1952: November 1st–15th
UFO|UAP & Entity Sightings Archive
November 1952 opens with some of the year’s best-documented military files: a Korean-front T-6 crew circled three times by a translucent silver sphere, a Montana radar track and a five-object V formation seen from a Glasgow rooftop on the same night, and a blue-and-orange light that rose in jerky sweeps over Wichita Municipal Airport.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, three Davis, California businessmen and a Los Alamos security watch add their own file reports. This page covers November 1st through 15th; see the companion page for November 16th–30th.
Date: Nov. 1952
Location: United Kingdom (specific location not recorded)
Time: Not recorded
Summary: One object, about 300 feet across, was observed; its appearance and behavior most likely have a conventional explanation.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 1952
Location: Near Dublin, Ireland
Time: Not recorded
Summary: A child was burned when a strange disc, roughly 25 cm (about 1 foot) in diameter, landed nearby; physical traces were found at the scene.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 1952
Location: Damascus, Ohio
Time: Around 1:00 a.m.
Summary: Nocturnal lights were reported.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 1952
Location: Near Augusta, Georgia (near a nuclear test site)
Time: Before 8:00 a.m.
Summary: Three experienced male witnesses (Bernac) observed a star-sized object in clear weather with an extraordinary appearance or performance, for 12 seconds.
Source: Bernac
Date: Nov. 1952
Location: East Molesey, UK
Time: 3:30 p.m.
Summary: A hovering object was observed (Rowley).
Source: Rowley
Date: Nov. 1952
Location: Comanche, Texas
Time: 11:30 p.m.
Summary: A married couple (Cowan) observed one object, about 40 feet across, for 20 minutes; its appearance and performance were described as beyond the capability of known earthly aircraft.
Source: Cowan
Date: Reported as November 1952 (no specific date; unverified)
Location: Heligoland (Helgoland), a small German archipelago in the North Sea
Time: Unknown (no one reportedly witnessed the event)
Summary: An unsubstantiated rumor holds that a saucer crashed on Heligoland with its instruments intact and the badly burned bodies of seven roughly six-foot men nearby, supposedly downed by hydrogen-bomb test effects. No one is said to have witnessed it, the “bodies” describe humans rather than non-human entities, and the island was a former British live-bombing range. No Hynek classification applies. [Full Report]
Source Status: Case Status: Explained (unsubstantiated crash-retrieval rumor; likely mundane) — no named witness, unit, or documentation of any kind.
Source: Kevin D. Randle, “A History of UFO Crashes”
Date: Nov. 1952
Location: Angatuba mountains, São Paulo, Brazil
Time: Night (not specified)
Summary: Brazilian writer Aladino Félix, under the pen name Dino Kraspedon, claimed in a 1959 book that he watched saucers over a mountain in rural São Paulo, boarded a landed craft, and was later visited at home by its captain. Félix recanted on television the same year. The case is recorded as a contactee fabrication. [Full Report]
Source Status: The earlier listing placed Angatuba in Paraná; it is in São Paulo state.
Source: Dino Kraspedon, My Contact with Flying Saucers (1959); Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia
Date: Nov. 1952
Location: Cubatão, São Paulo, Brazil
Time: Afternoon (as stated)
Summary: A woman recalling her childhood described a sudden wind and a bus-sized craft approaching a group of children playing in the street. A small metallic arrow-like object came out of an elevator-like door, and the children fled to a nearby school. Her younger brother was missing, was reportedly found hours later in a neighboring town in shock, and was said to have fallen ill and died. No death record, press notice or other contemporaneous document has been located. [Full Report]
Source: Analigia Santos Francisco / UFOVIA (Brazil)
Date: Nov. 2, 1952
Location: Milan Cathedral, Italy
Time: Not recorded
Summary: A flying disc was observed by one witness.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 3, 1952
Location: Laredo AFB, Texas
Time: Not legible (about 2–3 seconds)
Summary: A control tower operator of the 1923rd AACS Detachment saw a light-colored elliptical object at roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feet. It came in from the southwest, paused south of the field and disappeared to the southeast at tremendous speed. A second witness statement agrees. A T-33 on initial approach and about sixteen T-28s were in the area; the T-33 pilot saw nothing. The report was marked unevaluated on December 22, 1952. [Full Report]
Source: Blue Book file (BBU 2202)
Date: Nov. 4 (or December 4), 1952
Location: Congaree AFB, Columbia, South Carolina
Time: Not recorded
Summary: Unknown — no further detail survives in the sourced record beyond the date uncertainty itself.
Source: McDonald list
Date: Nov. 4, 1952
Location: West Hokkaido, Japan
Time: Not recorded
Summary: An object flying in a straight line across the sky was reported.
Source: FUFOR Index
Date: Nov. 4, 1952
Location: Caribou, Maine (with observations also at Presque Isle AFB)
Time: About 5:28 p.m. EST (1728), per the T-6 crew statements
Summary: A USAF T-6 crew at about 2,500 feet saw a light to the west, 10 to 25 degrees above the horizon, changing from red to orange to blue-green to white. They watched it for about 35 minutes. The pilot concluded it was a star or planet refracted through the atmosphere. A second pilot flew about 40 miles toward it, and the ground-control station at Caswell had no targets. The Presque Isle tower operator reported it at 1736 as too large for a star, shifting between red, amber and green, disappearing and reappearing and moving rapidly. A Northeast Airlines crew later said it was probably a star. Blue Book concluded probably a star or planet. [Full Report]
Source Status: The earlier listing gave 5:30–9:30 p.m. (a four-hour duration) and 8,500 feet. The file statements give about 35 minutes and about 2,500 feet.
Source: Blue Book file (T-6 crew statements, Presque Isle AFB tower report); Project 1947
Date: Nov. 4, 1952
Location: Vineland, New Jersey
Time: 5:40 p.m.
Summary: Housewife Mrs. Sprague saw two groups of two to three whirling discs of light, resembling a lighted wheel, move toward the southeast at roughly 40° elevation. Duration 30 seconds. Blue Book considered a possible explanation involving sunlight reflecting off an unusual cloud formation, but concluded the report was too sketchy, from a single relatively inexperienced witness, for a firm evaluation.
Source: Berliner (BBU 2206)
Date: Nov. 4, 1952
Location: Laval, Mayenne, France
Time: 6:00 a.m.
Summary: Over a hospital, a brilliant cigar-shaped object changed color, then shape into a disc, then back into a cigar shape, before fading away. Duration about 5 minutes.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 4, 1952
Location: Erding Air Depot, Germany
Time: 1:00 p.m.
Summary: Three airmen saw a dark, oval-shaped object tumbling end over end as it traveled slowly eastward, appearing low, with clouds at 1,500-2,500 ft. Blue Book noted that winds aloft were also from the west/northwest and concluded it was probably a balloon launched from the air depot.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 5, 1952
Location: Ouarsenis, Algeria
Time: 3:30 p.m.
Summary: One unidentified object was sighted; its appearance and behavior most likely have a conventional explanation.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 7, 1952
Location: Auburn, Alabama
Time: 4:45 p.m.
Summary: A civilian source reported a bright, circular, stationary object to the east, with reduced visibility from smoke haze. Blue Book noted the sighting occurred right around sunset when brighter stars become visible, and concluded it was probably a star.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 8, 1952
Location: Brinson, Georgia
Time: 8:00 a.m.
Summary: A farmer in a forest observed a daytime disc.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 8, 1952
Location: Auburn, Alabama, and Columbus, Georgia
Time: 5:15 p.m.
Summary: Many people across both areas observed a silver-colored, spherical or oval-shaped object with a translucent, green-glowing outer edge and two bright spots, some viewing it through telescopes. Blue Book noted most sources themselves believed it was a balloon and concluded probably a balloon.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 8, 1952
Location: Tierra Amarilla AFS (El Vado radar site), New Mexico
Time: 6:05 p.m. MST (the flying-object report says 1805; the sworn airman statement says 1905)
Summary: A Philco technical representative and two airmen at the 767th AC&W Squadron radar site watched an FPS-3 target first appear at 45 miles on a bearing of 143–145 degrees, go out to about 130 miles, return to 65 miles and hover for about two minutes, then head outbound to roughly 100 miles. Estimated speed was 600 to 1,500 mph over about ten minutes. Changing the radar frequency by 20 megacycles had no effect, and radar scope photographs were negative. The military operators suggested interference from a station to the southeast on the same bearing; the technical representative disagreed. Blue Book concluded weather likely caused the return. [Full Report]
Source Status: The file gives the bearing as 143–145 degrees, an estimated altitude of 40,000 feet, and the time as 1805 or 1905 depending on the document. No other radar station picked the target up and there was no visual sighting.
Source: McDonald list; FUFOR Index; Dan Wilson; Blue Book file
Date: Nov. 8, 1952
Location: Rouffignac Grotto, Dordogne, France
Time: 7:10 p.m.
Summary: Nocturnal lights were reported over a mountain for over one minute.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 10, 1952
Location: Washington, D.C.
Time: 9:50 p.m.
Summary: A civilian source used 6-power binoculars to observe two lights east of Washington National Airport, growing alternately brighter and dimmer with no apparent movement, for about an hour. The witness reported no fog at his location despite zero-visibility conditions reported at Bolling AFB. Blue Book found the data too sketchy for complete evaluation but suggested two exceptionally bright stars as a possible explanation.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 10, 1952
Location: Covington, Ohio
Time: About 7:00 p.m.
Summary: A caller reported a brilliant bluish light bobbing to the northwest and said he had seen it six times in two months in the same spot. Other neighbors also saw it. Patterson AFB operations said a B-29 was testing photographic equipment at altitude in that area.
Source: Blue Book file
Date: Nov. 11, 1952
Location: Lott, Texas
Time: 3:40 p.m.
Summary: Two civilian men saw two non-metallic, globe-shaped, cloud-gray objects connected by a wispy, cloud-like band, moving from a 75° elevation toward the ESE before turning NNE. Blue Book noted the primary witness had made four prior sightings and was known to be very enthusiastic about the subject; a weather balloon launched from nearby James Connally AFB roughly matched the object’s described track and timing, and the case was concluded probably a balloon.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 11, 1952
Location: Between Chatham and Dover, England, UK (two separate observation points roughly 25 miles apart)
Time: Approximately 4:15–4:20 p.m.
Summary: Roughly 40 civilians near Chatham independently watched an object that appeared oval, then conical, then oval again, over a five-minute period, before it disappeared in a bright flash — no sound, color, size, or speed recorded. Around the same time (with a roughly 5-minute discrepancy), a police sergeant and 20 police recruits some 25 miles away saw a slow-moving, brilliant reddish-white oval “nucleus” with a long fiery tail ten times the object’s diameter, moving north before vanishing into a stratus cloud layer after about 10 minutes. Blue Book’s own plot judged it reasonable to assume both groups observed the same object despite the position and timing discrepancies, and suggested — without confidence — that it might have been a jet contrail, concluding insufficient data for a definite evaluation.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 11, 1952
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico
Time: 10:35 p.m. MST (the OSI report gives 2135–2300 for the full watch)
Summary: Ten members of the AEC security force saw a round object showing red, green and white, nearly motionless over a prohibited area. No radar contact was made, and a fighter was placed on readiness but not launched. The observers thought it was a star. The Blue Book list evaluates the case as astronomical, a meteor, and earlier reading considered a balloon. [Full Report]
Source Status: The earlier listing gave November 12, 10:23 p.m. The OSI report (December 11, 1952) gives November 11, and the teletype gives 2229–2239 MST. November 12 is probably the Greenwich date.
Source: Berliner; Blue Book file (OSI report)
Date: Nov. 12, 1952
Location: Jutland, Denmark
Time: 12:00 (noon)
Summary: An aircraft-like “mystery aircraft” object was observed at an airport.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 12, 1952
Location: Wichita Municipal Airport, Kansas
Time: About 8:25 p.m. CST (0225Z November 13; the teletype gave 0215Z because one witness’s watch ran 10 minutes slow)
Summary: Maj. R. L. Wallander, commander of a B-47 transition section, saw a round blue light with an orange glow trailing it near the Kansas National Guard hangar. A/3c Phipps described an orange light about three feet across that rose in jerky upward sweeps of roughly 40 feet, pausing 10 to 15 seconds at the top of each. It hovered about two minutes and left north at great speed, rising. Capt. Belleman saw an orange light moving north. Duration 5 to 7 minutes. Two lighted white nylon weather balloons had been released at the airport; the reporting officer noted they did not explain the color, size or apparent hovering. Blue Book concluded probably a balloon. [Full Report]
Source Status: The earlier listing placed this on November 15 at 7:02 p.m. (Berliner) and carried a duplicate narration. The intelligence report gives the evening of November 12 (0225Z November 13), so the entry is moved to November 12.
Source: Berliner; Blue Book file (3520th Flying Training Squadron report)
Date: Nov. 12, 1952
Location: Bethesda, Maryland (National Institutes of Health, Building 7)
Time: 10:29 a.m. (watched 10:30–10:45)
Summary: Researchers at NIH, eight of whom filed questionnaires, saw two dark, almost black loaf-shaped objects near the Wheaton water tower. They merged, descended, gyrated and changed shape, left smoke trails and appeared translucent gray with no lights. ATIC (Capt. Smith, January 7, 1953) rejected a Times-Herald explanation that a Walter Reed helicopter was responsible, because the geometry and number of objects did not fit. A road foreman separately reported about fifteen brown hawks southeast of Wheaton around 10:00 a.m. [Full Report]
Source: Blue Book file (observer questionnaires and ATIC letter)
Date: Nov. 13, 1952
Location: Near Opheim, Montana (779th AC&W radar station)
Time: 2:20–3:48 a.m. MST (track first picked up at 0220)
Summary: The 779th AC&W Squadron picked up a radar track at 0220 MST that moved straight east-southeast at 210 knots, with intermittent fading until about 0348. The teletype altitude is garbled but suggests roughly 150,000 feet. One aircraft was determined to be friendly. A handwritten note by ATIC reads “Not same object,” separating this track from the Glasgow visual sighting the same night. [Full Report]
Source Status: The earlier listing gave 153,000–158,000 feet; the altitude on the file copies is partly illegible, and the radar sheet reads “Angels 15?”
Source: Blue Book file (779th AC&W Squadron teletype and radar sheet)
Date: Nov. 13, 1952
Location: Glasgow, Montana
Time: 2:43 a.m. MST
Summary: Earl Oksendahl, a Weather Bureau observer on the roof of the First National Bank building, was taking a theodolite balloon reading when five oval objects with lights all around them passed over in a V formation at 2,000 to 3,000 feet, the nearest about a mile away. They came in from the northwest, made a roughly 90-degree turn over the center of town and left to the southwest. The two outside objects banked and moved out of formation. Duration about 20 seconds, no sound. Early reports gave 20 to 30 feet in size; a later 779th AC&W letter says 30 to 50 feet. [Full Report]
Source: Berliner; Blue Book file (BBU 2220)
Date: Nov. 13, 1952
Location: Davis, California
Time: About 6:05 a.m. PST
Summary: Three Davis businessmen, a dairy-fountain manager, a barber who is a World War II Air Force veteran, and a men’s-shop owner, saw a blunt cylindrical object with a bright blue-red or silver-white flame behind it, about half a mile away, traveling northwest for 15 to 30 seconds without sound. The police chief vouched for them. The 14th Air Division report concluded the observers saw a definite object or phenomenon that has not been otherwise identified. No intercept was attempted because of a 30-hour reporting delay. [Full Report]
Source: Blue Book file (14th Air Division / 9th Bomb Wing, Maj. Allan D. Newton)
Date: Nov. 15, 1952
Location: Washington, D.C.
Time: 2:20 a.m.
Summary: An Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent, who is a pilot, and his wife saw a white or pale blue light make a noise like six or more jets at low altitude. It passed slightly east of their zenith heading south, turned left and climbed at about 45 degrees. Duration 7 to 8 seconds. Blue Book judged the description characteristic of jet aircraft, possibly an F-94 with its afterburner lit.
Source Status: The earlier listing gave 2:40 a.m. and an Air Force captain; the file gives 0220 hours and an OSI special agent.
Source: Blue Book file
Date: Nov. 15, 1952
Location: Pommard, Bourgogne, France
Time: 8:35 a.m.
Summary: One object, about 1 foot across, was observed; its appearance and behavior most likely have a conventional explanation.
Source: Unknown
Date: Nov. 15, 1952
Location: Central front, Korea (grid CT 654455)
Time: 1:45 p.m. Korean time (1345 I)
Summary: Lt. Layton S. Bass and Lt. Richard I. Barnard of the 6149th Tactical Control Squadron, flying a T-6 at 10,500 feet, saw a silver, translucent sphere 6 to 10 feet across with a hairline halo. It orbited the aircraft to the left three times at 100 to 1,000 yards, then climbed to between 12,000 and 18,000 feet and left toward the sun at an estimated 500 to 700 mph. The crew watched for five to seven minutes. There was no radar return. FEAF commented that it was probably a balloon, possibly enemy-launched. [Full Report]
Source Status: The earlier listing placed this at Pyongyang, sector CT 7943, at 1:07 p.m., and carried the T-6 case as a second undated entry. The file places the flight on the central front at 1345 and gives one event; the two entries are combined here.
Source: Weinstein; Blue Book file (6147th Tactical Control Group)
Date: Nov. 15, 1952
Location: Bowers Beach and Frederica, Delaware
Time: 6:55 p.m. EST (1855)
Summary: Three observers at Bowers Beach and Frederica saw a deep orange glow with white lights to the south, hovering at an estimated 420 feet for about ten minutes. A Bowers Beach observer said it resembled one seen three months earlier. The report came through 1st Lt. Joseph Blair of Dover AFB. Blue Book ruled out an astronomical body because of the overcast and suggested a flare from a reserved Navy airspace 10 to 12 miles away.
Source Status: The earlier listing gave 6:45 p.m. and two sources.
Source: Blue Book file
Date: Nov. 15, 1952
Location: McAndrew AFB, Newfoundland, Canada
Time: 8:45 p.m.
Summary: Several military witnesses at an airfield saw one object with unusual appearance or performance for 6 seconds. Official explanation: balloon. [Full Report]
Source: Blue Book file
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A Silver Sphere over Korea and Two Montana Mysteries
The first half of November 1952 is anchored by the November 15 Korean-front case, in which a T-6 crew of the 6149th Tactical Control Squadron watched a translucent silver sphere orbit their aircraft three times before it left toward the sun at an estimated 500 to 700 mph. The observer, Lt. Richard I. Barnard, put his objection to an optical explanation in writing, and the FEAF comment of a probable balloon sits beside it in the file.
Montana supplies a second pair of cases on November 13: a radar track at Opheim moving straight east-southeast at 210 knots, and five oval, lighted objects in a V formation over Glasgow, seen by a Weather Bureau observer during a balloon reading. ATIC noted in handwriting that they were not the same object. Bethesda’s NIH researchers, Davis’s three businessmen and a Chatham-to-Dover sighting by some sixty civilians and police complete the half-month.
“I refuse flatly to believe that any light refraction phenomenon can present such uniformity and definiteness in its appearance from such a tremendous variety of ranges, altitudes, angles of inspection, and optical conditions”
— Lt. Richard I. Barnard, observer’s statement, T-6 sphere sighting, Korea, November 15, 1952
