Pentagon, July 29, 1952: the Air Force answers the Washington flap.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTINGS REPORT
The Samford Press Conference:
The Air Force’s Largest Briefing Since World War II, July 29, 1952
At 4:00 p.m. on July 29, 1952, Maj. Gen. John Samford, the Air Force Director of Intelligence, and Maj. Gen. Roger Ramey, Director of Operations, walked into Room 3E-869 at the Pentagon to face the press. It was the largest Pentagon press conference since World War II. Two weekends of radar targets over Washington, D.C. had made front pages across the country, and the Air Force had to answer.
Samford’s answer was that the visual sightings were misidentified stars or meteors and the radar targets were temperature inversions. He also said something harder to file away: “a certain percentage” of the reports came from credible observers of “relatively incredible things.” The Samford press conference is the July 1952 UFO sightings’ official reply, and it is the reason the story did not end with the second Washington weekend.
Date: July 29, 1952
Sighting Time: 4:00 p.m.
Day/Night: Day
Location: The Pentagon, Washington, D.C., United States (Room 3E-869)
Urban or Rural: Urban
No. of Entity(‘s): Not Applicable
Entity Type: Not Applicable
Entity Description: Not Applicable
Hynek Classification: Not Applicable
Duration: Not recorded
No. of Object(s): Not Applicable
Description of the Object(s): Not a sighting. A press conference about the radar and visual reports of July 19-20 and July 26-27, 1952 over Washington, D.C.
Shape/Size/Color of Object(s): Not Applicable
Distance to Object(s): Not Applicable
Height & Speed: Not Applicable
Number of Witnesses: Maj. Gen. John Samford and Maj. Gen. Roger Ramey spoke; the press attended in numbers described as the largest at the Pentagon since World War II
Special Features/Characteristics: Official Air Force explanation: visual sightings as stars or meteors, radar targets as temperature inversions; Samford’s statement that a certain percentage of reports came from credible observers of relatively incredible things
Case Status: Event on the historical record; the explanations offered were disputed at the time by Navy radar specialist Lt. John Holcomb, who judged the inversion too weak for the returns
Source: Wikipedia (1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident); We Are The Mighty; Project 1947
Summary/Description: The Air Force Director of Intelligence and the Director of Operations briefed the press on the Washington sightings, attributing them to stars, meteors and temperature inversions, and acknowledging a residue of credible reports.
Related Cases: The First and Second Washington National Airport Weekends, July 19-20 and July 26-27, 1952; the Robertson Panel of January 1953
Detailed Report
The minutes of the press conference list the start time as 4:00 p.m. in Room 3E-869 at the Pentagon. The event was well attended and described as the largest Pentagon press conference since World War II. Maj. Gen. John Samford, Director of Intelligence, and Maj. Gen. Roger Ramey, Director of Operations, were presented as the Air Force’s two top UFO experts.
Samford said that among UFO reports there was “a certain percentage” from credible observers of “relatively incredible things,” but that none posed a threat to national security. He attributed the visual sightings to misidentified stars or meteors. He attributed the radar targets to temperature inversion, a layer of warm, moist air over cooler, drier air near the ground that bends radar signals and creates false returns, and said an inversion was present on both nights. He said the radar contacts were not solid objects and so posed no threat, and that there had been “hundreds” of similar radar contacts during fighter intercepts, all “fruitless.”
Two days earlier, Navy radar specialist Lt. John Holcomb had told officers in the radar room at National Airport that the reported slight inversion was not strong enough to explain the solid returns. His judgment is part of the record the conference did not address.
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
Reading the Samford Briefing
- The two explanations: Stars and meteors for lights; inversions for radar. Each fits some reports. The briefing applied them to all of the Washington reports.
- A dissent on the record: Holcomb, a Navy radar specialist, said the inversion was too weak. Fournet, Blue Book’s liaison, said the controllers were not paying attention to weather targets. Both were at National Airport on July 26-27.
- The “certain percentage” line: Samford admitted a fraction of reports came from credible observers. That sentence was both the reassurance and a reason the Air Force kept looking; the Robertson Panel met the following January.
- Scale: The press conference was the largest at the Pentagon since the end of World War II, a measure of how seriously the Air Force took public alarm.
- Not a sighting: This page records an official statement. The Completed Template shows Not Applicable for fields that describe an object.
The Samford press conference is the Air Force’s answer to the Washington flap, and it was only partly an explanation. It argued that the sightings were weather and misidentification, while conceding that the residue could not be dismissed.
“A certain percentage of this volume of reports has been made by credible observers of relatively incredible things.”
— Maj. Gen. John Samford, Pentagon press conference, July 29, 1952
