One of the most famous UFO Sightings in history is the Washington DC UFO Incident. This incident is famous not just because of where it took place, but because of the fantastic details surrounding the event.
It was almost midnight on Saturday, July 19th, 1952. Everything was calm in the capital. The calm was soon to disrupted in the most interesting way imaginable. Over at the National Airport in D.C., an air traffic controller suddenly noticed “blips” on his radar screen that shouldn’t be there. The blips looked to about fifteen miles away from the capital at the time and the air traffic controller knew that there were not supposed to be any aircraft flying at the time. He hurried to tell his boss, Harry G. Barnes. The two began to track the objects on radar and later said that the objects “Moved with such sudden bursts of intense speed that radar could not track them continuously.”
Knowing that no aircraft known at the time could match the speed and manuevers, Barnes and his air traffic controller knew immediately that something was very wrong. National Airport’s other radar, at Tower Central was also tracking unidentified flying objects. At Andrews Air Force Base, about ten miles away, Airmen witnessed what was described as ” bright orange objects” circling the sky and then taking off at break neck speeds like they had never seen before. The radar at Andrews Air Force Base also picked up the UFO’s. The strange ufo sightings continued until the early morning hours of Sunday, July 20th.
That evening, the ufo‘s were observed again performing what should be impossible maneuvers and flying at unheard of speeds. All of this was tracked on Radar again. It wasn’t until the following weekend that things became even more interesting. It was this weekend that fighter jets were deployed in an attempt to intercept the strange objects that had been flying over the capital intermittently for nearly a week. The pilot, Lt. William Patterson was tracking the objects and was stunned when the objects turned the tables and began rocketed towards the F-94 and it’s pilot. It was only a matter of seconds and the jet was surrounded by the objects. The pilot was so frightened that he requested permission to fire, but was only met with silence, as the staff at Andrews Air Force Base was completely stunned and unsure of what to do. Fortunately after what must have seemed like an eternity for Lt. Patterson, the objects turned and flew away.
USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the head of the U.S. Air Force “Project Blue Book” that was created to investigate ufo phenomenon, was in Washington D.C. at the time. His presence was only by coincidence, but he was not made aware of the incident until it was all over and he happened to read about it in the headlines along with everyone else. As a matter of fact, he attempted to obtain a vehicle, so that he could investigate, but was refused and soon after made his way back to Wright Patterson Air Force base, where Project Blue Book was based.
The Washington D.C. UFO Incident was such a major event that President Harry Truman demanded answers for what had occurred in the nations capital. The only explanation offered by our government afterwards, was “cold air formations” and tossed up to the weather. Witnesses to the event like Lt. Patterson and many others had a hard time buying the story, as do most other people who investigate the Washington DC UFO Incident.
