Washington Post, Monday, July 28, 1952: "'Saucer' Outran Jet, Pilot Reveals"

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Tue Aug 2, 2022, 11:28 AM - Edit history (3)

Hat tip, the guest on this morning's "Coast to Coast AM," who talked about this incident

UFO Investigations / Watergate Revelations

DATE
Sunday - July 31 2022
HOST
George Knapp
GUESTS
Christopher Sharp, Kevin D. Randle, Jefferson Morley

The Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence has released its Explanatory Report, which has provided context for Congress's most significant push for transparency regarding UFOs. In the first hour, Christopher Sharp, founder, and editor-in-chief of Liberation Times, joined George Knapp to discuss how this is the first time Congress has officially expressed its displeasure with the Department of Defense's slow progress in investigating UFOs (related article). Sharp said that he's been told that the lives of certain politicians dramatically changed after receiving some of the private UFO briefings and information that was revealed to them. The Committee report also made clear that their interest in UAPs does not include man-made objects, he added.

In the second hour, author and UFO researcher, Kevin Randle, spoke about the 70th anniversary of incidents in Washington DC when eight UFOs were picked up on radar traversing over the US capitol. Radar caught the objects moving at some 7,000 mph in one of the two July 1952 occurrences, he reported. However, in a cover-up effort by the Air Force, they suggested that a "temperature inversion" caused the radar to mistake a weather event for unidentified craft. Randle said he interviewed one of the radar operators who was adamant that they were not seeing weather-related phenomena. Randle also shared some of his research into the famed Roswell case of 1947.

------------------

In the latter half, intelligence expert and investigative journalist Jefferson Morley revealed the Watergate scandal in a completely new light: as the culmination of a concealed, deadly power struggle between President Richard Nixon and CIA Director Richard Helms. Nixon and Helms had a long history together, running through the 1950s and 60s, and both had a lot of dirt on each other. They had teamed up for several assassination plots to kill Cuba's communist leader Fidel Castro in the early 1960s. Later, Mafia figures like Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana blackmailed the Nixon administration and the CIA, saying that if they were prosecuted for organized crimes, they'd expose details of how the US government hired them to kill Castro, Morley recounted.

The Watergate burglars, he noted, were actually part of a joint venture between the White House and the CIA (the burglars themselves were retired CIA agents). Just before the Watergate burglars went on trial, Nixon summoned Helms to Camp David and fired him during a tense showdown. But in what was likely a kind of blackmail/power play by Helms, it was announced that while he was leaving his position at the CIA, he would next become the US Ambassador to Iran, Morley continued. After Nixon was investigated for his culpability in the Watergate break-in, the CIA also was also implicated in their involvement. Helms was finally brought up on charges in 1977 of obstruction of congressional inquiries and given a two-year suspended sentence.

{snip}

Sun Jul 28, 2019: Washington Post, Monday, July 28, 1952: "'Saucer' Outran Jet, Pilot Reveals"

Hat tip, this documentary-style movie, which scared me to pieces when I first saw it some fifty years ago. The incident gets lengthy coverage in the film:

UFO (1956 film)

1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident

The 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident, also known as the Washington flap, the Washington National Airport Sightings, or the Invasion of Washington, was a series of unidentified flying object reports from July 12 to July 29, 1952, over Washington, D.C. The most publicized sightings took place on consecutive weekends, July 19–20 and July 26–27. UFO historian Curtis Peebles called the incident "the climax of the 1952 (UFO) flap" - "Never before or after did Project Blue Book and the Air Force undergo such a tidal wave of (UFO) reports."

Events of July 19–20

At 11:40 p.m. on Saturday, July 19, 1952, Edward Nugent, an air traffic controller at Washington National Airport (today Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport), spotted seven objects on his radar.[3] 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. Nugent's superior, Harry Barnes, a senior air-traffic controller at the airport, watched the objects on Nugent's radarscope. He later wrote:

We knew immediately that a very strange situation existed . . . their movements were completely radical compared to those of ordinary aircraft.

{snip}

On one of National Airport's 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 tower's radar had detected unknown objects closing in on his position. Pierman observed six objects — "white, tailless, fast-moving lights" — over a 14-minute period. Pierman was in radio contact with Barnes during his sighting, and Barnes later related that "each sighting coincided with a pip we could see near his plane. When he reported that the light streaked off at a high speed, it disappeared on our scope."

{snip}

Events of July 26–27

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. USAF master sergeant Charles E. Cummings visually observed the objects at Andrews, 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."

Meanwhile, Albert M. Chop, the press spokesman for Project Blue Book, arrived at National Airport and, due to security concerns, denied several reporters' requests to photograph the radar screens. He then joined the radar center personnel. By this time (9:30 p.m.) the radar center was picking up unknown objects in every sector. At times the objects traveled slowly; at other times they reversed direction and moved across the radarscope at speeds calculated at up to 7,000 mph (11,250 km/h). At 11:30 p.m., two U.S. Air Force F-94 Starfire jet fighters from New Castle Air Force Base in Delaware arrived over Washington. Captain John McHugo, the flight leader, was vectored towards the radar blips but saw nothing, despite repeated attempts. However, his wingman, Lieutenant William Patterson, did see four white "glows" and chased them. He later said that "I tried to make contact with the bogies below 1,000 feet. I was at my maximum speed...I ceased chasing them because I saw no chance of overtaking them." According to Albert Chop, when ground control asked Patterson "if he saw anything", Patterson replied "'I see them now and they're all around me. What should I do?'...And nobody answered, because we didn't know what to tell him."

{snip}

[3] Carlson, Peter; Carlson, Peter (21 July 2002). "50 Years Ago, Unidentified Flying Objects From Way Beyond the Beltway Seized the Capital's Imagination". Washington Post.

Monday, July 28, 1952:

Flying Saucers Over DC?
7/18/2014 in DC by Patrick Kiger

Even the Alexandria Gazette ran the story. Tuesday, July 29, 1952:

"Eye-witness Story of 'Flying Saucers' Seen Along Alexandria-Clarendon Axis"



I can't leave without posting a picture of a Capital Airlines DC-4.

Capital Airlines Douglas DC-4 NC91069 (c/n 10363)



Most Capital Airlines publicity shots were taken over the capital city. This DC-4 is in the first livery adopted by the airline and is almost identical to that of the Pennsylvania-Central markings. The nice shot below, also from Capital, shows the same machine circa 1951, in the revised livery (most notable change was the emblem) in almost the same area of air space. It was carrying the name "Capitaliner Youngstown". Shortly after PCA was renamed Capital Airlines the company commenced the first cut rate "coach class" service to be introduced in the United States by offering an off peak hours fare of $33.00 from New York to Chicago. DC-4s were used on these "Nighthawk" services. It was to be some four years later before other airlines responded with their own coach fares (lowering the price again by a small margin). This DC-4 was destroyed in an accident whilst operating for a small charter outfit known as Mideastern Airways in 1970.

[PJMcK]

1. Two thoughts

The first letter of UFO stand for "unidentified." One cannot conclude that the unidentified thing is an alien spacecraft. How does that make any sense at all?

Secondly, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Show us real proof. Frankly, this is the same principle that should be applied to Trump's claims of voter fraud: Put up or shut up.

Neil deGrasse Tyson has pointed out that in science, eye-witness testimony is the least reliable evidence and it's why scientist build incredible machines like the Webb Telescope and the Large Hadron Collider. These machines provide hard-core evidence.

Curiously, in our court system, eye-witness testimony is given almost the highest level of legitimacy even though there are countless examples of mistaken identity.

[quickesst]

2. Skeptics want absolute proof..

.... of the existence of extraterrestrials. On the other hand, the skeptics have offered no proof , absolute or otherwise, as to what they actually are. Many incidents can be explained away, especially hoaxes, but, there are many incidents, such as the one stated above that cannot be explained away. They love telling people what they are not, but they completely ignore the elephant in the room in that they cannot tell us what they actually are.
I am not a skeptic. I am a waiter. I have been waiting all my life for them to show up. I'm 70 now, and if necessary, I will be waiting till the day I die. I may not have it in my lifetime but I have confidence it will happen at some point. To those who say you've been waiting all your life just to feel disappointment at age 70? My reply to them would be that my lifetime is no more than a flicker when compared to the concept of time overall. I do believe someone will make first contact with possible extraterrestrials. Unfortunately, I may not have enough time for it to be me.

Arthur c Clarke's third law:
"Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from magic"

Would not human skeptics, with their limited knowledge, and imagination, come to the conclusion that if extraterrestrials have visited Earth, the only way they would be able to do it would be by "magic"?