1952 Washington DC UFO incident: full transcription
// Mission Dossier
Get The Covert Operations Files: $5
Primary source records on how the government has managed public perception across seven decades.
Get the dossier: $5 instant download →Object which appeared to be like an orange ball of fire, trailing a tail... unlike anything I had ever seen before. It took off at an unbelievable speed.
The radar targets were not shapeless blobs such as one gets from ground returns under anomalous propagation. I was certain the unknown radar blips were solid targets.
A massive buildup of sightings over the United States in 1952, especially in July, alarmed the Truman administration. On 19 and 20 July, radar scopes at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base tracked mysterious blips. On 27 July, the blips reappeared. The volume of reporting itself, not the objects, was assessed as the genuine national security vulnerability, since a hostile actor could flood the same channels with false reports to mask a real attack.
This transcription covers the core witness testimony and the CIA's own account of its 1952 memo, drawn from the agency's official history published in Studies in Intelligence. The Robertson Panel's own full report, convened as a direct result of this memo, is covered in full on this site's Robertson Panel page.
Document: CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence memorandum to Director Walter B. Smith, September 24, 1952.
Source: Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90," Studies in Intelligence, 1997.
You just read one document. Pro shows you every document that contradicts it.
The Contradiction Engine cross-references any two records in the archive and shows you where the government’s own story changed. The Evidence Chain View maps how one program became the next, sourced at every step. Citations generated correctly, every time. Your own notes, saved against the document.
Start your free month →This site costs real money to run. If it’s useful to you, you can help keep it going →