THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTINGS REPORT

1952: Casablanca, Tangier and Fès, French Morocco

The Night Thousands Watched and a Pilot Gave Chase

At about 6:15 p.m. on September 21, 1952, a luminous disk about the size of the setting sun crossed a beach 17 kilometers from Tangier, flying east to west, held its course for about 12 seconds, then threw off two great streaks of flame and vanished. Within minutes the same object, or ones like it, was reported over Fès, over Meknès, over Safi and directly above Casablanca, where about 6,000 spectators at a boxing match watched it pass over the arena.

The most striking report came from a former military pilot named Creze, flying a tourist plane into Casablanca at 1825 hours. He found the object about 30 meters off his wingtip, matching his course, doing roughly twice his own 220 km/h at 450 meters, a bright blue-green flame in an oblong, cigar-like shape, silent. A ground mechanic independently saw a luminous object pass between the plane and himself, corroborating the pilot. Creze did not try to close on it, he said, fearing the same fate as the American pilot Captain Mantell.

That same evening a French couple and their farm workers at Azemmour heard a loud explosion as the object passed overhead, the only report in this file of any sound at all. A Rabat newspaper, watching its own local sighting at 1818 hours, judged that one a meteor instead, pointing to its dead-straight, non-maneuvering path and its fully incandescent body.

Date: September 21, 1952

Sighting Time: About 6:15–6:30 p.m. across the reports (1815–1830 hours)

Day/Night: Dusk

Location: Casablanca, Tangier, Fès, Meknès, Safi and Azemmour, French Morocco; also observed from Rabat

Urban or Rural: Multiple cities, a beach and farmland

No. of Entity(‘s): None reported

Entity Type: Not applicable

Entity Description: Not applicable

Hynek Classification: NL for most reports; the Creze sighting, at about 30 meters from an aircraft in flight, is a close encounter by distance but Hynek’s categories presume a ground witness, so it is left as NL with a note

Duration: About 12 seconds at the Tangier beach; 5 seconds at Marrakech; about 10 seconds alongside Creze’s plane

No. of Object(s): At least one, possibly more than one given the spread of simultaneous reports

Shape of Object(s): Described variously as a luminous disk, an orange ball of fire, an arrow, and an oblong cigar-like shape trailing blue-green flame

Size of Object(s): About the apparent diameter of the setting sun at Tangier

Color of Object(s): Luminous/metallic by day reports, a bright blue-green flame to Creze, orange to the Rabat witnesses

Distance to Object(s): About 30 meters from Creze’s aircraft; otherwise seen across whole cities at unmeasured range

Height & Speed: Creze flying at 450 meters and 220 km/h estimated the object at about twice his speed; the Rabat meteor report gives about 1,000 meters altitude at conventional-aircraft speed

Number of Witnesses: About 6,000 at the Casablanca boxing match alone, plus independent observers at Tangier, Fès, Meknès, Safi, Marrakech, Rabat and Azemmour, plus Creze, his passenger and a ground mechanic

Special Features/Characteristics: A pilot flew in loose formation with the object for about 10 seconds and declined to pursue, citing Captain Mantell; an explosion was heard at Azemmour; a Rabat newspaper offered a meteor explanation for its own city’s sighting the same evening

Case Status: Unexplained for the Casablanca/Tangier/Fès reports; the separate Rabat sighting at 1818 hours was assessed by a local newspaper, not Blue Book, as probably a meteor

Source: CIA Information Report No. OO-W-24639, “Sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects over Spain and Africa, July–October 1952” (distributed 24 Nov 1952), citing Maroc-Presse (22 and 23 Sep 52), Le Courrier du Maroc (22 Sep 52) and L’Echo du Maroc (22 Sep 52)

Summary/Description: On September 21, 1952, a luminous object was seen moving east to west across Tangier, Fès, Meknès, Safi and Casablanca within the same half hour, watched by about 6,000 people at a Casablanca boxing match and matched in flight for about 10 seconds by pilot Creze, who declined to pursue it.

Related Cases: Smaller Spain and North Africa sightings from the same CIA report, on the September 17th–30th and September 1st–16th pages

DETAILED REPORT

The wave opened at about 1815 hours when many people on a beach 17 kilometers from Tangier saw, toward the south, a luminous disk close to the apparent size of the setting sun, flying horizontally from east to west. It held its course for about 12 seconds, then suddenly emitted two great streaks of flame and disappeared.

Two minutes later, at 1817 hours, two observers in the Nefifik River valley independently timed the object’s passage with a chronometer as it came from the direction of Rabat, still heading east to west. Descriptions from different observers varied: a luminous cigar-shaped object with a silvery smoke trail; a luminous whitish-green globe ending in a long cone, flying at about 700 feet, matching the altitude of a conventional plane that happened to pass at the same time near Casablanca; and a flaming, globe-shaped mass trailing puffs of white smoke, as though each puff followed a small explosion, which stopped short, revolved on itself, and threw off a shower of sparks from its cone.

About 6,000 spectators at a boxing match in Casablanca watched the object pass over the arena. At Louis Gentil, numerous people saw it at 1818 hours, again heading east to west. At Marrakech it appeared for about 5 seconds at 1830 hours, clearly seen by three people who, this time, described it as a meteor.

At Fès, French Morocco, at 1820 hours, a strange object was seen flying at high speed from east to west, leaving a luminous white trail behind it. Other reports of a sighting at the same 1820 hours came in from Meknès and Safi.

The most detailed account came from the pilot of a tourist plane, a former military flier named Creze, who was preparing to land at an airfield in Casablanca at 1825 hours. He noticed the strange object about 30 meters to the left of his aircraft — a ground mechanic later verified this independently, having seen a luminous object fly between himself and the plane. It was flying horizontally from east to west, on the same line of flight Creze was holding. He was doing 220 kilometers an hour at 450 meters altitude; the object was going about twice as fast. He motioned to his passenger, who saw it too. It looked like a bright blue-green flame in an oblong, cigar-like shape, and made no noise. After it passed the plane it disappeared toward the sea. Creze did not attempt to pursue it, he said, for fear of meeting the same fate as the American pilot Captain Mantell.

That same evening, at Azemmour, French Morocco, a French couple and their farm workers heard a loud explosion as the strange flying object passed by — the only report in this file of any sound at all being heard from one of these objects. Further reports came in from Fès, Meknès and Safi, each placing the sighting at the same 1820 hours.

Separately, at Rabat, at 1818 hours, the same mysterious flying object that had been seen across Morocco and beyond was also observed, but the Rabat newspaper covering it judged this instance more likely a meteor: the trajectory was rectilinear with no maneuvering of the kind credited to saucers, and the whole body of the object was incandescent, which a flying machine’s would not be. Variously described there as an orange ball of fire, an arrow, or a cone trailing a bright green-blue cloud of smoke, it moved parallel to the coast at the speed of a conventional plane, at about 1,000 meters, visible for only a few seconds before a thin white smoke trail lingered for about five minutes.

RESEARCHER’S NOTES

Casablanca 1952: A Pilot Who Chose Not to Follow

• The Mantell reference: Creze’s stated reason for not pursuing is itself telling: Captain Thomas Mantell’s fatal 1948 pursuit of an unidentified object was well known enough by 1952 that a Moroccan civilian pilot invoked it by name as a reason to hold his course rather than close the distance.
• Independent corroboration: The ground mechanic’s sighting of a luminous object passing between himself and Creze’s plane is one of the few points in this file with two separate observers confirming the same object from two vantage points at once.
• A wave, not one sighting: The same half hour produced reports from at least seven places across hundreds of kilometers — Tangier, the Nefifik valley, Louis Gentil, Casablanca, Marrakech, Fès and Rabat — with descriptions ranging from a cigar-shaped object to a globe to a disk, which argues either for more than one object or for witnesses describing the same brief, fast-moving light very differently.
• The Rabat dissent: The Rabat newspaper’s own meteor explanation, offered for its own city’s sighting the same evening, is a rare case in this file of a period source arguing against the extraordinary reading rather than for it, on stated physical grounds (a rectilinear, non-maneuvering, fully incandescent body).
• No landing, no trace: Unlike the angel-hair cases of the same autumn, nothing physical was left behind here; the Azemmour explosion is heard, not found, and no debris or ground marks are reported anywhere in the file.

Casablanca is one of the best-attested mass sightings in this file for sheer breadth of simultaneous witnesses, and the only case here with a named pilot describing a controlled, deliberate non-pursuit. It stays Unexplained for the main wave; the separate Rabat sighting the same evening was called a probable meteor by the local press, not by any Air Force evaluation.