1952: November 16th–30th

UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive

The back half of November 1952 closes the year’s flap with two especially strong military cases — a five-and-a-half-hour radar tracking over the Panama Canal that three Air Force bombers and a Navy patrol plane couldn’t catch, and a Washington, D.C. radar return Blue Book itself directly compared to the famous July 26 sighting earlier that year. This page covers November 16th through 30th; see the companion page for November 1st–15th.

Date: November 16, 1952
Location: Near Landrum, South Carolina
Time: Not recorded
Summary: Hundreds of people saw a huge disc, also watched through binoculars by an air-traffic controller.
Source: UFOE

Date: 1952: Castelfranco, Emilia-Romagna, Italy Encounter

Date: 1952: George Adamski’s Blythe, California Sightings

Date: November 20, 1952
Location: 10 miles east of the Salton Sea, California
Time: 8:05 p.m. MST
Summary: A USAF pilot flying a B-50 at 16,000 ft on a 275° heading saw a stationary object at the 11 o’clock position, ranging in color from white to red to green, before it began moving on a northwest heading and disappeared like a light being switched off.
Source: Project 1947

Date: November 21, 1952
Location: Caribbean Sea
Time: 5:10 a.m. EST
Summary: A large, light-red object, too large and too bright to be another aircraft, flew parallel to an airliner (possibly Lacsa Airlines) at matching altitude and airspeed before disappearing after about 20 minutes. A CIRVIS report was filed.
Source: BB files; Dan Wilson

Date: November 24, 1952 (BBU 2246)
Location: Annandale, Virginia
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Summary: Witness L. L. Brettner saw a round, glowing object fly very fast, making right-angle turns and reversing course. Duration about 1 hour.
Source: Berliner

Date: November 25, 1952
Location: White Sands, New Mexico
Time: Not recorded
Summary: Unknown — no further detail survives in the sourced record.
Source: McDonald list

Date: November 25, 1952 (Chop Clearance List Item #41)
Location: Panama Canal, Panama
Time: 6:06 p.m. to 11:47 p.m.
Summary: Two objects, traveling at an estimated 275 mph, were detected by radar attached to antiaircraft guns and remained over the Canal Zone for five and a half hours, maneuvering between 1,000 and 28,000 feet altitude. Three USAF bombers and a U.S. Navy patrol plane were scrambled but were unable to catch the objects.
Source: NARA-PBB92-585; UFOE, VIII

Date: November 26, 1952
Location: Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada
Time: 2:30 a.m.
Summary: An F-94 crew chased a maneuverable disc that changed color from white (or orange) to red as it climbed and turned.
Source: McDonald list; NICAP; Project 1947

Date: November 27, 1952 (BBU 2249)
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico (or possibly south of Prescott, Arizona)
Time: 12:10 p.m.
Summary: The pilot and crew chief of a USAF B-26 bomber saw a series of 20-foot black smoke bursts, in a 4-3-3-4-3 pattern, similar in appearance to antiaircraft fire. Duration about 20 minutes.
Source: Berliner

Date: November 30, 1952 (BBU 2253)
Location: Washington, D.C.
Time: 12:30 a.m.
Summary: Radar operators at Washington National Airport recorded trackings described in Blue Book’s own file as similar to those from the famous July 26, 1952 Washington radar-visual case.
Source: Berliner

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Five and a Half Hours Over the Panama Canal

The final two weeks of November 1952 are anchored by the Panama Canal case of November 25 — two radar-tracked objects that lingered over the Canal Zone for five and a half hours, maneuvering across an enormous altitude range from 1,000 to 28,000 feet, entirely unbothered by three scrambled Air Force bombers and a Navy patrol plane. The month closes fittingly with a Washington, D.C. radar return that Blue Book’s own file directly links back to the famous July 26 Washington sighting earlier that year, bookending 1952’s radar-visual record where much of it began.