Talk:1952 Washington, D.C., UFO incident/Archive 1

Cool
Thanks for adding this article! Puddytang 06:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Military Response
The military actually played "Cat and mouse" by chasing the UFOs and some jets were chased by the UFOs. 65.163.113.145 22:24, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you spot what's wrong with this?
By coincidence, USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the supervisor of the Air Force's Project Blue Book investigation into the UFO mystery, was in Washington at the time. However, he did not learn about the sightings until Tuesday, July 22, when he read the headlines in a Washington-area newspaper. After talking with intelligence officers at The Pentagon about the sightings, Ruppelt spent several hours trying to obtain a staff car to investigate the sightings, but was refused as only generals and senior colonels could use staff cars. He was told that he could rent a taxicab with his own money; by this point Ruppelt was so frustrated that he left Washington and flew back to Blue Book's headquarters at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio (Ruppelt, 162). Ruppelt did speak with an Air Force radar specialist, Captain Roy James, who felt that unusual weather conditions could have caused the radar targets (Ruppelt, 163). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.7.255.35 (talk) 10:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Here is the actual passage regarding Ruppelt's difficulties in getting a staff car, quoted verbatim, from Ruppelt's memoir The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, page 162:

"Feeling like a national martyr because I planned to work all night if necessary, I laid the course of my investigation. I would go to Washington National Airport, Andrews AFB, airlines offices, the weather bureau, and a half-dozen other places scattered all over the capital city. I called the transportation section at the Pentagon to get a staff car but it took me only seconds to find out that the regulations said no staff cars except for senior colonels or generals. Colonel Bower tried - same thing. General Samford and General Garland were gone, so I couldn't get them to try to pressure a staff car out of the hillbilly who was dispatching vehicles. I went down to the finance office - could I rent a car and charge it as a travel expense? No - city buses are available. But I didn't know the bus system and it would take me hours to get to all the places I had to visit, I pleaded. You can take a cab if you want to pay for it out of your per diem was the answer. Nine dollars a day per diem and I should pay for a hotel room, meals, and taxi fares all over the District of Columbia. Besides, the lady in finance told me, my travel orders to Washington covered only a visit to the Pentagon...I couldn't talk to the finance officer, the lady informed me, because he always left at 4:30 to avoid the traffic and it was now exactly five o'clock and she was quitting. At five-one I decided that if saucers were buzzing Pennsylvania Avenue in formation I couldn't care less. I called Colonel Bower, explained my troubles, and said that I was through. He concurred, and I caught the next airliner to Dayton." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.145.229.162 (talk) 00:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Photo Links for Article
I don't know how to add photos to articles, but listed below are links to a couple of photos that would, imo, enhance the article. The first photo is of controller Harry Barnes looking over a radar, I've seen this photo in numerous books and it was published in TIME magazine in a 1952 article about the sightings. The other photo is a Washington Post headline about the jets chasing the UFOs. If anyone is interested and knows how to add the photos to the article, they're welcome to do so. Cheers!

Barnes Photo: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=1952+washington+dc+ufo+incident&start=129&hl=en&biw=1016&bih=522&tbm=isch&tbnid=8nEXdmi7HHiQxM:&imgrefurl=http://www.minotb52ufo.com/investigation/section-1.php&docid=Sfs6qH4LwOLMuM&imgurl=http://www.minotb52ufo.com/images/images/barnes-lg.jpg&w=750&h=1055&ei=mgkpUai9H5PW8gTX64H4Cw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=784&vpy=124&dur=578&hovh=266&hovw=189&tx=111&ty=128&sig=107940019448695356068&page=8&tbnh=166&tbnw=115&ndsp=17&ved=1t:429,i:139

Washington Post Headline: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=1952+washington+dc+ufo+incident&hl=en&biw=1016&bih=522&tbm=isch&tbnid=HUKOReh_D7d1zM:&imgrefurl=http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/2010/09/famous-ufo-cases-1952-washington-dc-ufo.html&docid=ZqR4cJ4CZOPlNM&imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8RLOdlrA7l4/TIKdxQkVUeI/AAAAAAAAEpo/gi4IMTwgOI8/s1600/Saucer%252BOutran%252BJet%252BPilot%252BReveals%252B1952%252BUFO%252BDC.png&w=809&h=325&ei=jQkpUbSQL46G9QSf6YCIDA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=341&vpy=147&dur=468&hovh=142&hovw=354&tx=230&ty=59&sig=107940019448695356068&page=1&tbnh=106&tbnw=264&start=0&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,i:90 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.49.183.31 (talk) 18:30, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Dead link
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/ufo.htm
 * In 1952 Washington D.C. UFO incident on 2011-05-25 03:29:37, 404 Not Found
 * In 1952 Washington D.C. UFO incident on 2011-06-04 17:48:29, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 17:48, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I corrected the link to the CIA website article; it should now work correctly. 2602:304:691E:5A29:911A:AC9E:205D:E74F (talk) 23:16, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Inaccurate Video Information?
In the opening paragraph to the article it states: "The incident has also resulted in a famous piece of UFO footage known as the "Washington Merry-Go-Round", which has seen wide circulation." The link to the "footage" is to youtube, but several statements there claim that the video (bright lights flying over the Capitol Dome) is actually FX from a "History Channel" documentary, and is thus not "real" UFO footage. I have read a good deal about this incident, and while it was called the "Washington Merry-Go-Round" by some of the participants, I had never seen or heard of such video footage associated with the 1952 "Washington Merry-Go-Round" until this statement. The video does look more like CGI for a documentary than actual footage of the 1952 incident. If so it needs to be deleted and the claim that it is "real" video footage from the incident needs to be deleted as well. Just a thought. Unsigned comment.

I agree. I have seen the footage on History Channel documentaries. The footage cited in the article is just a CG recreation. I have removed the citation to it in the article.Watonga (talk) 02:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Can we perhaps mention something about that in the article - that video and still photos from it crop up all over the place - just search for this article on Google and look at the images. Same with YouTube. - 124.191.144.183 (talk) 14:34, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Actual photos?
In any of the newspapers of that time was photos attached? Any kind of officialy accepted photo of the phenomena was taken? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.134.159.198 (talk) 17:16, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any photos that were taken of the "UFOs" themselves; at least not any that were published or publicized. There are some newspaper photos of Harry Barnes and the Washington National radar personnel during the incidents, and photos of the Air Force's July 29 press conference.70.145.229.162 (talk) 01:53, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah there's a famous picture. I added it. Parzival1919 (talk) 18:34, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Problem is, it's most certainly a fake. In any case, there's no way of verifying it is what it it is claimed to be, so it fails WP:V. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:19, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Gutting of the Criticisms of the Air Force Explanation Section
I just wanted to add for the record that there was no good reason for the recent edits gutting the "Criticisms of the Air Force Explanation" section of the article. Most of the sources were taken from mainstream news media sources like the Washington Post and Washington City Paper (which included extended quotes from famous UFO skeptic Philip Klass), and Edward J. Ruppelt's The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, himself a UFO skeptic, and as USAF officer and Director of Project Blue Book hardly a "fringe" source of any kind. The wording in that section in no way pushed conspiracy theories or any of the other dubious excuses used to delete most of the material. I realize that the absolute dominance of skeptical editors means that deletions like these are now inevitable and irreversible, but it is worth noting that most of the material and wording in that section was based on reliable sources, did not promote any fringe view, and merely consisted of well-documented criticisms of the official Air Force explanation. Nearly all of that material has now been deleted into a handful of sentences that in no way summarize the criticisms that were outlined in the section. In their haste to gut the section, the editor misspelled Jerome Clark's name in the article (it's Clark, not Clarke), and at least one of the three sentences left, as rewritten, actually contradicts any criticisms of the Air Force explanation (no doubt that rewording was deliberate, and the fact that it was one of the few details to be kept in the section gives away the editor's actual intent), and thus more appropriately belongs in the section above it. Again, I have no illusions as to why these severe edits were made or that the section will be restored, only that it should be noted that it has been done, and that the reasons given for doing so do not match the actual wording or objectivity of the section as it stood before the edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:A000:1011:C156:28F6:4B7F:71AA:175F (talk • contribs)
 * I disagree. In the sections I examined, there was an WP:UNDUE dependence on Ruppelt as a source, so the text was often working overtime to shape the narrative that the Air Force was trying to hide or downplay UFO reports. There was also a fair amount of WP:SYNTHESIS, e.g. citing weather records in an effort to persuade readers that temperature inversion could not account for radar images. FWIW, I find this kind of thing often in older UFO articles, probably written by well-meaning contributors who, at the time, took the author’s POV from UFO books at face value ("it was published, so it must be true"). Anyway, the bottom line is that if you want to contribute to Wikipedia in a substantive way, open a Talk page discussion, provide sources, suggest text and we'll discuss it. - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:19, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Bizarre radar claim in article
"Meanwhile, at Andrews Air Force Base, the control tower personnel were tracking on radar what some thought to be unknown objects, but others suspected, and in one instance were able to prove, were simply stars and meteors.[6]"

Umm, do stars appear on radar? Meteor claim is a little dubious too. Does anyone have this book to verify? Schierbecker (talk) 05:40, 22 May 2021 (UTC)