The "UFOs" in the famous photo showing lights over Washington DC have been identified

This is the famous photo from Flying Saucers magazine which purports to show UFOs from the 1952 UFO event:


However that's not really from the 1952 UFO event and those UFOs have been identified, they are lens flares:

Washington, DC Flying Saucers 1952


I suppose now that we know they're lens flares and not UFOs, it doesn't really matter so much when that photo was taken, but apparently it wasn't taken in 1952 when the UFO flap occurred:

Well, the photo is real, but it is used as a fraud, then accepted and repeated as genuine by people who should know better. It was taken several years after the event, and instead of UFOs, it depicts the reflection of the Capitol's lamps- lens flares....

As seen on the magazine cover above, it's often cropped to remove the lamps, the source of the "UFOs." It was exposed long ago, in a detailed analysis by Colman von Keviczky that was published in Official UFO Magazine #9, July 1976. A summary by Dr. Bruce Maccabee :

"This picture which shows the Capitol dome and lights at the left side is, I believe, just a fraction of the total picture which shows the whole Capitol building, parking lot lights in front of it and numerous "UFO" lights in the sky at both the left and right sides of the dome. Colman von Kevicsky, years ago, showed the "UFO" light images were actually lens "flares"....reflections within the lens of the bright streetlights and parking lot lights in front of the Capitol."

So what were the UFOs? Planes were sent up to track them and one of them was identified as a steamship moving on the water below but in most cases the planes couldn't confirm any UFOs:

1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident

Among the witnesses who supported Samford's explanation was the crew of a B-25 bomber, which had been flying over Washington during the sightings of July 26–27. The bomber was vectored several times by National Airport over unknown targets on the airport's radarscopes, yet the crew could see nothing unusual. Finally, as a crew member related, "the radar had a target which turned out to be the Wilson Lines steamboat trip to Mount Vernon...the radar was sure as hell picking up the steamboat."[25]

Air Force Captain Harold May was in the radar center at Andrews AFB during the sightings of July 19–20. Upon hearing that National Airport's radar had picked up an unknown object heading in his direction, May stepped outside and saw "a light that was changing from red to orange to green to red again...at times it dipped suddenly and appeared to lose altitude." However, May eventually concluded that he was simply seeing a star that was distorted by the atmosphere, and that its "movement" was an illusion.[26] At 3 a.m. on July 27, an Eastern Airlines flight over Washington was told that an unknown object was in its vicinity; the crew could see nothing unusual. When they were told that the object had moved directly behind their plane, they began a sharp turn to try to see the object, but were told by National Airport's radar center that the object had "disappeared" when they began their turn.

This case is an example of why I prefer the term UAP or unidentified aerial phenomenon, to UFO, as I think there were UAPs in the skies over Washington. I've never read anything that convinced me there were any UFOs. The steamship was a real object and was making a radar reflection that placed it in the sky. We know how this can happen and there was unusual weather was present, which can result in anomalous propagation and also distort the appearance of astronomical objects as Captain Harold May observed.

At the request of the Air Force, the CAA's Technical Development and Evaluation Center did an analysis of the radar sightings. Their conclusion was that "a temperature inversion had been indicated in almost every instance when the unidentified radar targets or visual objects had been reported."

Yes I know this is controversial and others deny this kind of explanation, but every argument I've read from them seems flawed to me, so this is why I formed the opinion I have.

In any case the point of this thread isn't to identify the actual objects in the actual UFO event, rather, it's to identify what was photographed in the famous photo published in Flying Saucers magazine. Hopefully now everybody will know those are lens flares and not UFOs.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Cool find! Very funny that wasn't discovered sooner (or publicly at least).

But I have also seen video footage of that infamous UFO event over Capitol Hill and as far as I know those are yet to be identified

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Yeah i was thinking as soon as i saw the photo 'I'm sure this was debunked a while ago'. Well, if people still don't know then what better place for it than here.

a reply to: Arbitrageur
Thanks for posting this. I did not know about it. Ignorance denied. Seems alien spaceships are a dime a dozen, but real ones are rare indeed.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

You might as well claim these lights were caused by swamp gas! Lens flares wouldn't have been picked up on radar by the Washington National Airport. Skeptic fail.

a reply to: FamCore

Nope that video is a reconstruction as well for a TV program. Not only that there were hardly any witnesses who saw anything in the DC skies and just a handful of radar operators and pilots who detected anything on radar.

originally posted by: FamCore
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Cool find! Very funny that wasn't discovered sooner (or publicly at least).

But I have also seen video footage of that infamous UFO event over Capitol Hill and as far as I know those are yet to be identified

Apparently what that shows is the same lens flare light formation as in the flying saucers magazine, which someone decided to animate. Look at the pattern of the lights, it's the same.

originally posted by: WeRpeons
a reply to: Arbitrageur

You might as well claim these lights were caused by swamp gas!

Lens flares wouldn't have been picked up on radar by the Washington National Airport. Skeptic fail.

Did you even read the OP? The photo wasn't even taken in 1952 when the UFO event occurred, and one of the UFOs on radar was identified as a steamship.

a reply to: FamCore

I'm pretty certain that was a recreation for a modern UFO documentary. I can't for the life of me remember which one but I'm sure someone here will.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Seems reasonable to me.

But what seems improbable to me is that no other case of lens flares have been reported over the many years that building has existed? It has
only happened once? Same building... same
lights... decades of time passing with no meaningful changes to the building or lights.... no recurrence?

Second pic or it didn't happen!

I find that ridiculously improbable.

originally posted by: TheMadTitan
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Yeah i was thinking as soon as i saw the photo 'I'm sure this was debunked a while ago'. Well, if people still don't know then what better place for it than here.

As far as I know there was no picture taken of UFO's over the white house at that time, but there were multiple targets on radar later said to be caused by a temperature inversion. You are left to believe that or not.

I should add though, that there were plenty of visual sightings, including airport employees and air crews, in the case of 19-20th July sighting.

originally posted by: KellyPrettyBear
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Seems reasonable to me.

But what seems improbable to me is that no other case of lens flares have been reported over the many years that building has existed? It has
only happened once? Same building... same
lights... decades of time passing with no meaningful changes to the building or lights.... no recurrence?

Second pic or it didn't happen!

I find that ridiculously improbable.

Wow that started off as sounding sarcastic but ended up being a brilliant point!

I googled it, didn't find a second pic...

Now can someone explain how lense "flare" produces identical spots of light in the photograph, instead of flaring up the light source? Or making the light or physical objects see through? That seems more like lense flare rather than producing more lights of the same shape and brightness in the picture. This isn't the first time I've read that the photo is not from the event.

Maybe if there was not a lot of witnesses and someone blew the whistle on this publicly years later, they used this photo as an illustration.

We need to know more background information and details on the whole story to determine if the Washington DC 1952 UFO Flap was indeed 100% a hoax.

The second picture was made for part of a UK Channel 4 UFO documentary. 'UFO's - The Secret Evidence' in 2005.

a reply to: game over man

We need to know more background information and details on the whole story to determine if the Washington DC 1952 UFO Flap was indeed 100% a hoax. ,,,,,

Revisiting the 1952 Washington DC UFO Flap

We discussed this in detail in the thread above. The events were real. A handful of eye witnesses saw strange lights (mainly military witnesses) with perhaps a dozen or more radar operators picking up blips over the capital. Various explanations from anomalous propagation, temperature inversions, objects near the ground and even alien spacecraft were postulated at the time.

It became a major event because the media picked up on the stories and it captured the imaginations of the public. 1952 was a very big year for reported UFOs and a record year of Project Bluebook unknowns.

Arby has highlighted the photos because they often fool people into believing they are genuine. (Nearly fooled me as well once upon a time). Sometimes it is a genuine mistake, other times the photos are cropped and shopped to make it look different.

It is important to know there are no contemporary photos and no genine movie footage available of the events. Ardent ET believers may want this so badly to not be true that they are in denial. When in fact they'd be better concentrating on the elements of the case that can be verified.

a reply to: game over man

I hope I was clear. I was in no way talking about the 1952 incident itself. I have an opinion about that (pretty similar to Miragemans post...) but this post was about that photo taken years later.

I was saying it's highly unusual that there have been no other pictures of 'lens flare' over all these years.

Kev

good stuff, and interesting. the photo debunk? maybe, IF there is an extant actual (not 'reconstruction') comparison photo showing exactly the same effect. otherwise, case still open

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: FamCore

Nope that video is a reconstruction as well for a TV program. Not only that there were hardly any witnesses who saw anything in the DC skies and just a handful of radar operators and pilots who detected anything on radar.

I love this bit !

Not only that there were hardly any witnesses who saw anything in the DC skies and just a handful of radar operators and pilots who detected anything on radar.

Guess your right , let's discount this no use info! 😂

a reply to: RoScoLaz4



Above is a pretty good explanation that will take up 3 minutes of your time.

The original photo can be viewed in hi-res : Clicky here

There is also some information about the photo used (which was actually taken in 1965) and used for the cover of Flying Saucer Magazine as seen in the OP in the comments section of the video above.

It would be interesting to know who the original photographer was.

As regards lens flare from the Street lamps:

A quick search produced some images that aren't as deceptive.





But I will also reiterate that the events were real and although there are no genuine photos nor movie footage available something did happen on those two weekends in 1952. The Air Force explained it as temperature inversions and some people accept that. Others believe that to be a simplification. There is also the theory that it was part of a forerunner to Project Palladium and the DoD were testing the USAF reactions secretly with some of their new toys.

It's never really been convincingly explained to everyone.

Lmao I still believe in aliens but I'm glad this is another case closed

a reply to: Denoli

Not only that there were hardly any witnesses who saw anything in the DC skies and just a handful of radar operators and pilots who detected anything on radar. Guess your right , let's discount this no use info! 😂

Bit of advice for you mate. Before you make brazen statements like that it's handy to be able to have studied the real facts behind the case.

The witnesses to the DC events were:


First Weekend 19th/20th July
===========================

Edward Nugent - Air Traffic Controller Washington (he detected radar signals only)
Harry Barnes - Nugent's Supervisor (again he only witnesses radar detection)
Howard Cocklin - In another radar tower to Nugent (again witnessed only radar signals)
William Brady - Andrews Air Force Base radar operator (also saw an orange fireball)
Capt S.C Pierman - Capital Airline Pilot on a runway noted 6 objects approaching his position
SSgt. Charles Davenport - Andrew Air Force Base observed a stationary orange light in the sky
E.W. Chamber civilian radio engineer - who reported five enormous disks circling in a loose formation

Second Weekend 26th/27th July
==============================
Staff Radar operators at Washington and Andrew AFB - tracked rapid moving objects on their scopes
Lt. William Patterson - interceptor pilot reported 4 bright objects surrounding his aircraft.
Capt. John McHugo - Patterson's flight leader who reported he saw nothing whilst in the air at the same time.

Sources available : www.abovetopsecret.com...

I make that 10. I may have missed a few. But there really weren't a lot of witnesses.

The events happened late at night/early morning and so there very few civilian witnesses.

However if you prefer to guess about me being right then feel free to shoot me down once again without even looking into the details of the case.