July 1st-7th, 1952 UFO & Entity Sightings Archive
1952: July 1st-7th
UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
The first week of July 1952 opened with the earliest tremors of what would become the most intense UFO wave of the Cold War. A radar-confirmed formation raced from New Jersey toward Washington, D.C. within the same hour a physics professor watched a UFO arc back and forth over the capital. Two days later, Navy photographer Delbert Newhouse filmed one of the most analyzed UFO films in history over Tremonton, Utah, footage the Air Force returned with its clearest frames missing.
Around those anchor cases, the July 1952 UFO sightings of the opening days read like a country beginning to look up: two silvery elliptical objects over Boston and an F-94 sent after them, Captain Metcalf’s milky white “elongated oval” over Lexington, four Continental Air Lines pilots watching a flying saucer hover above the Hanford atomic works, an Oklahoma State Patrolman counting three dark discs from his patrol plane, and a Van Nuys family who watched a saucer rotate onto its edge. Project Blue Book logged them all, and its record cards show some of the week’s reports were stars, meteors and balloons, which makes the ones that were not stand out more.
Date: July 1, 1952
Location: Columbia, Missouri
Time: 1:46 a.m. CST
Summary: A civilian watched a star-like object in the northeast sky for about two hours and eight minutes, from 1:46 a.m. until 3:54 a.m. CST. It began at 3.7 degrees elevation and 28 degrees azimuth and drifted to roughly 46.7 degrees azimuth, a nearly stationary course. Project Blue Book evaluated the sighting as astronomical: the star Capella.
Source: Project Blue Book record card
Date: July 1, 1952
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Time: Unknown (early morning)
Summary: A civilian woman watched a ball of fire fly across the sky in a shallow arc toward the southwest for three to four minutes. Project Blue Book evaluated it as a meteor.
Source: Project Blue Book record card
Date: July 1, 1952
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Time: 7:25 a.m.
Summary: Two silvery, elliptical UFOs were observed visually near Boston. An F-94 interceptor was sent up to investigate.
Source: Unknown
Date: July 1, 1952
Location: Lexington, Massachusetts
Time: 7:30 a.m.
Summary: Capt. Metcalf observed a milky white object shaped like an “elongated oval,” but “fatter than a cigar,” about 100 ft long — slightly larger than a four-engine airliner — with an indistinct rear resembling either a very short exhaust or a blurred tail, a narrow ridge along the top, and no wings or other aerodynamic features.
Source: Blue Book files
Date: July 1, 1952
Location: Fort Monmouth, New Jersey
Time: 9:30 a.m.
Summary: Objects moved south along the East Coast and hovered near Fort Monmouth for about 5 minutes at 50,000 ft. As radar at Fort Monmouth detected them, they accelerated and headed southwest toward Washington, D.C., where they were confirmed visually. At about noon, a physics professor in Washington reported seeing a grayish UFO hovering and arcing back and forth across the sky.[Full Report]
Source: Ruppelt, pp. 200-202; Dan Wilson; BBU; Project Blue Book worksheet (ATIC Test Form 334)
Date: July 1, 1952
Location: Van Nuys, California
Time: 7:55 p.m. PDT
Summary: A Veterans Administration registration officer, his wife and their four children (ages 11 to 15) watched a “flying saucer” for about ten minutes. The object hovered, rotated slowly until it stood “on edge,” then climbed rapidly along a vertical path and disappeared.
Source: Air Intelligence Information Report (Edwards AFB); Project Blue Book record card
Source Status: Project Blue Book’s July 10-12 evaluation list carries a Van Nuys, California report under July 10, evaluated Insufficient Data; the Air Intelligence report places this family’s observation on July 1.
Date: July 2, 1952
Location: Near Tremonton, Utah
Time: Daytime
Summary: Navy photographer Delbert C. Newhouse and his wife, driving across the state, saw 12-14 shiny silver objects milling around in the sky. Newhouse stopped and filmed extensive 16mm footage; both witnesses saw some objects relatively close-up, shaped like one plate inverted atop another. When the film was returned following Navy and Air Force analysis, the frames showing the discs close-up had been deleted. [Full Report]
Source: Margaret Sachs, The UFO Encyclopedia
Date: July 3, 1952
Location: Selfridge AFB, Michigan
Time: 4:15 a.m.
Summary: Unidentified witnesses (possibly civilians) saw 2 big lights, about 20 ft in diameter, fly straight and level at tremendous speed.
Source: Berliner; BBU 1380
Date: July 3, 1952
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Time: 11:50 p.m.
Summary: Mrs. J. D. Arbuckle saw 2 bright pastel green discs fly straight and level, very fast.
Source: Berliner; BBU 1382
Date: July 5, 1952
Location: Hanford Atomic Works, Richland, Washington
Time: 6:00 a.m.
Summary: Four Florida-based Continental Air Lines pilots — Captain John Baldwin, Captain George Robertson, and pilots D. Shanbel and Steven Summers — reported a round, flat flying saucer hovering above the Hanford atomic works, a sensitive scientific installation. Originally logged on this page as two separate entries (one crediting only pilot Baldwin, the other naming all four); merged here as the same incident. [Full Report]
Source: Project 1947; FUFOR Index; Loren E. Gross, UFOs: A History (Jan-May 1952); OSI Records, Blue Book files; BBU
Date: July 5, 1952
Location: SSE of Norman, Oklahoma
Time: 7:58 p.m.
Summary: Oklahoma State Patrolman Hamilton, in a State Patrol airplane, saw 3 dark discs (at an estimated 4,000 ft) hover, then fly away, silhouetted against a dark cloud. 15 seconds.
Source: Berliner; BBU 1390
Date: July 5, 1952
Location: Elmendorf AFB, Alaska
Time: Unknown
Summary: No narrative is on record for this report beyond the base name and date.
Source: FUFOR Index; BBU
Date: July 6, 1952
Location: Redondo, Washington
Time: 10:30 p.m. PST
Summary: A civilian watched a single object for about five minutes. Project Blue Book concluded it was a balloon.
Source: Project Blue Book record card
Date: July 6-12, 1952
Location: Governors Island, New York (possibly Elizabeth, NJ)
Time: 11:00 p.m.
Summary: Charles Muhr (and possibly a second photographer, Neff) took 4 photographs of an indistinct light, admittedly not seen visually at the time of exposure.
Source: Berliner; FUFOR Index; BBU 1397; Project Blue Book photograph file 1397 (17 photographs, July 6-12)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Opening Week of the 1952 Wave
The first week of July 1952 is anchored by the Tremonton, Utah Newhouse film, genuine motion-picture evidence from a trained Navy photographer, officially analyzed and returned with its most critical frames missing. The Fort Monmouth radar detection on July 1 is worth watching closely: it is an early, smaller-scale preview of the radar-confirmed formations that would descend on Washington, D.C. in the back half of the month, at the height of what historians now call the Washington flap.
Blue Book’s record cards sort the rest of the week cleanly. The Columbia, Missouri star-like object was Capella, the Phoenix ball of fire a meteor and the Redondo, Washington object a balloon. The Hanford saucer, the Norman, Oklahoma discs and the Van Nuys family’s object stand without a card conclusion that explains them. The Elmendorf AFB, Alaska entry survives in the record only as a date and a location.
“The frames showing the discs close-up had been deleted.”
— Margaret Sachs, on the July 2, 1952 Tremonton, Utah Newhouse film
