Evening star., 1952-07-29
Unidentified Objects
Seen Again on Radar
Screen al Airport

New sightings Of unidentified
objects occurred on the National
Airport radar early today. but eff
forts to track them down proved
fruitless.
The Civil Aeronautics Admins
tration said that one to IL "blips''
appeared on the Air Traffic Con-
troll Center screen off and on be-
tween 2::30 and am.
They were fainter than the
sightings of the past two Satur-
day nights, but they appeared in
the same general vicinity over
Herndon, Va, and Andrews Air
Force Base and seemed to be
travelling at from 80 to 120 miles
per hour.
Not COnfirmabIe
Unlike the other two instances
Of radar detection, it was impos-
sible to get confirmation of any,
thing unusual from airline pilots.
An Eastern Air Lines pilot di-
rected to the area about 3 am.
saw nothing out of the ordinary.
For this reason, CAA did not
alert the Air Force as it did last
Saturday night, and no jet planes
were sent to the scene. The radar
screen at Andrews, which picked
up objects Saturday. revealed
nothing this morning.
On Saturday a National Airl:nes
pilot reported seeing two lights
which looked like a lighted cigar
or cigarette and faded out when
approached. A United Air Lines
pilot saw a reddish yellow light
seven miles south of Herndon at
about 1900 feet. A CAA pilot
spotted two blue lights northwest
Of BeltSville, and five white lights
near Andrews.
Air Force Experts Called.
AS it sifted the latest mysterious
radar performance, the Air Force
called experts from Dayton. Ohio.
to confer on the mystery.
1--WE don't know the answer
positively and there's no use pre-
tending that we do" said a
spokesman. 1--WE are studying the
reports Of the sighting of un-
identified objects which were
spotted, on radar screens at Ma
tional Airport over the week end.
The only thing we can say is
that these reports are being
studied by the best technicianS
and that we are attempting to
answer inquiries to the best of
our ability"
Jets Take OFF Late.
The sightings over the week end
brought about the dispatch of two
fast jet interceptor planes to look
for the objects. But actually the
jets did not take off from their
New Castle DelD base until
nearly two hours after the radar
watcher at National Airport first
saw the unexplained objects on
his screen. The delay was caused
by the fact the reports were sent
to a fight center at Middletown.
Pa, instead of through the COM
mand post at the Pentagon.
Capt. E. j. Ruppelt from the
Air Technical Intelligence Center
at Dayton and one of the experts
on Saucers, was expected to ar
rive here today for a conference
with officials on the new reports.
Many Reports Studied.
Meanwhile, the Air Force main
tanned its stand that it still doesn't
know whether any such thing as
a saucer actually exists. For
several years the experts at Day.
ton have studied and filed away
thousands of saucer reports.
"Of this number. only a small
per cent of those received from
reliable sources remain unex-
planned" said Air Force state
ment. "The remainder could be
accounted Tor as mlSlnterpreta-
tions of various conventional OBJ
jects, a mild form of hysteria,
meteorological phenomena or
hoaxeS.
"Of the unexplained sightings,
1t can. be stated that they appear
in haphazard fashion and show
no pattern which would indicate
that the objects are being con-
trolled by a reasoning body"
1t added preliminary evaluationI
Of the, latest reports did not in
dicate they differ from those
received in the past few years or
that they actually represent al
threat to the United States" Butt
each report is being given "a most
careful ana1vSiS IL concluded