing Civil Affairs) - to implement it. Simultaneously the harmful, destructive components of the armed forces are retired to an “unusable” posture similar to that of nuclear weapons.

for giggles:

The amount of intellectual resources required for MW far outstrip the service academies (which, of course, are geared to the production of competent PW officers). MW is Reserve-intensive, and will drink at the fountain of wisdom everywhere it sprinkles: universities, think tanks, government agencies, Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" guestlist, you name it. MW campaigns focusing on a particular geographic area also reach into that area and grab the smartest people from it, from all "sides" of a conflict. In essence, MW removes people as "the enemy" and replaces it with the "problem" itself. Thus the campaign becomes "everyone vs. the problem".

lastly:

I was sitting in a dentist's chair getting my teeth whitened while the whole 9/11 thing was happening on the little television over my head. The moment I saw the two towers drop neatly into their footprints, one right after the other, I thought, "OK, demolition," and that was that as far as I was concerned. [Found out later that Building 7 did the same thing just for the hell of it.]

What we're dealing with here is the phenomenon of popular belief systems. Every society has its own fetishes and taboos, and the USA is no different. Within a given society, a F or T is never defined as such; rather it's a reality which everyone takes for granted. It can be something like "only women wear dresses" [although here in San Francisco don't be too sure]. Indeed some taboos are so essential to the national consciousness that it's heresy to even acknowledge their existence or call them "taboos".

Aquino AMA

a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

So, if the supposition, "there IS (not even "may") a case for interstellar travel", is good enough for Time Life magazine, why can't many members on here get to that point? Too much social conditioning?

There is a case. Now what? Endless speculation? More hoaxes? More misidentifications? It never ends. You need an alien, not "a case".

a reply to: mirageman
that looks like albert einstein and j robert oppenheimer...but they are not mentioned as members of the panel. Perhaps they will have some independent views on what transpired?????

a reply to: mirageman

Great thread, thanks for the post and detailed info! In fact this case I would consider - The Best UFO case, since Roswell and Rendlesham incidents are too dubious and this did happen and is the most acknowledged event by everyone.

This is just the real Roswell (as a synonym of a UFO event that did happen and is 100% confirmed). These are real UFOs and not reflection or air phenomenon.

The question is, are these really not man-made because what stops them from being Soviet or even Nazi (I think it is safe to say, if the Nazi were up to something great, it hardly stopped with Hitler, who knows how it may have continued the years after)

a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

I think were we agree is that UFOs do exist and some of them genuinely are 'unexplained'. However, although I do not rule out the possibility, I have yet to see the proof to absolutely convince me that they are extra-terrestrial spacecraft. In fact we are probably dealing with a number of different phenomena that all get lumped into the topic.

In this specific case the official explanations do not really explain why some of the military and civilian personnel also confirmed visual sightings of the objects tracked on radar. Nor do they have an explanation for why the objects disappeared when chased (with the exception of Lt. William Patterson whose fighter was surrounded by the objects - another unexplained part). Finally why were there so many sightings in 1952?

Speculating on an explanation, I think what a lot of people tend to do is jump to the conclusion that anything flying around as in this case, has to be aliens. That is a possibility that cannot be discounted but remains unproven. We could be dealing with something like "Project Palladium" that Zeta dug up and parts of it seem plausible. The United States and areas close to it's military bases (around the world) account for a high proportion of UFO sightings. So are they actually American black projects?

Then there is the plasma theory. I did read a column by (I think it was Andrew Pike) in relation to radar and foo fighters. As soon as we began using radar there was an awful lot of 'foo' in the sky. I am explaining this off the cuff as I have to be quick tonight so I may be mistaken. But if you put the "Palladium theory together with this observation then perhaps it really was a very clever experiment to spoof radar and a by-product is "plasma" visible to pilots and people in the radar towers. Similar sighting carried on into the autumn of 1952 during Operation Mainbrace and a few years later Milton Torres chased a UFO he could clearly see on his radar but not visually.

a reply to: mirageman

Thanks for a fachinating tread. If the Aliens are so small and fragile as they often are described as. Wouldnt they then take a huge risk by setting down their craft and walk out to meet us ? We, hostile humans would have cracked them as breadsticks or taken them as prisoners and taken their crafts.

Wouldnt such intelligent beeings know that in advance ? Wouldnt it be a good idea to demonstrate their powers in front of the wourlds most powerful countrys goverment building ? Then make contact with the president or the military, and Perhaps make a treaty ? We will leave you alone and give you some technology, in return you leave us alone and we will abduct some of your people, do some examinations and return them with their memory of the event erased.

Or did they come back to take back the remins of their people that crashed in Roswell after US brought down their craft. Did they give the message, dont do that again, or we will give you hell ?

originally posted by: LightAssassin
a reply to: mirageman

That photo looks like lens flares from the lights below the whitehouse.....I have always loved that photo but just now realised they line up with those lights.

Dammit...I am a debunker.

Good thread otherwise.

Well you are correct. CardDown covered it and I clarified it on page 2 (second post). I was not trying to mislead people. There are websites who are - by cropping the picture. Whilst others are genuinely unaware that the picture is simply lens flares.

a reply to: drumcrusher

Welcome to the forums drumcrusher. There certainly is plenty of 'evidence' as you suggest to hint at alien visitation Everyone sets their own parameters of what they constitute as proof and everyone is free to believe whatever they wish. But there is no real hard proof that would be accepted in science.

originally posted by: karl 12
a reply to: mirageman

A most excellent thread mate and one of the truly fascinating UFO cases -

there's a nice vid below taken from the UFO exhibit at the National Archives showing info and news about the Washington flyovers (and the huge spike in UFO sightings during 1952) - also found it interesting that the U.S. Government, the CIA, Project Bluebook, the U.S. Weather Bureau and the Washington radar operators all seemingly rejected the 'temperature inversion' theory which in reality was just an off the cuff remark by Captain Roy James who hadn't even participated in the investigation.


Vid:

This documentary also covers the flap and is a very good watch.

"Scrupulously accurate, intelligently conceived, UFOs: The Secret History is the thinking viewer's guide to the puzzles and paradoxes of an extraordinary phenomenon that continues to haunt our times and trouble our dreams. It is also gorgeously filmed - a feast to eye and mind, a thrilling experience on every level." - Jerome Clark, author of the award-winning, multi-volume UFO Encyclopedia.

Other links:

The 1952 UFO Sighting Wave, Part 1 (pdf) / 2 / 3

Chronological civilian reports

Cheers!

Cheers Karl.

Definitely one of the most intriguing cases.

For everyone else who wants to know more please check out the links provided by Karl (and others).

1952 really was a peak year for UFO sightings.

a reply to: mirageman

As soon as we began using radar there was an awful lot of 'foo' in the sky

That is a really interesting aspect to consider. It really could be as simple as a radar operator thinking they have a solid return and then asking a pilot for visual confirmation. The pilot now believing he has something in his air space might believe he saw something. I always get in trouble when I speculate but I wonder if such studies were done. Sure seems like a study that should be done if there wasn't one. Maybe the study was done in 52?

originally posted by: Aliensun
One of my biggest complaints is that many today on ATS have no knowledge of the real history of UFOs and exist in near-total ignorance every aspect of the phenomena.

Well, that's because the 1952 flap -- just like 100 percent of all UFO sightings -- never amounted to anything. No solid conclusions were ever reached. It just generated more pointless hypothesizing. Even in the context of other sightings, with over a half-century of research and interest in it, it all adds up to exactly diddly squat.

originally posted by: ZetaRediculian
a reply to: mirageman

As soon as we began using radar there was an awful lot of 'foo' in the sky

That is a really interesting aspect to consider. It really could be as simple as a radar operator thinking they have a solid return and then asking a pilot for visual confirmation. The pilot now believing he has something in his air space might believe he saw something. I always get in trouble when I speculate but I wonder if such studies were done. Sure seems like a study that should be done if there wasn't one. Maybe the study was done in 52?

I think I came across this when looking over the Rendlesham case. Andrew Pike was a scientist who was investigating certain phenomena in East Anglia around the same time so this was 1980 onwards. However I will have to double check my facts before stating this as absolute. And if I am wrong then I will happily admit so.

a reply to: darkstar57

I recognized Albert Einstein right away. But I didn't recognize J. Robert Oppenheimer until I read your post. Good catch!

My first thought was that Einstein and Oppenheimer would only have been on the panel to give it more credence in the minds of the public. Both were the scientific "rock stars" of that time. Much like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku are today.

But when I searched for the connection of the image to the Robertson Panel, I couldn't make the connection. Then I found this webpage: Hermann Weyl's Work.
That source indicates the picture is from

physicists attending conference celebrating Albert Einstein's 70th birthday

So, it's probably not related to the Robertson Panel.


dex

a reply to: mirageman

This is NOT GENUINE MOVIE CAMERA FOOTAGE from 1952 and has been created for TV as an illustration only. The first time I saw this it was used was in "UFOs : The Secret Evidence". As CardDown points out it has also been used in numerous other shows.

Yes, there was definitively a lens reflection going on, which was diligently proven, and a great job at that.
I remember being rather let down, once that was proven, but overall, the existing radar and visual witness testimony stands to show the incident was real, whatever it was.

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: Aliensun
One of my biggest complaints is that many today on ATS have no knowledge of the real history of UFOs and exist in near-total ignorance every aspect of the phenomena.

Well, that's because the 1952 flap -- just like 100 percent of all UFO sightings -- never amounted to anything. No solid conclusions were ever reached. It just generated more pointless hypothesizing. Even in the context of other sightings, with over a half-century of research and interest in it, it all adds up to exactly diddly squat.

Misguided and wrong, in my opinion.

This 1952 UFO case and others, were enough to get Time Life, one of the world's foremost news powerhouses of the day to declare - THERE IS A CASE FOR INTERSTELLAR VISITORS. Time Life was respected and credible, it was no Enquirer.

If you are going to say something like this, at least try to back it up with some kind of alternative explanation.

All this case shows is that the government covered it up heavily, and some people, no matter what evidence they are shown, will never even be able to say the possibility for an ET presence is strong, before the government tells them.

People like that should review the fable of the emperor's clothes, it has an important message, even in these times.

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

I think were we agree is that UFOs do exist and some of them genuinely are 'unexplained'. However, although I do not rule out the possibility, I have yet to see the proof to absolutely convince me that they are extra-terrestrial spacecraft. In fact we are probably dealing with a number of different phenomena that all get lumped into the topic.

I guess my opinion is that the circumstantial evidence of ET is overwhelming, but truly hard proof remains elusive..........but I think some (not you) confuse hard proof with acceptance by the government and scientific communities....however the two are not necessarily the same. I also agree there are many UFO sightings that can be explained by natural phenomenon, it seems like this number is at least about 95%, and many people do get a little hysterical with every little sighting that hasn't even been looked into.

I think there is also a deliberate and concerted effort by various agencies to discredit the UFO phenomenon, putting out deliberately false and misleading info; if some UFO's are genuinely non-human intelligently controlled technology, and it is being covered up, probably partly for reasons you elucidated in one of your posts (gov't has no idea why they are here or how to control them), you would expect heavy suppression of the truth and disinformation. And that seems to be what we have seen for the last 60 years or so, heavy suppression of the truth and disinformation, so working backwards logically, the only reason one would see that would be if the supposition were true.

If you're up to it, maybe we both could investigate the phenomenon, PM each other, choose some cases, do some research, play devil's advocate, sort through the hype and disinformation, work on parts of a thread together, and present our cases to the members here. What do you think?

a reply to: PlanetXisHERE

This 1952 UFO case and others, were enough to get Time Life, one of the world's foremost news powerhouses of the day to declare - THERE IS A CASE FOR INTERSTELLAR VISITORS

Yes, but cases are not necessarily true. And I don't think anyone denies that there is a case for ET, we just differ on how strong the case is. The case for ET hasn't really progressed much if at all since 52.