Little Rock, Arkansas, September 18, 1952, about 10:00 a.m. as reported
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTINGS REPORT
1952: Little Rock, Arkansas, the Double-Exposure Photograph
A woman in Little Rock, Arkansas reported photographing a bright silver object about four blocks away and three stories up, roughly the size of a dishpan, that appeared to reverse direction in under a minute. She reported it to the Office of Special Investigations, which sent two photographs to the Air Force.
The Air Force Photographic Division examined them and concluded the picture showed a light fixture superimposed on the background by double exposure, and noted that the photograph was evidently taken at night, although the witness said she took it at about 10:00 a.m. Maj. Dewey Fournet commented on the OSI report. The case is a clean example of a photographed sighting that the official file explains.
Date: September 18, 1952 (the cover sheet reads September 16, and the OCR is ambiguous)
Sighting Time: About 10:00 a.m., as the witness reported it
Day/Night: Day, as reported (the photograph itself appears to be at night)
Location: Little Rock, Arkansas, about four blocks from the witness
Urban or Rural: Urban
No. of Entity(‘s): None reported
Entity Type: Not applicable
Entity Description: Not applicable
Hynek Classification: DD (Daylight Disc) (as reported)
Duration: Under one minute
No. of Object(s): 1
Description of the Object(s): A bright silver object, roughly the size of a dishpan, that appeared to reverse direction in less than a minute
Shape of Object(s): Round, dishpan-like
Size of Object(s): About the size of a dishpan
Color of Object(s): Bright silver
Distance to Object(s): About four blocks
Height & Speed: About three stories above the ground; speed not recorded
Number of Witnesses: 1
Special Features/Characteristics: Two photographs submitted; the Air Force Photographic Division judged the image a light fixture superimposed by double exposure and said the picture was evidently taken at night, which contradicts the 10:00 a.m. time
Case Status: Explained (Air Force evaluation: double exposure)
Source: Blue Book file (OSI report to Headquarters USAF with a comment by Maj. Dewey J. Fournet)
Summary/Description: A Little Rock woman reported photographing a silver, dishpan-sized object four blocks away and three stories up that reversed direction. The Air Force Photographic Division evaluated the picture as a light fixture superimposed by double exposure and noted it was evidently taken at night.
Related Cases: the other photographic cases in this archive, including Delft and USS Franklin D. Roosevelt
DETAILED REPORT
The Blue Book file is an OSI report forwarded to Headquarters USAF with two photographs, a short comment from Maj. Dewey J. Fournet and the Photographic Division evaluation. The scanned pages are mostly image, and the typed text did not survive OCR, so the account here follows the facts the archive already recorded from the file.
The witness said she saw a bright silver object about the size of a dishpan at about three stories above the ground and four blocks away, and that it appeared to reverse direction in under a minute. She photographed it and reported it to OSI on September 29.
The Photographic Division concluded that the photograph showed a light fixture superimposed on the background by double exposure, and noted the picture was evidently taken at night. That conflicts with the witness’s statement of about 10:00 a.m. The file lists the date as September 18 on the monthly page, though the cover sheet and OCR leave September 16 possible.
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
Little Rock 1952: When the Photograph Explains Itself
- The contradiction: A daytime sighting photographed at night is a basic inconsistency, and it is the main reason the Air Force evaluators concluded double exposure. A light fixture superimposed on a night shot fits the “reversing” object if the same frame was exposed twice.
- Value to the archive: Cases like Little Rock show how the evaluators worked. They are listed with their explanation so the unexplained cases can be read against them.
- Date uncertainty: The cover sheet and OCR leave September 15, 16 or 18 open. The archive uses September 18 as already placed on the monthly page and flags it.
- Limits of this report: The typed text of the file is largely unreadable in the upload. Nothing beyond the facts already recorded is added.
Little Rock stays in the archive as a photographed case with a documented explanation: the Air Force called it a double exposure, and the night-time look of the picture against a morning report supports that. It is useful for comparison with the cases that have no such answer.
