Hickman Canyon, Utah, October 27, 1952
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTINGS REPORT
1952: Hickman Canyon, Utah, the Saucer That Hit South Mountain
On October 27, 1952, two deer hunters in Hickman Canyon, Tooele County, Utah, watched a dark, saucer-shaped object fly toward them at about 3,000 feet, drop in a straight line and crash into South Mountain. One of them had a telescope mounted on his rifle and a pocket compass in hand, and he took a bearing on the flight line before the object hit.
They heard “a terrific crash,” saw no explosion and spent the next days searching the mountain on foot and horseback, with an aerial search offered by nearby Dugway Proving Ground. They found nothing. The Blue Book record card raises the possibility of guided missile tests at Dugway, and the hunter’s own statement to Dugway’s Munitions Branch is the primary document.
Date: October 27, 1952
Sighting Time: Not legible in the file; the witnesses stayed in the area until 3:30 p.m.
Day/Night: Day
Location: Hickman Canyon, on the county route between St. John and Grantsville, Tooele County, Utah, near Dugway Proving Ground
Urban or Rural: Rural, remote desert
No. of Entity(‘s): None reported
Entity Type: Not applicable
Entity Description: Not applicable
Hynek Classification: DD (Daylight Disc)
Duration: Not recorded; the object was followed from first sighting to impact
No. of Object(s): 1
Shape of Object(s): Saucer-shaped, convex on top and concave on the bottom, with a dark area in the middle and two or more intake- or exhaust-like pipes pointing forward
Size of Object(s): Not recorded
Color of Object(s): Dark gray or brown, agreed by both witnesses
Distance to Object(s): Passed almost directly overhead
Height & Speed: About 3,000 feet, descending in a straight line at a slight angle; no speed estimate
Number of Witnesses: 2 (a man and a woman); one saw it spinning, the other could not tell
Special Features/Characteristics: A sound like a car traveling about sixty miles an hour, or a car window defroster at high speed; no smoke, fire or vapor; a crash with no explosion; a compass line of 110 degrees east on the flight path; no wreckage found; a similar noise heard days later
Case Status: Unexplained. The card’s comments raise the possibility of guided missile tests at Dugway; no evaluation box is clearly legible
Source: Blue Book file (witness statement to Lt. Arthur W. Fyfe, Munitions Branch, Dugway Proving Ground; Blue Book record card; Air Intelligence Information Report)
Summary/Description: Two deer hunters near Dugway Proving Ground watched a dark saucer with two forward pipes descend in a straight line from about 3,000 feet and crash into South Mountain on October 27, 1952. One took a compass bearing; a search found nothing, and Dugway intelligence suggested a missile test.
Related Cases: Late-October Utah and Great Basin reports on the October 22nd–31st page
DETAILED REPORT
The hunter’s statement to Dugway’s Munitions Branch says he and a companion were deer hunting in the Hickman Canyon area, on the county route between St. John and Grantsville. They had separated to work around a knoll. His companion, higher on the knoll, saw the object first and shouted for him to look up.
He put the telescope mounted on his rifle on the object, saw it was coming straight toward them, and took a compass sight on its flight line: 110 degrees east by 290 degrees west. It descended on roughly a 15 percent angle in a perfectly straight line and seemed to hit South Mountain. “Then we heard a terrific crash,” he writes, with no evidence of an explosion. They stayed in the area until about 3:30 p.m. and saw nothing further.
Comparing notes, the companion said she had heard the object three or four minutes before she saw it and had taken it for a small airplane. She saw it spinning; the hunter, looking straight up under it, could not tell. He described the top as convex and the bottom as concave, with two or more pipes sticking out in the direction of travel. Both agreed it was dark gray or brown and that it sounded like a car going about sixty miles an hour.
He called Dugway on October 28, and Lt. Arthur Fyfe offered an aircraft search, but the hunter preferred to start a ground search he had already arranged. He and others searched on October 28, 29 and 30, and again with more help on November 2, on horseback. About 2 p.m. on that last day, searchers spread four miles apart all heard the same intermittent noise for about five minutes, loudest on the northwest side of South Mountain, with nothing to see. The record card notes that an air search by the witness and Dugway’s intelligence officer was unsuccessful and that an identical sound was heard later.
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
Hickman Canyon 1952: A Compass Bearing, a Crash and an Empty Mountain
- A bearing taken before impact: The hunter took a pocket-compass sight on the flight line (110 degrees east) while the object was still in the air, then checked it again afterward. That is unusual precision for a field report.
- No wreckage: Foot, horseback and air searches over several days turned up nothing, which cuts against a crashed aircraft but fits a guided missile or a misjudged distance.
- The missile possibility: The card points out the location near Dugway Proving Ground and the possibility of guided missile tests there, and says an identical sound was heard later. The file does not show a test was scheduled.
- Witness differences: The two witnesses disagree on whether the object was spinning, a plain difference in viewing angle between the hunter directly beneath it and his companion on the knoll.
Hickman Canyon is a rare file in which the witness took a compass bearing, filed a long written statement and organized his own search; what it lacks is the one thing that would settle it, a crater, a wreck or a test record.
“A terrific crash. But no evidence of an explosion.”
— Hunter’s statement to Dugway Proving Ground, October 1952 (Blue Book file; OCR of a typed copy)
