PROJECT 1947
UFO REPORTS - 1952
The following letter is from Senator Richard Russell and is found in the
Secretary of the Air Force, Office of Information UFO file 1949 to April
1952.
UNITED STATES SENATE
Committee on Armed Services
February 21, 1952
Honorable Thomas K. Finletter
Secretary of the Air Force
Department of the Air Force
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Secretary:
Members of the Committee on Armed Services have expressed a desire
to be informed of Air Force evaluation of recent news articles concerning
the observation of "flying saucers" by combat airmen in the Far East.
I shall appreciate you furnishing for the use of the Committee an
official report of these observations together with your evaluation
thereof and such other information as you deem pertinent to this inquiry.
Sincerely,
Richard B Russell [signed]
After UFOs were sighted by the pilots of planes carrying the
Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations, the Navy
instituted a short-lived UFO investigation project in the Office of
Naval Research. After complaints from the Air Force about intrusion
into USAF areas of interest, the project was closed. An outbriefing
on the project was held, but details are unobtainable. A number of
Freedom of Information requests to various Naval agencies have met
with the same answer; no records exist.
A letter from Dr. James McDonald's files illustrates his attempts to
find out more information on the 1952 Navy UFO project:
August 4, 1970
Mr. Frederick L. Thomas
3634 Cosden Avenue
Memphis, Tennessee, 38111
Dear Mr. Thomas:
During the past few years, I have been examining a number of facets
of the still unsettled problem of the Unidentified Flying Objects.
During a recent visit to Washington, I was discussing a number of aspects
of the problem with Arthur C. Lundahl, who was affiliated with the Navy
Photographic Interpretation Center in the early 1950s and has followed
the UFO problem with some interest ever since. When I mentioned to him
that I was most interested in trying to run down some more facts
conerning a sighting that I had heard of from Adm. Delmer C. Fahrney,
which involved Secretary of the Navy Kimball and Admiral Radford, Art
remembered the sighting and told me that, as a consequence of Secretary
Kimball's concern, something of a special study was undertaken within the
Office of Naval Research, under your direction. He recalled sitting on
the summary symposium at the end of the ONR investigations, but his
recollection of the date seems just a bit hazy. Lundahl kindly located
your current Memphis address, and that is how I happen to be writing to
you here.
I wonder if I might telephone you about a week from now, when I shall
be down in Alabama doing some reseach on the archived Project Bluebook
files, now held at Maxwell AFB. I shall be there from August 10th to
14th, and will try to give you a ring some evening.
I brought up this particular matter today, when I happened to be
talking about some of the early period of the Air Force UFO investigation
with Gen. William M. Garland, Chief of Air Technical Intelligence in the
1952-53 period, when the UFO investigations were being carried out on a
much more thorough basis than has ever been the case in ensuing years.
General Garland who is now retired and works for Notth American in the
Los Angeles area, dimly recalled the Kimball-Radford sighting and
remembered being briefed on the ORN studies by Captain Ruppelt, then
Project Bluebook chief. However, he was unable to recollect any details.
I am getting in touch with a lot of Navy personnel, many of them
retired, many who were on active duty during the period of Korean
hostilities and whose UFO sightings from that period are of unusual
interest. The Maxwell AFB archives include original intelligence reports
(now declassified, of course) on many of those sightings, and the
scientific significance of many of them appears to be substantial. It
would seem to me that a matter of no little scientific significance is
involved here and has never received adequate investigation, particularly
in the post -1953 years at Project Bluebook.
This letter, then, may serve to introduce me and give you a little
background in the nature of my interest in the UFO problem and in your
participation in that ONR study some years back. I'll call you from
Montgomery, and hope that you may have a few minutes to talk with me at
that time.
Sincerely yours,
James E. McDonald
Professor
JEM/msr
cc: Arthur C. Lundahl
P.S. I had written directly to former Secretary Kimball
at his Washington address, about two months back.
However, as Gen Garland told me last week, Mr.
Kimball died in mid-July after an extended illness,
so lack of any rely on this matter is now
understandable.
In Chapter 10, "Project Blue Book and the Big Buildup", of Captain
Edward Ruppelt's THE REPORT ON UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT, Ruppelt wrote about the newspaper clipping service he planned to subscribe to:
Back in March [1952], when it had become apparent tht the press
was reviving its interst in UFOs, I had suggested that
Project Blue Book subscribe to a newspaper clippping
service. Such a service could provide several things.
First it would show us exactly how much publicity the UFO's were
getting and what was being said, and it would give us the feel of the
situation. Then it would also provide a lot of data for our
files. In many cases the newspapers got reports that didn't
go to the Air Force. Newspaper reporters rival any
intelligence officer when it comes to digging up the facts, and there
was always the possibility that they would uncover and print
something we missed. This was especially true in the few
cases of hoaxes that always accompany UFO publicity. Last it would
provide us with material on which to base a study of the effect of
newspaper publicity upon the number and type of UFO reports.
Colonel Dunn liked the idea of the
clipping service, and it went into effect soon after the first
publicity had appeared. Every three or four days we would get
an envelope full of clippings. In March the clipping service
was sending the clippings to us in letter size envelopes. The
envelopes were thin -- maybe there would be a dozen or so clippings
in each one. Then they began to get thicker and thicker, until
the people who were doing the clipping switched to using manilla
envelopes. Then the manilla envelopes began to get thicker
and thicker. By May we were up to old shoe boxes. The
majority of the newspaper stories in the shoe boxes were based on the
material that had come from ATIC ... In June the big flap hit --
they began to deliver clippings in big cardboard cartons."
Ruppelt considerably understated the number of newspaper clippings
received from this service in 1952. When the clippings were later
transferred to microfilm, Dr. Herbert Strentz estimated there were 30,000
items without any duplication on the 32 microfilm rolls that contained
the clippings from April to September 1952. The service was cancelled in
October.
Dr. Strentz was given the microfilms in 1968 by LT COL Hector
Quintanilla to use in the preparation of his PhD dissertation. The
microfilms were later transferred to Barry Greenwood of Citizens
Against UFO Security, (CAUS) . PROJECT
1947 now has copies of these microfilms.
Research has supplemented the USAF clipping collection with thousands of
newspaper articles from all over the world. Additionally, many collections of UFO reports in libraries, archives, and private hands have been copied to
"fill in the gaps." A few examples from the USAF clipping collection
prepared by K. J. Croft are shown here:
San Francisco News - May 26, 1952
FLYING SAUCER IS CAPTURED BY OFFICER
Daly City -- At last one "flying saucer" mystery has been solved --
thanks to the fast action of Daly City Police Officer, James Welsh.
Wales was in his patrol car on El Camino real early yesterday when a
passerby ran up, pointing and exclaimed: "Look, there's a
flying saucer or something"
Sure enough, a bright globe was moving slowly across the sky.
Without waiting for help, Welsh took off in pursuit and was rewarded to see
the object alight in Greenlawn Cemetery, Colma. With drawn pistol, he approached.
The "flying saucer" turned out to be a 10 inch rubber balloon, with a
flashlight battery and bulb attached.
"Some joker's idea of humor" Welsh reported.
Lakeland, FLA. Ledger - June 1, 1952
FLYING SAUCER?
Bartow -- Two instructors from Bartow Air Base on a routine night flight
spotted a rapidly moving bluish white light in the vicinity of Plant City.
The conversation went something like this. "It's not the moon", said one.
The other retorted "It isn't a searchlight."
What was it? Well, Instructors James E. Boulin and Charles Shank are
not committing themselves. They have been taking quite a kidding from
the fellows at the base.
Their story now is "we don't say it wasn't a light but we don't say it was."
Reading, PA. Eagle - June 5, 1952
MORE FLYING SAUCERS
Catania, Sicily, June 5 (Reuters) -- Another rash of "flying saucers"
has broken out in Sicily and Italy. Many persons reported seeing a "silvery
object" cross Catania at a high altitude today. Two other saucers were
reported over Ancona, on Italy's Adriatic coast, late yesterday.
Montreal, Canada Star - June 17, 1952
EVERYONE'S SEEING "SAUCERS" IN FRANCE
Paris. June 17 -- (Reuters) -- A fresh wave of flying saucer
reports swept France today.
An employee of La Bourget Airport control tower claimed that last Firday he
saw a "star, red like the setting sun" and about four times the size of an
ordinary star, moving Southeast of the Airfield.
The pilot of a French transport plane also saw the "star", reported to the
control tower, and made an extra circuit to take a closer look but as he
circled, the star moved into the wind and vanished.
Last Sunday, Albert Roux, who lives near La Bourget, reported seeking a
white silvery disc cross the sky from northwest to southwest "about four
times as fast as a jet plane." Thirty other persons in Cholet, western
France, said they saw a "flying saucer".
Leadville, Colo. Herald Democrat - June 18, 1952
"FLYING SAUCER" SIGHTED AT PUEBLO
Pueblo. June 18 -- (UP) -- Those "flying saucers" are here again.
An object commonly called a "flying saucer" was sighted by the US Weather
Bureau station at Plueblo Municipal airport at 8:45 pm Tuesday.
Orville Foster of the Weather Bureau said that he and an assistant watched
the "flying saucer" for approximately 10 minutes in the bureau theodolite,
the instrument used to observe weather balloons.
They said the "object" had no definite shape, possibly because of a smoke
haze that enveloped the Pueblo area. It threw a soft white light, they
said, and occasionally took on a reddish hue. It moved through the sky
at a leisurely speed and finally disappearred toward the northeast.
Foster and John George, his assistant, both agreed that it was neither a
light reflection nor a plane.
Although the "flying saucer" did not circle above the city proper, several
residents reported they saw it in the sky northeast of the city limits.
Columbus, Ohio Star - 28 June, 1952
Vet Pilot Reports Flying Saucer Here.
Gives Vivid Description of Odd Ship
Reports of flying saucers, space ships and other mysterious sightings in the
skies continue to be received at the office of The Columbus Star.
One of the most interesting is that of a Columbus business man who served
three and one half years as a pilot in World War II and who currently holds
a commercial pilots license for single and multi engine planes.
Here is his story:
I do not remember the exact date, I am not
too happy to say, but one bright, cloudless afternoon about 3pm in early
January 1952, I approached my parked car with an order to deliver. My
attention was directed skyward by the sound of maneuvering F-84 jets based, I assumed, at nearby Lockbourne Air Base. These planes were about
three to five miles due east at an altitude of approximately 15,000 feet and were engaged in a "rat race". I believe there were three, but possibly only
two, airplanes.
"These planes performed various acrobatics and I
watched them for some 30-45 seconds when my attention was then directed to
an RB-45 jet bomber which was flying from south to north at about the same
distance from me (three to five miles) but at a lower altitude.
"My eyes followed the larger, lower airplane coming
into my range of vision from my right until it was approximately due east. It was
then that I saw a bright, not too clearly outlined, glowing object in about the
same spot in the sky that I first saw the maneuvering flighter plane.
"This more unusual object held my interest and I
can say nothing more of the jet planes which I no longer noticed.
"This light was a bright one, even on this bright
day. It was a yellowish light and definately was not reflected light from the wing
or fuselage of an airplane.
"It's very difficult to determine the size of an
object seen under these conditions. Basing my estimates on its
speed and flight path mainly. I would say that the object was from 15 to
18 thousand feet high and also that its greatest dimension (the horizontal one)
was not greater than forty feet.
"The object when I first saw it was not exactly
motionless but was travelling slowly on a course of about 225 degrees.
" I would estimate its initial speed at about 250
miles per hour. It accelerated rapidly after the first four or five seconds
and when it disappeared from view was travelling at a speed I would roughly
estimate to be about two thousand miles per hour. It was this
astonishing speed and acceleration that convinced me I had seen something
that was not man made.
"I watched it through 1.35 degrees of arc and saw
it only for a matter of seven or eight seconds."
Another extremely interesting letter was received from an Air Force officer
now stationed in Texas. He is Harold E McDowell, AA and GM. Br. T. A. S.
Box 1106, AFCO, No5, Ft. Bliss, Tex. Here is his story:
Columbus Star
62 E Broad St
Columbus 15
Ohio.
Dear Sirs.
My brother, knowing of my great interest in the subject, forwarded to me
your article concerning flying discs. I realize the sensational nature of
your newspaper, but I want to state that in carrying on an investigation of
disc sightings you are also doing a great public service as well as selling
newspapers.
It has been four years since I made my first disc sighting. On Jan 7
1948 at 10:15pm, I sighted a cigar shaped object proceeding in an easterly direction over Trotwood, O. Since I did not know the true altitude of the object and could not determine its size by comparison with anything else.
I cannot state the speed at which it was travelling other than to say it was tremendous, as the object passed from horizon to horizon in a very short time.
The rocket, or whatever it was, accelerated and decelerated several times.
At its low speed a reddish orange flame of about the length of the rocket
extended from the rear of the rocket. As the object accelerated the
exhaust flame became a very brilliant greenish white, much like a magnesium flare, and at its greatest was about three times the length of the body or
fuselage of the object. I do not know what I saw, but as an Air Force
aerial observer of the last war who flew entirely at night I do know that it
was not a meteor nor a star, nor any aircraft such as we had at the time,
but it was an aircraft, of that I am certain.
Then on May 10 1952 at 2:15 pm, Warrant Officer Charles Vimmerstedt and
myself observed a disc like object hovering high over Ft. Bliss for about two
minutes. It then vanished, what direction we could not tell.
About May 7, 1952 at 6:15pm, a ball of fire came in from a southerly
direction and passed low over Ft. Bliss. It then circled the summit of
Franklin Mountain adjacent to the fort and disappeared into Mexico again.
I did not observe this object but several of my friends here did and I can
vouch fo their veracity. I will forward any further information along
these lines.
Sincerely
Lt. Harold E. McDowell 0997608
Monroe, La. World - July 23, 1952.
FLYING SAUCER IS REPORTED BY MONROE FLIER.
A report of a flying saucer landed in the Morning World office last night when A.D. HANKS, 808 K Street, notified a reporter that he had sighted one of the "things" last Tuesday night.
Hanks said: "I didn't report this sooner because I thought folks would think
I was crazy." Here is his story:
Last Tuesday about 10 pm I was flying to Monroe from Little Rock. When I
neared the Arkansas border I saw what appeared to be a blood red star about
2000 feet overhead. It was traveling at 4,000 feet at a speed of over 100
miles per hour.
"When I first noticed the object, it was traveling in a generally
southwestern direction. Then, while I was watching the blot of red light,
if changed course and started following me, flying 2,000 feet overhead
"I thought at first it was an illusion. To test my theory, I made a 90
degree right turn. The "flying saucer" did the same. The thing followed my course for about 10 minutes, then suddenly swooped down approximately 2,000 feet below my plane.
"At first, I believed it to be a jet. After that swift drop, I changed my
line of thinking."
The bright red spot still followed my course underneath me. A few minutes
later it seemed to bounce back 2,000 feet overhead. Then, "it" switched
back to its original course and took off at a tremendous rate of speed."
Hanks has been a flyer for about 25 years and he said he had never had such
an eerie feeling or seen such an unnatural sight.
New York NY News - June 27, 1952
NOW MALTA SIGHTS A FLYING SAUCER
Malta, June 28 (Reuters) -- British Royal marines handed in Malta's first
flying saucer report today. They said a saucer-like object flying at high
speed and height was sighted over the island early today.
