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As Seen In Our Contributions To The "Unsealed: Alien Files" TV Series! "Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story Of Flying Saucers", The Original Uncut 1956 Public Information Feature Film Produced With The Cooperation Of The United States Air Force, Starring Many Of The Actual Participants In The Event, Including The Star Of The Film, Al Chop, Both Public Information Officer For The Pentagon And Air Force UFO Press Secretary, Who Was An Eywitnesses To Many Of The Crucial Events Of The Incident (Black/White/Color, 1956, 1 Hour 37 Minutes) PLUS BONUS SPECIAL REPORT: SIGHTINGS: ATTACK ON WASHINGTON, Featuring An Exclusive Interview With Al Chop, Along With Commentary By UFO Researcher Richard Hall And UFO Investigator Kevin Randle, Produced By Henry Winkler And Hosted By Tim White (Color, 1996, 10 Minutes) -- All Presented In The Highest DVD Quality MPG Video Format Of 9.1 MBPS As An MP4 Video Download Or Archival Quality All Regions Format DVD!
*July 23, 2023: Updated With SIGHTINGS: ATTACK ON WASHINGTON!
Taglines from the film: “Actual color films of Unidentified Flying Objects that have been kept ‘Top Secret’ until now!”, “See it all as it actually happened ...and is still happening!”, “EVERY SHOCKING WORD, EVERY FANTASTIC SCENE, EVERY FRIGHTENING MOMENT IS TRUE!”, “The motion picture scoop of the century!”
Twice in July of 1952, the United States capitol was overflown by as many as 14 aircraft at a single time which exhibited flight characteristics far in advance of the technology of that day as well as our own. It resulted in the greatest overloading of the Pentagon's public information assets besides the Pearl Harbor attack in its history. The Pentagon via the U.S. Air Force took it upon themselves to make sure such an event would never again overwhelm their capacities and endanger the abiility of the U.S. defense establishment to react to any Soviet threat that might present itself during such a moment. Projects Sign, Grudge and Bluebook all were undertaken with the intention of addressing the UFO phenomenon involved, and the significance the Air Force wanted to public to assign to these projects are spelled out in this docudramatic public information film. It chronicles the activities of Al Chop, Public Information Officer for the Pentagon that was an eywitnesses to many crucial events involving the U.F.O. phenomenon during the "flap" of flying saucer sightings of 1952, including the "Washington Nationals" sightings over the U.S. capitol of July of that year, as well as investigations into two famous color films taken of U.F.O.'s of that day, the Montana Film of Great Falls "Electrics" minor-league baseball team General Manager Nicholas Mariana and the Tremonton Film of U.S. Navy Warrant Officer and photographer Delbert C. Newhouse, both of whom are interviewed in this film. Astoundingly, though the fiilm is produced with the assitance of the defense establishment, it makes the case in favor of the conclusion that the U.F.O. incidents documented in this film were of actual objects with flight characteristics inconsistent with those known to be manufactured here on earth.
Director:
Winston Jones
Writer:
Francis Martin
Cast:
Tom Towers ... Albert M. (Al) Chop
Bert Freed ... Dayton Colonel
Nicholas Mariana ... Himself
Delbert Newhouse ... Himself
Robert Phillips ... Captain Edward Ruppelt
Willis Sperry ... Himself
Wendell Swanson ... Himself
Harry Morgan ... Pilot on Radio (uncredited)
July 19/20, 1952 / : UFO Incidents: The 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO Incident (The Washington Flap, The Washington National Airport Sightings, The Invasion Of Washington): The largest, most famous and most significant UFO "flap"occurs as a series of unidentified flying objects are encounted between July 12-29, 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."
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The 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO Incident: The 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. 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." Barnes had two controllers check Nugent's radar; they found that it was working normally. Barnes then called National Airport's radar-equipped control tower; the controllers there, Howard Cocklin and Joe Zacko, said that they also had unidentified blips on their radar screen, and saw a hovering "bright light" in the sky, which departed with incredible speed. Cocklin asked Zacko, "Did you see that? What the hell was that?" At this point, other objects appeared in all sectors of the radarscope; when they moved over the White House and the United States Capitol, Barnes called Andrews Air Force Base, located 10 miles from National Airport. Although Andrews reported that they had no unusual objects on their radar, an airman soon called the base's control tower to report the sighting of a strange object. Airman William Brady, who was in the tower, then saw an "object which appeared to be like an orange ball of fire, trailing a tail . . . [it was] unlike anything I had ever seen before." As Brady tried to alert the other personnel in the tower, the strange object "took off at an unbelievable speed. 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." Meanwhile, at Andrews Air Force Base, the control tower personnel were tracking on radar what some thought to be unknown objects, but others suspected, and in one instance were able to prove, were simply stars and meteors. However, Staff Sgt. Charles Davenport observed an orange-red light to the south; the light "would appear to stand still, then make an abrupt change in direction and altitude . . . this happened several times." At one point both radar centers at National Airport and the radar at Andrews Air Force Base were tracking an object hovering over a radio beacon. The object vanished in all three radar centers at the same time. At 3 a.m., two United States Air Force F-94 Starfire jet fighter interceptors from New Castle Air Force Base in Delaware were scrambled to intercept the objects. The Lockheed F-94 Starfire was a first-generation jet powered all-weather day/night interceptor aircraft was the first operational United States Air Force fighter equipped with an afterburner, enabling the planes to arrive at the scene with the greatest airspeed available at the time. Shortly before the jets arrived over Washington, all of the objects vanished from the radar at National Airport. However, when the jets ran low on fuel and left, the objects returned, which convinced Barnes that "the UFOs were monitoring radio traffic and behaving accordingly." The objects were last detected by radar at 5:30 a.m. The sightings of July 19-20, 1952, made front-page headlines in newspapers around the nation. A typical example was the headline from the Cedar Rapids Gazette in Iowa. It read "SAUCERS SWARM OVER CAPITAL" in large black type. By coincidence, USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the supervisor of the Air Force's Project Blue Book investigation into UFO sightings, was in Washington at the time. However, he did not learn about the sightings until Monday, July 21, when he read the headlines in a Washington-area newspaper. After talking with intelligence officers at the Pentagon about the sightings, Ruppelt spent several hours trying to obtain a staff car so he could travel around Washington to investigate the sightings, but was refused as only generals and senior colonels could use staff cars. He was told that he could rent a taxicab with his own money; by this point Ruppelt was so frustrated that he left Washington and flew back to Blue Book's headquarters at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio.
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The 1952 Washington, D.C. UFO Incident: The 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 lights above their plane. Within minutes, both radar centers at National Airport, and the radar at Andrews AFB, were tracking more unknown objects.[14] 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 detecting 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 told investigators said that "I tried to make contact with the bogies below 1,000 feet," and that "I was at my maximum speed but...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." After midnight on July 27, USAF Major Dewey Fournet, Project Blue Book's liaison at the Pentagon, and Lt. John Holcomb, a United States Navy radar specialist, arrived at the radar center at National Airport. During the night, Lieutenant Holcomb received a call from the Washington National Weather Station. They told him that a slight temperature inversion was present over the city, but Holcomb felt that the inversion was not "nearly strong enough to explain the 'good and solid' returns" on the radar scopes. Fournet relayed that all those present in the radar room were convinced that the targets were most likely caused by solid metallic objects. There had been weather targets on the scope too, he said, but this was a common occurrence and the controllers "were paying no attention to them,". Two more F-94s from New Castle Air Force Base were scrambled during the night. One pilot saw nothing unusual; the other pilot saw a white light which "vanished" when he moved towards it. Civilian aircraft also reported glowing objects that corresponded to radar blips seen by Andrews radar operators. As on July 20, the sightings and unknown radar returns ended at sunrise. The sightings of July 26–27 also made front-page headlines, and led President Harry Truman to have his air force aide call Ruppelt and ask for an explanation of the sightings and unknown radar returns. Truman listened to the conversation between the two men on a separate phone, but did not ask questions himself. Ruppelt, remembering the conversation he had with Captain James, told the president's assistant that the sightings might have been caused by a temperature inversion, in which a layer of warm, moist air covers a layer of cool, dry air closer to the ground. This condition can cause radar signals to bend and give false returns. However, Ruppelt had not yet interviewed any of the witnesses or conducted a formal investigation. CIA historian Gerald Haines, in his 1997 history of the CIA's involvement with UFOs, also mentions Truman's concern. "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 CIA would react to the 1952 wave of UFO reports by "forming a special study group within the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) and Office of Current Intelligence (OCI) to review the situation. Edward Tauss reported for the group that most UFO sightings could be easily explained. Nonetheless, he recommended that the Agency continue monitoring the problem." The CIA's concern with the issue would lead to the creation, in January 1953, of the Robertson Panel, headed by Howard P. Robertson, an American mathematician and physicist known for contributions related to physical cosmology and the uncertainty principle, to investigate the matter and to make recommendations.
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The Robertson Panel recommended that a public education campaign should be undertaken in order to reduce public interest in the subject, minimising the risk of swamping Air Defence systems with reports at critical times; at the time of the incident, the Pentagon was so overwhelmed with inquiries from the public and the media -- more than during any other event except the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor -- that the panel concluded that if there had been an enemy attack, the Pentagon would have been unable to respond in a timelyh manner. The panel further recommended that civilian UFO groups should be monitored. The Robertson Panel's report was contained within a larger internal CIA report by F C Durant, a CIA officer who served as Secretary to the Panel, which summarises the activities of the panel and its conclusions. This wider document is commonly referred to as the Durant Report.