The 1952 UFO Wave.

"The summer 1952 UFO sighting wave was one of the largest of all time, and arguably the most significant of all time in terms of the credible reports and hardcore scientific data obtained. Electromagnetic (EM) effects and physical trace evidence were more prominent in other waves, but 1952 (and 1953) featured recurring radar detection of UFOs, often from both ground and airborne radar, visual sightings by jet interceptor pilots sent up to pursue the mysterious objects, and cat-and-mouse chases in which the UFOs seemed to toy with the interceptors. Further, Air Force investigators who plotted the sightings noticed that they were concentrated around strategic military bases, and this clearly posed a threat to national security since their origin was unknown".

Richard Hall

The 1952 Sighting Wave - Radar/Visual Sightings Establish UFOs As A Serious Mystery

It appears that the year 1952 was a very important year for credible UFO reports and there was a huge rise in the number of radar/visual encounters and 'actual unknown' reports - probably one the more (in)famous incidents was the 'Washington Merry-go-round' of July, 1952 (link) but there were a great many other UFO incidents which occurred that year - a large percentage of which remain unexplained.

Above is a great NICAP Chronology link cataloging some of the more interesting cases and underneath are links dealing with the numbers and statistics for 'hot reports' - its been said that 1952 was one of the biggest UFO waves in history (before or since) with Project Bluebook 'recording more UFO reports in one month than they did in the whole previous year'.

Numbers:

1952 started out as the previous one had begun, with fewer than one ufo sighting per day in the first three months. In April and May, the flow increased to 3 per day, and this rate doubled in June. For the first half of the year, there had been 300 unexplained observations reports, 4 times the previous annual rate, and still the peak was not reached.

The first 3 weeks of July show an average of 8 reports per day, many of them coming from Air Force jet interceptor pilots scrambled in response to radar or visual sightings from the ground. Starting on the 22nd and lasting through the 29th, reports jumped to an average of 27 per day. At the end of that very busy month, almost 400 reports had been recorded, which was more than in any previous full year.

Link

Huge increase:


Project Bluebook 'Unexplained' rate for 1952


1952 sightings by month

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

Big year for A and H bombs. Korean war.

Couldn't part of this be that BlueBook started in '52? Previous years' data would have been from Grudge...

Not saying that's it, but a more public investigation, and the first year, would certainly have a spike in reports it would seem...(I think the source link may have tried to make this increase seem a bigger issue....)

The UFO's over the White House issue was certainly something though...and even Hynek (then on the coverup team), isn't a fan of the temperature inversion "theory" (or huey)....

[edit on 9-3-2010 by Gazrok]

Originally posted by Logarock
Big year for A and H bombs. Korean war.

Logarock, thanks for the reply -as Captain Ruppelt states below, one of the reasons the USAF actualy took the UFO subject seriously in 1952 was the number of good quality reports coming in from pilots (and radar operators) involved in the Korean war:

"In June 1952 the Air Force was taking the UFO problem seriously. One of the reasons was that there were a lot of good UFO reports coming in from Korea. Fighter pilots reported seeing silver colored spheres or disks on several occasions, and radar in Japan, Okinawa, and in Korea had tracked unidentified targets."

Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, head of Project Blue book, in his book "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects

Theres quite a number of unexplained reports at the thread below - many of which occur in 1952:


UFO Reports during the Korean War.


Cheers.

reply to post by Gazrok


Gazrok, thanks for the reply -you may well be onto something there although its worth pointing out there were quite a high number of credible reports from other countries in 1952 - as well as Korea, the Operation Mainbrace UFO sightings in Denmark, Norway and Britain were almost unprecedented and its said that they 'caused the RAF to officially recognize the UFO subject'.


Operation Mainbrace ~ UFOs and USOs


As for the Washington sightings, yes I think the 'temperature inversion' theory is hogwash (great thread BTW) - theres a good newspaper article here on the incidents and an interesting NICAP report below about missing Bluebook unknown files.

The Washington National Sightings

Washington, DC Area, July 19/20, 1952.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2a5144acba71.jpg[/atsimg]

..For several minutes they tracked the objects. Jim Ritchey noticed one was pacing a Capital airliner which had just taken off. The pilot, Captain "Casey" Pierman, was vectored toward the object. Until then, the object's tracked speed had been about 130 mph. Suddenly, to all the controllers' amazement, its track came to an abrupt end. Where the next blip should have been was only a blank space.

Right after that Pierman called back. He said he saw the thing, but it streaked off out of sight in 3-5 seconds. Apparently, the object had zoomed completely out of the radar beam between sweeps. That indicates the object went from 130 to around 500 mph in that short period.

A few minutes later it got even more interesting. One blip track showed an abrupt 90-degree turn, something WE could not do. Then, when the sweep came around, another object suddenly reversed, its new blip "blossoming" on top of the one it had just made. From over 100 mph, the mystery object had stopped dead and completely reversed its direction, all in about 5-seconds.

On top of that, a startling report came in from the tower. Operator Joe Zacko had been watching the ASR scope, built to track high-speed objects. One of the objects was traveling at a fantastic rate across the screen and was racing over Andrews Field toward Riverdale. Zacko called Cocklin and they both computed the speed, 2-miles per second, 7,200 mph! From the trail it was plain that the object had descended vertically into the ASR beam, leveled off for a few seconds, then climbed at tremendous speed out of the beam again.

Then an ARTC controller called Andrews AFB and told them they had a target south of their tower, directly over the Andrews Radio range station. The operators looked and saw a "huge fiery-orange sphere" hovering in the sky directly over their range station.

By sun-up, the UFOs ended their 5-hours of maneuvering over Washington. But before they left, at 4:30 AM a radio engineer by the name of E. W. Chambers was leaving the WRC transmitter station when he saw five huge discs circling in loose formation. The objects tilted upward and climbed steeply into the sky.


The Air Force tried hard to play the Washington sightings down. First they denied Andrews Field had tracked the UFOs. One spokesman insisted the Control Center scope was defective. And then another spokesman denied fighters were scrambled. At Dayton, Ohio, the HQ for Project Blue Book, teletypes were churning out 30 reports a day! And Captain Ruppelt said that many were as good, if not better, than the Washington sightings.

This part of the Washington National Sightings is mysteriously missing from the Project Blue Book's 701 UNKNOWNS. The only sighting listed by the Air Force as UNKNOWN for that period was Case #1504, July 20th, Lavalette, New Jersey.

Reports to the Air Force rose to 40 per day, about a third of them were 'unknowns'.

Link

Cheers.

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

I'm currently embroiled in a logic meltdown about the late-40s and early-50s UFO flaps and waves. Way too much noise and not enough signal. The best solution would be to travel back to the Southern States of the US and watch...no chance of that.

It's bugging me that there's no equivalent in scale and occurrence over in the former Soviet nations or anywhere else. They had their secret/prototype tech too. If certain US interests encouraged and propagated the UFO myth to cover up test flights...why didn't the Soviets do likewise?

If the UFO waves in the US are genuine...why the focus on the US?

It's out of our reach right now (and past 70 years), but if we can explain the US focus...we'll certainly be closer to understanding the UFO phenomena.

Yeah, those aliens were hot and heavy back then. Never mind the ignorant and paranoid public, the incpometant government, the cold war, radar technology (and the FOOLS who were stationed at those radars...don't believe me? DO YOUR HOMEWORK)...

It must have been aliens. Just like every other "UFO Flap" that produces no real evidence, never mind the fact that they go on for weeks...months, and should be well documented (more than the internet saysa they are).

Dwelling on the past in order to justify your overwhelming desire to believe in little green men, government conspiracies....the X-Files even.....is the same as reading a book of fables explaining why everyone believes in some invisible man.

You would think that after all thease years, thing like this would have more light shed on them than they do, given the increase in cameras, video recorders, multiple media outlets......today, nobody could hide the truth of a publicly documented UFO....yet some think that is the case. Becasue they NEED to believe, for personal reasons.

Once we clear this subject of all the usless tripe and ignorant noise...and manage to keep it clean for a number of years...maybe then we can move foward. But as long as the majority in this subject refuse to excercise common sense, reason and logic....we are all dommed.

And now is the point where the believes start peppering me with "facts" and "data" that they claim trumps common sense, reason and logic.....

I believe there is life out there, and that it may even be visiting here from time to time, but I don't believ in 99.99999999999% of the trip you guys profess faith in. Please, for crying out loud.....re-engage your brains and lets sort this out and move foward.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Kandinsky, thanks for the reply -I did find the radar/visual reports in the first link very interesting and, as stated in the posts above, there were also quite a number of very strange reports coming in from Korea, Japan, Denmark, Norway and Britain (not to mention Canada and Cyprus).

Granted there were an awful lot of incidents which were reported in the U.S. but maybe the Soviet Union also had their fair share of reports and kept them under wraps due to Cold War hostilities - according to researcher Tim Good they took the UFO subject seriously in the eighties so who knows?

The Russians approached the subject of UFOs with the utmost seriousness and attention to detail. Boris Sokolov, a retired Russian Colonel ran an in-depth study in 1980. "For 10 years," Sokolov said, "the entire Soviet Union became one gigantic UFO listening post." There were 40 cases where pilots encountered UFOs, explained Sokolov. Initially, they were commanded to chase, and then shoot the UFOs. But when the pilots engaged, the UFO would speed up. On two occasions, pilots gave chase, lost control and crashed, with the crew killed on impact. After these unfortunate incidents, the pilots received another order: When they saw a UFO they should change course - and get away.

Link

As for the British reports, particularly in relation to Operation Mainbrace sightings, I've always found the interviews with these two RAF pilots quite compelling - they encountered UFOs whilst flying over Gloucestershire in 1952 and the video can be found in the OP.


The Little Rissington UFO Incident - October, 1952.


Cheers.

I've noticed that 1952 peak myself though I've never seen it plotted out on a graph like that, so that was interesting Karl_12, thanks.

I suppose project Bluebook starting that year could have prompted in increase in reports, at least it seems plausible but I don't really know if that's the reason or not.

Originally posted by IgnoreTheFacts
Yeah, those aliens were hot and heavy back then. Never mind the ignorant and paranoid public, the incpometant government, the cold war, radar technology (and the FOOLS who were stationed at those radars...don't believe me? DO YOUR HOMEWORK)...

I didn't do much research yet around 1952 but I did look into the radar operator competency around 1942 when I researched the battle of LA, and incompetent radar operators were definitely a HUGE issue at that time. I'll have to do some research to see how much that had improved by 1952 but obviously the radar technology of that era was quite primitive compared to today's radar.

I haven't compiled statistics on radar "confirmations" but just based on the cases I've looked at it seems like radar "confirmations" were more common in the past, and I've always thought of two possible reasons for this, one being the inferior technology and training in the past, and two being the possibility that some sightings might be stealth military craft in more recent years which might not show up on radar so well.

Also, I'm not sure when a radar "confirms" a visual sighting, that means that you can use that as proof of a "real" UFO. It may not be visionary or fictitious, but that doesn't mean it's a real object as this May 1953 report points out when analyzing one of the 1952 reports (Washington DC):

www.cufon.org...

Firsthand observation in the tracking and subsequent motion analysis of 80 of these unidentified targets indicated that a large number of these were actually secondary reflections of the radar beam. Apparently these reflections were produced by isolated refracting areas which traveled with the wind at or near the temperature inversion levels.

Although the exact size, shape, and composition of these isolated areas are not known, it is believed that they may be atmospheric eddies produced by a shearing action of dissimilar air strata. It appears possible that such eddies may refract and focus the radar energy with a lens effect to produce small concentrations of ground return with sufficient intensity to show up on the radar display. It is also believed that the correlation of the appearance of these radar targets with visual reports of so-called "flying saucers" is due to the strong probability that both effects are caused primarily by abrupt temperature inversions.

I think the "strong probability that both effects are caused primarily by abrupt temperature inversions" is what a lot of people seem to miss when they state that radar confirms the visual sightings so it must have been real solid object in the sky. However at the same time, I agree that it's not "visionary or fictitious" as light or radar coming from a reflection present the same type of electromagnetic radiation as from real solid objects, though it can be less stable and that's why you get descriptions like Kenneth Arnold's description of the UFO movement like "they flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water".

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Hats off to you sir. You didn't come back and blast my little childish rant, but instead responded in an intelligent manner that illustrates excatly the kind of thoughtfulness that more need to put into this subject.

Your almost turning man...almost....a few more years and you will be just like me, lol.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Arbitrageur, thanks for the reply - you may be right about some of the anomalous radar incidents being down to the incompetence of USAF personnel but I think in other cases, especialy ones which involve radar/visual correlation, they're not that easy to write off - Captain Ruppelt makes quite a fair observation here:

"Of these UFO reports,the radar/visual reports are the most convincing. When a ground radar picks up a UFO target and a ground observer sees a light where the radar target is located,then a jet interceptor is scrambled to intercept the UFO and the pilot also sees the lights and gets a radar lock only to have the UFO almost impudently outdistance him,there is no simple answer."

Edward J Ruppelt USAF Capt 1956

Link

Its quite a long read, and it is from one year later, but heres another very interesting multiple radar/visual incident from over South Dakota:

Rapid City UFO

One of the best radar confirmed sightings - so stated by Captain Ed Ruppelt,who headed the Air Force saucer investigations for several years - occurred near Rapid City, South Dakota, the evening of August 12, 1953. The events of that night started out like this. Shortly after dark, a woman spotter of the local Ground Observer Corps rang up the Air Defense Command radar station at Ellsworth AEB just east of Rapid City, and reported an extremely bright light to the northeast. The radar swung to the area the spotter had designated, and picked up a solid blip moving slowly. The heightfinding radar also picked it up and established the UFO at 16,000 feet. The warrant officer on duty at the radar station got a direct wire to the spotter, and they compared notes for about two minutes. In the middle of a sentence, the woman suddenly said that the object was starting to move towards Rapid City. The radar scope confirmed this, and the warrant officer sent two men outside for a visual check. They reported a large bluish-white light moving toward Rapid City. The three groups - the radar people, the outside men, and the woman spotter - watched the UFO make a swift sweep around Rapid City and then return to its original position. The warrant officer then called a jet fighter on patrol and put him on an intercept course. The light was still at l6,OOO feet. The pilot spotted the light visually, and had moved to within three miles of it, when the light took off north towards the Badlands. The pilot followed it 120 miles, with the light staying a couple miles ahead; and then, with fuel running low, the jet returned - with the UFO trailing him.

The jet squadron at the air field then stated that they were scrambling another F-84, with a skeptical combat veteran of World War II and Korea at the controls. Once he was airborne, radar worked him toward the UFO. The pilot quickly reported visual contact, and maneuvered to get above the light. The light headed northeast, with the F-84 behind but several thousand feet above it. The pilot, even though getting radar reports and seeing the light, was still skeptical. Once away from the Rapid City area, he turned off all his lights to see if it was a reflection on his canopy. The light was still there. Next he rolled his plane, to see if some unnoticed ground light was causing it. The light's position didn't change. Next he checked its motion against three bright stars - it moved with relation to them. He then figured, if it is real, my gunsight radar should pick it up. He activated his gun cameras, turned on his radar and got a solid blip. At this point he got scared - and remember, this was a man who'd fought Hitler's best airplanes and tangled with Mig 15's over Korea. But that large, bright, bluish-white light was more than he cared to chase any longer. He requested and received permission to abandon the chase. The UFO headed off toward Fargo, North Dakota, and a check minutes later showed that spotter posts between Rapid City and Fargo had seen and reported a fast-moving, bluish-white light.

So there you are - two serial visuals, an aerial radar lock-on, two ground radar sightings, numerous ground visuals from several locations, and gun camera film which, when developed, showed a blurry object. No details - just a light source.

Link

Cheers.

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

Originally posted by IgnoreTheFacts
You would think that after all thease years, thing like this would have more light shed on them than they do, given the increase in cameras, video recorders, multiple media outlets......today, nobody could hide the truth of a publicly documented UFO....yet some think that is the case.

You're right. One would think that with the improvement in technology we'd know more about them now than we did a half-century ago. But rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, why don't we just include that curious observation in with the rest of the data?

I've tried. And what I come up with is that at a certain point, you have to take people on their word as to what they saw or experienced. Occam's Razor in reverse. It becomes more unlikely that everyone could be wrong or deceived or lying than it is that people are reporting accurately.

What you're left with is that the UFO phenomenon has some aspects to it that simply don't work well with our current way of scientific data gathering and analysis. And it leads me to suspect that the truly strange UFO experience represent something happening that may just be beyond our ability to comprehend in our typical rational way of thinking.

Of course, that's going to make it tough to do much good science. But it at least gives us a starting point, and gives us a chance to modify our expectations. Then we can make some beginning steps to conceptualize, for instance, how something might look to us if a UFO was traveling "backward" in time, or manifesting itself within a particular framework of consciousness and perception. From there, we can work on trying to define or categorize these things, and maybe even develop some testable hypotheses.

Or we could just ignore it. It might turn out that our brains just aren't built for the job, and our mathematics can't model it.

More on the 1952 UFO incident(s) which caused the RAF to 'officially recognize the UFO subject'.

CIA Document referring to this RAF 'flying disc' incident over Yorkshire, England,1952:

September 1952

A British Meteor jet aircraft was returning to the airfield at Topcliffe, Yorkshire, England, just before 11 A. M. As it approached for landing, a silvery object was observed following it, swaying back and forth like a pendulum. Lieutenant John W. Kilburn and other observers on the ground said that when the Meteor began circling, the UFO stopped. It was disk-shaped, and rotated on its axis while hovering. The disk suddenly took off westward at high speed, changed course, and disappeared to the southeast.

Link

'British Activity in the Field of UFOs':


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/884179506585.jpg[/atsimg]

"In some RAF field, there was some sort of demonstration to which high officials of the RAF in London had been invited. During the show, a 'perfect flying saucer' was seen by these officials as well as RAF pilots. So many people saw it that many articles appeared in the public press. This is distressing to [Dr] Jones because he realises that the creation of the correction of public opinion is a part of his responsibilities."

Link

Man, that was early T.V. spots for the latest BlockBuster, please...

Now celebrum dictus.

It's bugging me that there's no equivalent in scale and occurrence over in the former Soviet nations or anywhere else. They had their secret/prototype tech too. If certain US interests encouraged and propagated the UFO myth to cover up test flights...why didn't the Soviets do likewise?

The Soviets had state-controlled media, we had a free press. They didn't NEED a coverup, as it was relatively easy for them to do so, when they controlled the airwaves.

If the UFO waves in the US are genuine...why the focus on the US?

Perhaps it was related to our atomic weapons capability? In 1952, it was pretty much the US, Russia, and (first test that same year), the Brits. This is at least one explanation for the focus...

It's out of our reach right now (and past 70 years), but if we can explain the US focus...we'll certainly be closer to understanding the UFO phenomena.

See above. I doubt it's a coincidence that the most widely referred to UFO crash was near the world's only functioning atomic bomber wing of the time...(Roswell, 1947), and if it was just a coverup for a test project, it would have been declassified by now (and no, Mogul just doesn't fit the bill...or the timeline)...

Originally posted by Blue Shift
What you're left with is that the UFO phenomenon has some aspects to it that simply don't work well with our current way of scientific data gathering and analysis. And it leads me to suspect that the truly strange UFO experience represent something happening that may just be beyond our ability to comprehend in our typical rational way of thinking.

Blue Shift, you do make some fair points but there are certain aspects of the UFO subject which can be collated, analyzed, cross referenced etc..

Ted Phillips has done some great research here on ground trace evidence and NASA scientist Richard Haines also makes some interesting points in his paper below on electromagnetic interference effects.

Fifty Six Aircraf Pilot Sightings Involving Electromagnetic Effects.

Richard F. Haines, Ph.D.

"Reports of anomalous aerial objects (AAO) appearing in the atmosphere continue to be made by pilots of almost every airline and air force of the world in addition to private and experimental test pilots.
This paper presents a review of 56 reports of AAO in which electromagnetic effects (E-M) take place on-board the aircraft when the phenomenon is located nearby but not before it appeared or after it had departed.
Reported E-M effects included radio interference or total failure, radar contact with and without simultaneous visual contact, magnetic and/or gyro-compass deviations, automatic direction finder failure or interference, engine stopping or interruption, dimming cabin lights, transponder failure, and military aircraft weapon system failure.
We're not dealing with mental projections or hallucinations on the part of the witness but with a real physical phenomenon."

Dr. Richard Haines, Psychologist specializing in pilot and astronaut "human factors" research for the Ames NASA Research Center in California-Chief of the Space Human Factors Office.

Link

Cheers.

reply to post by IgnoreTheFacts


Way to go. you have the most self-descriptive screen name on ATS. Asking for thoughtful discussion and re-engaging the brain, and in the same post hurling forth childish insults at those who don not believe as you do. Consider yourself Ignored.

USAF and Pentagon spokeman Albert Chop makes some intriguing points here about the 1952 Washington sightings (4:00)







and Astrophysicist Jacques Vallee also makes some interesting comments below about 'UFO waves'.




Full film

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

reply to post by IgnoreTheFacts


Sir, you may find this comment strange in a place that gives inquiry, but your attitude is an example of why I dont discuss this topic with anyone that doesnt have close up first hand knowlege about UFOs or if you want to call them flying mechines that obviously dont use conventional methods of propulsion. I am way past the proving stage and so prefer to talk to those that know, which is not hard to tell.

What most of us do when we research is try to find evidence to convince the uninitiated or to see what other info is out there, other witnesses.


[edit on 9-3-2010 by Logarock]

reply to post by Kandinsky



I have spent a good deal of time going over new articles from the 40s, 50s and 60s and there was a fair deal of comentary comming out of USSR during those days. I can dig some of that up and post here possibly. The Soviets knew early on for several resons that something was up and they were as in the dark as we were so to say.