USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, Operation Mainbrace, September 20, 1952, about 4:00 p.m
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTINGS REPORT
1952: USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, Operation Mainbrace Sphere
On September 20, 1952, a few minutes after four in the afternoon, a news photographer standing on the flight deck of the carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt saw a round object in the sky about five hundred to a thousand feet up, directly over the after end of the ship. He ran aft and shot color film. The three Ansco transparencies went to Maj. Dewey Fournet at Air Force headquarters and Navy Intelligence officers examined them. They were never released.
The Air Force later replied that a weather balloon with a radar reflector had been released from the carrier shortly before 1600 and was “believed to be the object sighted.” The ship’s weather officer had logged a launch at 3:30 p.m. The case sits in a narrow space between a photographed object, a plausible mundane explanation and a set of pictures the public has never seen.
Date: September 20, 1952 (some secondary sources give September 19, which is incorrect)
Sighting Time: A few minutes after 4:00 p.m. (shortly after 1603 hours)
Day/Night: Day, a bright day with occasional clouds in a very blue sky
Location: Aboard the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt during Operation Mainbrace, off Denmark and Norway
Urban or Rural: At sea
No. of Entity(‘s): None reported
Entity Type: Not applicable
Entity Description: Not applicable
Hynek Classification: DD (Daylight Disc) (as reported; an explanation by balloon is proposed)
Duration: Not recorded
No. of Object(s): 1
Description of the Object(s): A round, silvery, spherical object seen above the after end of the ship, moving across the sky behind the fleet
Shape of Object(s): Round / spherical
Size of Object(s): Not recorded
Color of Object(s): Silvery
Distance to Object(s): About 500 to 1,000 feet up, directly above the after end of the ship (photographer’s estimate)
Height & Speed: About 500–1,000 feet; speed not recorded
Number of Witnesses: At least 2 (Metro Group photographer Wallace Litwin and a Navy helicopter pilot, Lt. [name not legible]); other shipboard personnel are reported
Special Features/Characteristics: Photographed in color (three Ansco 2¼ × 2¼ transparencies) by a professional news photographer; the images were examined by Navy Intelligence but never made public. The ship’s weather officer logged a balloon launch at 3:30 p.m. that rose out of sight into overcast in about 50 seconds. An Air Force reply states an aerological balloon with a radar reflector was released from the ship shortly before 1600.
Case Status: Insufficient Data (a balloon is proposed by the Air Force; the photographs remain unpublished)
Source: Richard Hall; Dan Wilson; Blue Book file (Air Force message traffic and a letter from Metropolitan Sunday Newspapers to Maj. Dewey J. Fournet)
Summary/Description: During Operation Mainbrace, Metro Group photographer Wallace Litwin and a Navy helicopter pilot standing on the flight deck of the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt saw a round object at 500–1,000 feet over the stern, and Litwin photographed it in color. The Air Force replied that a weather balloon with a radar reflector had been released shortly before 1600 and was believed to be the object. The photographs were never made public.
Related Cases: 1952: Topcliffe, Yorkshire, Kilburn and the Falling Leaf | the September 14 Operation Mainbrace entry on the September 1st–16th page
DETAILED REPORT
The most useful document in the Blue Book file is the covering letter from Metropolitan Sunday Newspapers to Maj. Dewey J. Fournet at Air Force headquarters, enclosing the three Ansco color transparencies shot by Metro Group photographer Wallace Litwin aboard the carrier while covering the NATO maneuvers. The letter quotes Litwin’s own account: on September twentieth, at a few minutes after four p.m., he was standing on the forward flight deck of the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt with a helicopter pilot, a Navy lieutenant. It was a bright day with occasional clouds in a very blue sky. As they were talking he saw “this round object about five hundred or a thousand feet in the air, directly above the after end of the ship,” shouted to the pilot and ran aft to shoot.
Navy Intelligence officers examined the photographs. A Blue Book message from Washington to the U.S. naval commander in Norway asked for any official investigation and for a check on whether any other ship in the formation had released a weather balloon. The reply says no official report of a flying object sighting had been received before that request and that no investigation had been made until then. It states that an aerological balloon with a radar reflector was released from the carrier shortly before 1600, that such a balloon inflates to about six feet at sea level and expands with altitude, and that it was believed to be the object sighted. It adds that other ships in the formation released balloons that afternoon. The ship’s weather officer separately noted a launch at 3:30 p.m. that rose out of sight into overcast in about 50 seconds.
The text of this scan is partly garbled, so the balloon explanation is reported as the Air Force’s proposal and not as a settled finding. The color photographs, which would resolve the question, were never released.
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
The FDR Sphere: A Photographer, a Weather Balloon and Pictures the Public Never Saw
- The primary account: Litwin’s quoted letter is a professional photographer’s contemporaneous description with a specific time, place, companion and estimated distance. It is among the better primary descriptions in the month’s files.
- The balloon explanation: A radar-reflector balloon launched shortly before 1600 from the same ship is a strong candidate for a round, silvery object a few hundred feet above the stern a few minutes after four. The weather officer’s 3:30 p.m. launch that vanished in 50 seconds is a different timing, which keeps the match from being clean.
- The missing photographs: The three transparencies were examined by Navy Intelligence and never made public. The archive cannot judge the object without them, and the case rests on description and message traffic.
- Date error: Some secondary sources give September 19. The Blue Book file and Litwin’s letter give September 20.
The Franklin D. Roosevelt sphere is a photographed case whose photographs the public never saw. A professional photographer described a round silvery object over the stern a few minutes after four; the Air Force answered that a radar-reflector balloon released shortly before 1600 was believed to be the object. Until the transparencies surface, it stands as Insufficient Data.
“I saw this round object about five hundred or a thousand feet in the air, directly above the after end of the ship.”
— Wallace Litwin, Metro Group photographer, USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, September 20, 1952 (Blue Book file; OCR of the typed letter)
