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In 1952, a double feature cost 25 cents, and UFOs were science fiction.

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And so it wasn't surprising that very few people took the threat seriously when flying

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saucers showed up in the nation's capital.

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It was the end of the trail for an unprecedented wave of UFO sightings, in which more than

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1,500 people had reported seeing the strange craft.

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In 1952, it was a major turning point in the history of UFOs for the main reason that this

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was the year that so many UFOs were seen by military interceptor pilots and tracked on radar.

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Richard Hall believes that the flap of 1952 was among the most significant events in UFO history.

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When these sightings happened, we were in the midst of the Cold War, which involved a fear

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that the Soviet Union was going to send bombers over and there would be an atomic war.

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This was the period when we had bomb shelters and air raid drills and kids at school had

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to go hide under their desks.

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And so the immediate reaction was, well, this must be a Soviet Union enterprise.

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It must be a breakthrough in technology.

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The United States Air Force launched a top secret investigation as part of the year-old

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Project Blue Book.

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Air Technology Center in Dayton, Ohio was put on a high priority project to check this out.

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And they very quickly learned that this was not anything the Soviet Union had produced.

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But this led a lot of people immediately to say, well, if it's not from the Soviet Union,

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it must be from outer space because there was no other explanation for it.

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The Foreign Technology Division at Wright Field, now Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, was swamped

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with calls from alarm-dye witnesses.

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Veteran newspaper reporter Al Chop was hired by the Air Force to manage the flow of information.

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The policy at that time was to answer to the best of our ability any queries on particular

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UFO sightings.

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And often we could explain what the people saw.

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Often we could not.

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Chop estimates that at least 25 percent of the UFOs investigated by the Air Force were

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verifiable, but undedifiable, including this Montana sighting and the sighting in Utah.

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In each case, eyewitnesses described multiple bluish-white objects flying in formation at

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speeds beyond the reach of 1952 technology.

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The government was interested, but not alarmed by these sightings until two Midsummer's Night

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Saturdays when they showed up in Washington, D.C.

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We have UFO sightings that take place at the Washington National Airport on two consecutive

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Saturday nights.

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Objects are seen on radar.

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They're seen visually, not only at Washington National Airport, but Andrews Air Force Base.

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Everybody who was there saw something.

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Kevin Randall has one of the largest collections of data, documents, and photographs about

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the Washington incident.

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What is interesting is that we have radars in separate locations, also seeing the objects.

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We have airline pilots seeing them as well.

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Air Force interceptors are scrambled.

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They see the objects as well.

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So we have a wide variety of people seeing these bright bluish-white lights.

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In 1952, National Airport was Washington's only airport, centrally located and within

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a few miles of three important intelligence centers, the Pentagon, the White House, and

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the Capitol.

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Al Chop was in the airport radar room the night the UFOs first appeared.

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We let the press in and they were observing the scope along with the radar operators.

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We had about four or five radar operators there.

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The Air Force ordered an immediate scramble at nearby Bowling Air Force Base, but the

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interceptor jets weren't there.

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They were in Delaware.

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The Air Defense Squadron that normally guards the Capitol was assigned to Newcastle, Delaware

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because they were repairing the runways at Bowling Air Force Base, which seemed unusual

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for UFOs to visit the Capitol when the jets aren't there.

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It took over an hour for two F-94s to reach the Capitol.

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Well, we could see the flight coming in.

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All of our unknowns disappeared completely from the scope.

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It was kind of scary, so we let them go back to base.

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It seemed like the very second that the interceptors left the range of our scope, our UFOs came

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back.

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The fighters were recalled and began searching the skies over Washington.

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One pilot did make visual contact with the UFOs, and this time the objects did not disappear.

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He flew into this cluster of lights, and then he said, I see them, they're all around me.

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And he described them as brilliant blue-white lights.

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And we just looked at each other and couldn't figure out what was going on up there.

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The objects hovered in the sky until dawn, then disappeared.

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There were banner headlines in newspapers across the country, recounting the spectacular

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flyover and speculating about its origin.

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On July 29, 1952, Major General John A. Samford, Air Force Chief of Intelligence, held this

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press conference to explain the government's position.

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I am here to discuss the so-called flying saucers.

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We have, as of date, come to only one firm conclusion.

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It was the most heavily attended news conference since World War II.

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How big it was, and they were under pressure to explain what is this thing that's flying

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all over the country that we can't identify and have no control over.

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The official conclusion the Air Force came to was that temperature inversions had caused

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these sightings.

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Temperature inversions are when a cool layer of air gets trapped over a warm layer, it

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forms a sort of atmospheric lens, and the signals are refracted, and you see things flying

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around where there really is nothing.

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According to Hall, temperature inversions give only very weak radar returns and are

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incapable of the kind of acrobatic performance clearly observed on radar at National Airport.

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And the Air Force came up with the rather lame explanation that they were temperature

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inversions.

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This, for some reason, satisfied people.

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It's hard to imagine why, but it did.

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It threw people off the track and newsmen, like everybody else, I guess, it was too mind

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boggling for them to believe it was real.

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But the incident is indelibly set in the minds of those who experienced it first hand.

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These were good solid returns.

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The Air Force radar expert who was present that night stated that they were good solid

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returns and he thought they were picking up metallic objects.

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These solid returns for metal objects have never been identified, friend or foe, earthly

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or extraterrestrial.

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From Utah in 1952 to the so-called attack on Washington to Mexico City in 1992, these

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objects remain a tantalizing mystery begging to be solved.

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But so far, no government has been willing to claim the obsolete 40-year-old technology

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as its own or to provide another explanation or even to pledge the funds necessary to conduct

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a comprehensive investigation.

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Our leaders did not see UFOs as a potential threat and in that way, little has changed

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since 1952.

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By assuming the Washington flap of 52 was created by unusual weather conditions, some

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ufologists believe the U.S. government missed a golden opportunity to make significant contact

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with extraterrestrial visitors.

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They wonder, will we be ready the next time other worldly forces choose to make their

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presence known?