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S1E8: 1952 DC UFOs and Losing the Thread
In 1952, two waves of UFOs flew over DC, shocking America. It was big news at the time, but in the years since then, it's faded from memory. We talk about what happened and ponder how this major moment slipped into the dust of history.
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We're talking about 1952 today, UFOs and 1952. John, you want to give us a thesis for our conversation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So what really interests Caleb and I in the 1952 July Washington DC sightings is that it's this big. They're interesting in themselves, kind of the timeline of them, but then they have this big kind of cultural footprint and then we just kind of cultural footprint and then we just kind of move on and and forget about them, um, and so that is kind of the core of what we're talking about. Today is like the, the, the dc-52 sighting and losing the thread on ufos and how did that happen? That's not about.
Speaker 2:That sounds great, I'm just going to say I'm very excited to talk to you about this topic and unpack it, and I spent a lot of time just going through the New York Times articles from this week. The Post doesn't really digitize their they haven't figured out how to digitize all their stuff yet, but I went through and just read every article about flying saucers from the month around this and it's really interesting and I think there are some sort of like themes that that emerge and some narratives that are playing out in the coverage that I'm excited to share with you.
Speaker 1:That's cool. I listen to a ton of podcasts about this and almost nobody did that. In fact, nobody did that coverage deep dive.
Speaker 2:So maybe that's a way that this episode can distinguish itself in the canon of ufo discourse cool and I'm going to be bringing a little bit of like maniac, like flipping through my papers, my files. Uh, today I'll try to keep the the crumpling down to a minimum and, um, hopefully not look uh too insane. But there are so many articles that were written about this in the Times. One day has seven different articles about UFOs. Very much a time where people are interested in this nationally. So before we get into giving sort of just like a TikTok overview of the event itself, I know you want to t us off with uh some thinking with some, you know, some I don't know thesis statement here. What do you got? Lay it on me okay.
Speaker 1:So what I'm thinking about is leading scientific theories that have not yet been ratified by evidence and findings. Uh, and I'm thinking about, uh, I think the Big Bang is a pretty good analogy, dark matter and dark energy are a really good analogy, and the Higgs, boson or gravitational waves are also examples of this. And basically what I'm talking about is like a longstanding theory that we haven't proven yet but that is nonetheless the leading accepted theory broadly throughout culture and specifically in the scientific world. And what's driving me a little crazy, especially around this 1952 clutch of sightings, is that the leading theory about what UFOs are should obviously be that they are non-human technology. That like basically the only conclusion that if you engage with all this stuff in a good faith manner, you can walk away having and that doesn't mean that it's the only thing that is possible, but it means that it should be the leading theory so like it is conceivable that there might be some meteorological explanation to some. Or maybe, if I'm really missing a whole bunch of pieces of this puzzle, then maybe all UFOs are meteorological. I don't think so, I don't think it's very likely and I don't think a good faith person looking at all the evidence would think that it's very likely and I don't think a good faith person looking at all the evidence would think that it's very likely. So meteorological can be part of the conversation. Advanced tech can be part of the conversation, like advanced human tech. But those things, to be honest, are low percentage compared to the likely theory that there's some non-human technology orbiting Earth, and I think I'm just kind of like debuting this idea here, but I think it deserves a deeper exploration. I think this might be something to like write and talk about over like the months and maybe years ahead, because it's frankly super weird that that's not our main expectation.
Speaker 1:And a point I've made to you in talking about this is that these expectations and these theories can help guide our discovery, and the Higgs boson is a great example of that. It's like something somebody theorized decades ago and we didn't know if it was real and then we freaking, found it. But we found it because we were looking for it, so the theories can help bring us toward that and, like Einstein's theory of gravitational waves, right, went like unproven for like 60, 70 years, something like that. And then, and because Einstein had that theory, we set up like very refined sensors that could look for gravitational waves, and then we found them and we validated this theory, so that that would be the purpose of having like a consensus leading theory around the idea of UFOs being non-human technology. I'm not using extraterrestrial there on purpose, but because I think it just kind of muddies the waters. But the point is if we, if we name what we're looking for, we can find it better. Somebody in the NASA hearing made that point about like you have to identify the needle that you're looking for in order to find it in a haystack, like you have to say what is a needle, and I think that's that's. That's kind of in the ballpark of what I'm talking about here.
Speaker 1:And it seems like right now in the discourse around UFOs in general, what we have instead is like a giant question mark. These things are unidentified. Unidentified leading theory is we don't have a theory like that fucking sucks. That's just stupid.
Speaker 1:And I think there's like a reason for that and it's that we're like afraid of theorizing this thing because it's so huge and I think because it like lessens our specialness, so like people don't want to engage with this idea, but like we haven't really proven that the this idea, but like we haven't really proven that the big bang is real. We haven't proven the dark energy is real. It might be a bunch of tachyons turns out. Um, we have evidence of the higgs boson, we have evidence of gravitational waves, but the point is like we should pick a general idea and move toward it, uh, and then we'll figure out the details by looking for them and by not identifying this general idea, we're hampering our ability to investigate it. Sorry it was long and a little bit emotional, but uh, this is. This is like the frame for me, going into some like really high quality ufo sightings, is that this should lead us to deeper investigations of the phenomenon, with a particular expectation that it might be non-human technology. In fact, it probably is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, all right, well then let's just get into it. Um, let's, let's just start by talking about the specifics of the DC event, or pair of events, and then we'll zoom out a little bit to put it in some context. And then I really want to dig in on the aftermath and how it's being talked about, because there's just a lot of interesting stuff there.
Speaker 1:Okay, can I just add a quick piece of color for 1952 to take people there? Yeah, sure, please. Piece of color for 1952 to take people there, the yeah sure, please. The anne frank journal gets published this year. The building of the united nations in new york starts construction, uh, and queen elizabeth uh becomes the first reptilian queen of England, all in 1952. So that's just sort of the general cultural context of where we're living.
Speaker 2:That's cool. Let's just continue with that. Let's just do the UFO context too while we're at it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So it's been a big few years.
Speaker 1:Why don't you do that? That I just yeah, okay, well, so uh 1947.
Speaker 2:Um, we've got the, uh, the kenneth arnold sighting, which is, like generally considered to be sort of the kickoff for ufos, um, ufo coverage in the us. There's this pilot. He's near mount rainier and he, like file, encounters the flying saucer and follows it for a while. It's covered, naturally, and that's that's where the term flying saucer is first used.
Speaker 1:Partly because he describes them as skipping across, like moving like a saucer skipping across the ocean right, but he also describes them as saucer-like or disc-like, I believe.
Speaker 2:I think. And then a reporter just kind of takes that and runs with it, so that kicks off just like a wave of interest in this. And then there's also just like a wave of sightings happening in 1947 through 52, which is when the DC event takes place. So there's all sorts of sightings happening. There's Roswell happens during this time period. Another national news story, just a couple weeks before the DC event, life um. A couple weeks before um, the DC event, life magazine publishes a big story, um, it's a great cover image of Marilyn Monroe. And then the top story is there is a case for interplanetary saucers, um, so it's like very much in the, in the cultural zeitgeist, uh, and the air force is like starting to look into this and there's, you know, there's investigations happening.
Speaker 2:So the event, the first event, happens on july 19th 1952. Two days before that, on july 17th um, the times publishes a story, um about the air force starting a formal flying saucer inquiry and project blue book is like coming together at this time, uh. Then, uh, then to the day the next day, on the 17th, or sorry, on the 18th, there's a article, headline 60 saucer reports, uh, fly at air force in two weeks. And there's got a guy from uh right batter right patterson air force base, captain ej ruppelt of the uh air technical intelligence, two weeks. And there's got a guy from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, captain EJ Ruppelt of the Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patt, saying people are seeing unidentified objects in the sky at a rate almost double last year. And then on the very next day, july 19th, at about just about midnight, an air traffic controller named Ed Nugent at Washington National Airport spots some unidentified blips on his radar. His colleague, joe Zacco um, saw a sees a bright light. Uh, zoom away at an incredible speed. Uhultaneously, radars at Andrews and Balling Air Force bases detected the objects. So we've got we've got crafts showing up or objects showing up on radar and according to the New York Times. So then we've got the New York Times story breaks on July 22nd covering this, this story on the on the 19th, and what they say is that this is the first time, for the first time so far, has been reported the objects were picked up by the radar, indicating actual substance rather than mere light. So that's like a really important part about a really important facet of the DC sighting. It's the first time they show up on radar. And so there's this sea change where we're now saying that like these are objects. So then one week later it happens again on on July I think it's like 10 days later than on July 26th objects show up on radar, this time jets are. The air force dispatches jets to go look for them, um, and they, they like get close but uh aren't able to like get a visual, um contact with them. So, yeah, it's on the 26th.
Speaker 2:Again a lot of media attention. President truman requests an inquiry, um, so the uh, yeah, okay. So harry barnes, who's the head of national airport's air traffic controllers, howard cocklin is a controller at the national airport who reports seeing a whitish blue light from a solid saucer light object. And then we've got pilots in the sky, also sc casey pierman, who's a pilot, who reported seeing fast moving bright lights, and a lot of these people are then eventually interviewed by Blue Book. So we've got one sighting, radar sighting, one week, and then a week, a little over a week later, more radar sightings and they dispatch jets to try to intercept, and then there's an inquiry. And then on July 29th the US Air Force holds a press conference it's actually the largest press conference since World War II to address these concerns, and the Air Force tells us that it's a weather phenomenon. Ok, so that was kind of longer than I meant for it to be, but that's that's like the broad strokes of what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1:A lot of stuff happened, so just to recap a little bit, it's over two weekends. We get radar events, people seeing things in the sky, and air force pilots deployed to investigate these events who then see some lights. Is that basically the short version? Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:And there are also, but there are civilians who see it, who see these things in this time as well, so we've got like a lot of different observers radar simultaneously.
Speaker 1:So you've got like a bunch of very serious people looking at uh radar screens. I think I think you said this, but the the first one is like at what is now reagan national airport. Reagan airport was then, I think, national airport. Um, these radar techs, uh then call andrew's air force base. Uh, they don't have it on radar but they scramble some jets uh, but it does show up on somebody else's radar, I believe. Um, there are.
Speaker 1:And then at least one person goes outside and sees like a giant orange sphere, like with a green tail, um, flying through the sky.
Speaker 1:I believe that's like an admiral at one of the uh bases, um, and then some of these pilots describe like seeing lights that are moving so fast that they can't keep up, and one pilot gets like low-key, surrounded by some lights, and asks like what should I do about this?
Speaker 1:And there's just like no response from the radar room because nobody knows what he should do. So radar sightings, physical visual sightings and uh air force pilot sightings, plus lots of civilian sightings, as you said, and a, brought more broadly in the context, like blue book at this time is uh up and running and they're getting like 30 to 50 reports a day of UFO sightings. It's like hundreds of sightings leading into this 1952 sighting and some people who have tracked the sightings across America at that time describe what seemed to them like three distinct waves of like UFO formation movement across the country in kind of like what you might imagine is maybe an investigatory action of some kind. I think it's also super striking that these UFOs are moving in formation and I want to talk a little bit more about that. But did you have something to jump in with that?
Speaker 2:I've just got like a little more color for us. So the you can, you can listen to the air traffic controller conversations from the 19th, from that first sighting. So a couple of just pull quotes from that for you. Two unknowns and restricted airspace over White House. That one stopped dead and went backwards. It just did a 90 degree turn. And then Howard Coughlin is, who's 33 year old air traffic controller at national airport um says uh, when he's talked about this years later, says we saw these objects doing maneuvers that an airplane wouldn't do and it was going over a thousand miles an hour. We reported it to the FAA and they we reported it. The FAA said it was swamp gas which I think he's conflating. That I don't think they literally said it was swamp gas which I think he's conflating that. I don't think they literally said it was swamp gas there. But basically they reported it and were kind of like waved away in that first week.
Speaker 2:So the First Times article my papers. There are my papers, please. I don't know if that's displaying backwards, probably insane, ok, but the headline is flying objects near Washington, spotted by both pilots and radar. Air Force reveals reports of something, perhaps saucers, traveling slowly but jumping up and down. I'm just going to like read a couple excerpts from this Great. For the first time so far as has been reported, the objects were picked up by radar, indicating actual substance rather than mere light. The Air Force says no planes were sent out to intercept the objects and no sightings were reported by Operation Skywatch, which is a new program, the round-the-clock ground observer operation now underway in the northern arc of the United States.
Speaker 2:So the way the story describes it is air traffic control center. Its radio operators had picked up eight of the slow moving objects around midnight last Saturday. The center said Capital Airlines flight 807, southbound from National Airport, had reported seeing seven objects between Washington and Martinsburg, virginia, at 315 am that same night, virginia at 3.15 am that same night. And then the captain of that flight described them, says he, 17 years of service as a pilot. He described the lights as like falling stars without tails. Then, meanwhile, the Air Traffic Control Center said that another airliner Capital National Airlines Flight 610, had reported observing a light following it from Herndon, california, to within four miles of National Airport. That's a really interesting detail because that's the entire country, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then the Air Force spokesman said that neither the center nor headquarters here had yet received reports on sightings said to have been made last Friday in the the areas of burlington, vermont, south portland, maine and staten island, new york. So this one new york times article so far has, I mean that's, three new sightings. And then they're also talking about two different people seeing the same sighting uh, two persons on staten island. There's another report uh, two persons on staten island reported seeing saucers about 10.15 am. The objects were described as silvery in color, tinged with red on the rims, reported flying in a V formation of five.
Speaker 2:They have Mrs Josephine Hetzel saying I almost fainted when I looked up at the sky and saw what looked like five large dinner plates flying through the sky. Then Frank Gondar saw them too, also, staten island. They look, uh, flying like geese. They gave off a glow and didn't make a sound. So that's like that's a lot of of information on the front page of the new york times on on the 22nd, three days, wow, three days after the first sighting. Wow, it is after the first sighting I was.
Speaker 1:I also wanted to hop in and mention the uh, the nash fortenberry sighting uh, which I believe is it's like right before the first, it's like five days before the first sighting in dc. It happens on july 14th and it's two commercial pilots, um william b nash and william h fortenberry, um, and they see eight ufos flying in that describe as an echelon formation which is like um goes up like stairs. No, no, don't eat my wires. Oh, I'm sorry. Um holding for dog. Um, uh, but there's.
Speaker 1:This is not on the Wikipedia page, but in some other contexts that I um found about this. Uh, they described these objects as um, as like glowing red coins, like eight um vibrant red coin shaped objects. They described them as being, they thought, like a hundred feet in diameter and like only 15 feet thick, which kind of corresponds with this saucery idea. I heard somebody else describe a sighting as like two frying pans on top of each other, which again sounds like this shape that we're describing. So Nash and Fortenberry describe this formation as doing crazy zigs and zags. At one point it just turns radically in a way that blows their minds and shouldn't be possible. Cord, god damn it. Uh, uh. They describe um, the members of this formation in some instances, uh, instances like adjusting their speed to catch up with each other, which they interpret as like intelligent control, basically that like some of them are going a little too fast and they have to slow back down, or like they lag a little bit and then they catch back up, like you would see birds do in a flying v? Um, except they're very clearly not birds, uh, and the pilots watch these for some significant amount of time, um and uh.
Speaker 1:The one other detail I have is that they they do a like back of the envelope calculation and they like very generously minimize their estimates of how far these objects went and they come up with like a conservative estimate of like 12 000 miles an hour.
Speaker 1:These things are going like just an insane, an insane speed, um, and a bunch of the I believe a bunch, bunch of the objects in DC were clocked or estimated to be moving at around like 7,000 miles an hour, which is 7,000 is right around where like the fastest human plane has ever flown, and that was like the NASA, I think, like X43 or something in 2004. The current fastest world air like fighter is in the 2000s range miles per hour, but that's publicly acknowledged. We could have stuff that's faster, but it beggars belief to imagine that any country had technology that could have been flying at 7,000 miles an hour in 1952. And certainly 12,000 miles an hour. We don't know how to do that still. So again, sounds like technology, sounds military, flying in formation, and it rhymes with the descriptions that we get in DC of these V-shaped formations. Right, and that has also happened in the years leading up to this, like the Mount Rainier sighting, and it'll happen again in years to come.
Speaker 2:Okay, so now let's jump forward to July 28th, when the story breaks about the second sighting, and this time the headline of the Times is Object Outstrips Jets Over Capitol Spotted second time in week by radar, but interceptors failed to make contact. The headline of the times is object outstrips jets over Capitol spotted second time in week by radar, but interceptors failed to make contact. So this is an AP story, the air force, which means it was published around the country. Likely, the air force said today the jet fighter planes had made an effort to intercept unknown objects in the sky over Washington last night after the objects had been spotted by radar, but that no direct contact had been made. Two fighter jet interceptor planes were ordered up to check. They came from a base at Newcastle, delaware, about 90 miles away from Washington. The Air Force said in a statement one of the jet pilots reported sighting four lights in front, approximately 10 miles and slightly above him, but he reported he had no apparent closing speed, overtaking speed. They disappeared before he could overtake them. Uh, so they're, they're. You've got like the air traffic controllers trying to guide jets to where these objects are and jets seeing lights, but but not being able to like make make contact with them. Then you've got. So then, like around this time you've got the Washington post runs a huge banner headline South saucer outran jet pilot reveals. And then there's an article I found in the San Diego San Diego tribune that's also about this. I don't know, I don't have it right now, but another banner headline in the San Diego Tribune about this. Then you've got you know, the Washington Daily News is carrying it, the New York Daily News, and then lots of other newspapers around the country too Cedar Rapids, gazette saucers swarm over Capitol, scranton, pennsylvania. Air Force orders anti-saucer alert, so it's making a splash nationally. And then this is where, very quickly, the sea change starts to happen in terms of the coverage. So that's on the 28th to happen in terms of the coverage. So that's on the 28th.
Speaker 2:The Air Force then assembles their big press conference that they hold, which takes place on what is it? The 30th, I think. Um, yeah, okay, all right, so no, july 29th. Then general john sanford and there's lots of video about this online and the air force basically comes out, says we have, as we have, as of date, come to only one firm conclusion, and that is that it does not contain any pattern of purpose or of consistency that we can relate to any conceivable threat to the United States. Another quote I thought was interesting to have the Air Force saying we can say that the recent sightings are in no way connected with any secret developments by any agency of the United States. Ooh, good one.
Speaker 2:And the explanation that they put forth in this press conference is, uh, a temperature inversion, which is a phenomenon that happens when you've got a pocket of cold air trapped between two layers of hot air, and apparently that can cause reflections that can cause like reflections of light on the ground. Um, so that story that that take explanation is then picked up by by the press and and they run with it. Um, so I don't know, I don't want, like I I could keep going there, but I don't know. Is there anything you want to jump in with?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we should talk about temperature inversions. I'm going to have to find the receipt on this because I found a quote when I was researching and don't have it in front of me now of somebody basically saying from the radar operator's point of view, that's ridiculous. We know what a temperature inversion looks like. And one explanation I heard was that it would look like a line on a radar, it wouldn't look like a bunch of things moving in formation and zipping and zapping all over the place. And another quote about this particular thing that somebody in the room said look, there were meteorological events on the radar screen and we know what those look like and we know what like weather events look like through a radar. Like that's our fucking job, um, and like again, we're talking about like the national airport, like it's one of the most important airports in the country, if not the world. Like it's it's not a place where, like randos run the technology, like these people know what they're looking at and you know, like the, the hip pocket, like gut check.
Speaker 1:Response for me is like that's ridiculous, this. It's ridiculous to assert that, like some vague weather phenomenon, which is just like basically a giant question mark, could be that persistently misinterpreted by the technical experts at multiple facilities, repeatedly over multiple nights, during a time in which they're interfacing with military officials of, like, the highest possible rank. It just seems like an unfathomably stupid mistake. Like is it possible? Sure, but you can't give it more than a single digit percentage of probability. Like it's just extremely unlikely to account for this whole phenomenon, and that is really important.
Speaker 1:And then, parenthetically to this, a couple of people also have suggested the idea that stars and or meteors might have shown up on radar screens, which is also patently stupid. That's ridiculous. It doesn't happen. I saw one citation in Wikipedia saying that in some instances this claim had been proved to be true, and I'm highly skeptical of that. But I'm still. I'm not going to go down the bunny hole of, like Robert Pemtree's mythological dissolution of the UFO theory. Um it, you know some people apparently take that seriously, but I've heard other people say it's like insane to say that you could see stars or or uh, meteors on radar screens.
Speaker 2:Okay, I got off of that the day before the press conference is held, so July 28th. Great article in the New York Times. Object over Iowa called Planet. An astronomer at the State University of Iowa reported today that a spark shooting object seen in the sky by Southeast Iowans most likely was the planet Jupiter. The astronomer, professor CC Wiley, head of the university's astronomy department, said he had seen the planet about1. The astronomer Professor CC Wiley, head of the university's astronomy department, said he had seen the planet about 1.30 am today.
Speaker 2:After having been notified by the Iowa City Police Department, I'd been told they had reports of something in the sky and what I saw was Jupiter, which at this time of year is quite bright and rises about 1 am. I assume that some of the other reports referred to Jupiter too, although it is possible some people saw another star or even a meteor. A Fort Madison police had reports of flying objects that shot off fire and bobbed up and down in circles. Doesn't exactly sound like Jupiter. A highway patrolman in the Fort Madison area said the object looked like a star at first and was shooting off blue and red lights going in circles. Professor wiley, our astronomer, said that jupiter, or any star when, rising above the horizon would appear to be shooting off multi-colored sparks what the fuck sky?
Speaker 1:are you looking?
Speaker 2:at any star rising above the horizon would be shooting.
Speaker 1:I feel like I would have no dog, no, and somebody in this nash fortinberry wikipedia page suggests that, uh, maybe the echelon formation they saw was a mirage of venus. Another person suggested maybe they had fireflies trapped in the panes of glass in their cockpit window, which is just like the straw graspie-est idiocy. You gotta, you gotta like give all of this stuff just like the bare minimum potential explanation. And what's so weird is that the other thing is so much it's so like obviously more likely, but because it's never happened before fireflies, it's never been confirmed before that we have like non-human technology in the sky. Fireflies can like seem likely. And it is incredibly depressing that following this Air Force press conference, newspapers just went off happily and wrote like oh, temperature inversion, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Here's what they wrote. Okay, so the day after the press conference, wednesday, the 30th, new York Times Saucer a Radar Ghost, by William L Lawrence, first paragraph mirages on the radar scope, which have started the latest mass delusion about the flying saucers, are phenomena that became well known to the Navy in World War II. So he calls them radar ghosts. And then that article goes on to talk about how fashionable this fantasy is right now. And then, like the big article on the 30th, this is really trigger warning for you, caleb. So air force debunks saucers as just natural phenomena. Intelligence chief denies a menace exists, objects believed to object, believed to be reflections, but adequate guard will be kept.
Speaker 2:Opening paragraph. This is by Austin Stevens, special to the New York Times, which I find kind of interesting Air Force headquarters skimmed away into the broken dishware bin today the latest wave of flying saucers. It called them natural phenomena and announced through high-ranking general officers that henceforth the Air Force would treat reports of the discs with, quote, adequate but not frantic attention, which I just love, that phrase, and it's like, honestly, like I should get a tattoo of that to like center myself. So yeah, that's, and that's the beginning of like a long article about this and then, like Greg, a credulous kind of uh you know talking about um temperature inversions. But an interesting tidbit in here is that the air force experts said that although they had run down more than a thousand supposed sightings of saucers or other objects in recent years, only 20% of the reports from creditable sources remained unexplained.
Speaker 1:Only 20%.
Speaker 2:Only 20%, Only one in five. That's really really high.
Speaker 1:Only 200 out of every thousand.
Speaker 2:I just think the Okay, so this is all on the same day. This is the same day that this article of Air Force debunks saucers White Plains, new York, york. Sightings increase here. Uh, it's like a bunch of sightings happening in white plains, new york, um investigating off florida. Navy officials uh said today we're investigating thoroughly reports of a fiery object that streaked across the sky saturday evening a destroyer escort was sent to sea, but author, uh, but officers would not elaborate. Same day missiles over the Bahamas, nasa, the Bahamas. From a remote settlement here where the people probably never heard of flying saucers, came a report today that about two weeks ago a group of persons had seen a flying object streaming across the sky. They described they described them as noiseless, whiter and much faster than any plane and spoke of them as guided missiles. Okay, so that's all. On the same day they're publishing the big debunk article and then also like four or five sightings in different places around the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's especially sickening about the media strategy is that they're like happy to get the eyeballs and then they write it off. So it's like often these things will be like headline oh, saucer, read about the saucer. And then the last paragraph is like it's swamp gas, yeah, or you know, temperature inversions right?
Speaker 2:um, okay, I just want to throw a few more of these at you, because there's so many now between between the 30th and august 3rd, so over a period of like four or five days, the 31st they've got what I think is an op-ed useful saucers uh saying you know, uh this?
Speaker 2:this author says um. According to general samford, the guy of the press conference, the air force intelligence guy, about 20% of phenomenon reported by object observers still remain unexplained. This hardly is to be wondered at. Much has still to be learned about the atmosphere. No doubt General Sanford is right in thinking that continued study of saucers will teach us more about the northern lights and atmospheric conditions after a heat wave. Science will therefore be as much the gainer as the public by the current excitement. I think this guy's actually on the level in this piece. I think he's like wrong but on the level.
Speaker 2:Okay. Then, uh, the next day, august 1st, and I think this is where, like the air force if you want to like play conspiracy theorist, I think this is where the air force is like really trying to like push a narrative um, flying saucer queries hamper air force work. This is an article basically saying that there's like we're, you know, we're trying to keep the country safe here. Uh, and all these flying saucer reports are making it hard for us to do that. Uh, however, paragraph four the coast guard said that it would make public soon a photograph supposedly showing five mysterious objects in flight over Salem Massachusetts. The picture was taken a week ago by a Coast Guardsman.
Speaker 2:Another theme that, when in reading these articles, emerges is that there's a very different the way the Coast Guard and the Navy talks about this stuff. They're, like, much more willing to be upfront about it. And so then, the next day, on Saturday, august 2nd, front page of the New York Times is this photograph here, flying saucers in formation over a power plant, over a coal plant in Salem Massachusetts, which just happens to be on a street that I used to live on A lot of interesting stuff in this article.
Speaker 1:Front page of the New York times, above the fold.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so at the time, at the time, the way the New York times layout it was opposite to. In those days the top left story was the lead story. These days it's the top right story. Um, so this was like the, you know. I mean it's the lead image, it's above the fold, it's the second story. Um, yeah, so, okay, a lot of interesting stuff in this story. Um, mystery photo jet pilots report added to flying saucer puzzle. Coast guard releases daytime picture of objects over New England, not reflections. Dayton Flyers say Okay.
Speaker 2:This article uses the term unidentified aerial phenomena, which is interesting to me. The Army said it had no information here and referred queries to its public information officer in Middleton, new York. Germany said it had no information here and referred queries to its public information officer in Middleton, new York. Okay, two suggestions that the light might have been caused by flares or anti-aircraft bursts. A Navy spokesman said the Navy was not firing in that area at the time. The Air Force similarly disclaimed activity in the area. I would hope that they were not firing in the area at the time because, again, I lived on that street and it's like suburban, like three top apartment buildings and houses, and then okay, and then there's, and then there's like other. There's other sightings that are like sub articles within this. There's something in Dayton, ohio, then there's something in God. Sorry, this is again front page of the new york times right here on the same day.
Speaker 2:Object reported upstate albany, new york. Flotillas of mysterious bright, shiny objects were reported flying high in the sky over south central new york. Today hundreds of persons said they saw them, but jet pilots from griffiths air force base at roma, new york, said they could find nothing. So again we have air force jets being dispatched to go check these things out. Oh man, okay, I'll shut up in a second um. At sydney, 19 miles north of afton, several hundred employees of the scintilla magneto plant left their jobs to scan the skies. One worker said he saw 60 to 75 objects shaped like ping pong balls moving very high. Whoa, probably the first time ping pong gets mentioned in the UFOs.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. Kind of sounded like the Nuremberg 1561 celestial event. Those things look like ping pong balls, giant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, please. The next day, August 3rd, saucers turn up over Korea. Now Canadian destroyer sites to Japan has a report and one blows up upstate. Okay. So a Navy report said 40 officers and crew members of the destroyer crusaders saw the saucers the night of July 10th. The report addressed to the commanders of the Far East Naval Forces and the Fifth Air Force, said the ship's radar registered fixes on the objects. It placed them two miles high and seven miles away. The report said the objects disappeared before dawn. A second report a day or two later dismissed the radar find as the planet jupiter. One officer commented. However, jupiter doesn't come in pairs and it is several million miles out of the range of our radar yeah, what the fuck yeah, okay, uh then, um, tokyo had a Sasa report.
Speaker 2:Kosuke Miyazaki, 27 years old, of the Central Meteorological Observatory, said he saw a greenish-white thing with a tail flying through the sky Friday night. Makoto Sakai 19, a university student, saw it too, but he said it was bluish-white and split into two halves before disappearing disappearing. Another witness said it was orange, orange-white. Dr Hideo Hirosa of the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory did not see it, but he said it must have been a meteor. Okay, there's that teaser about blowing up upstate. So this article continues with more sightings, two more over California two flying saucers, one of which hovered over the earth for 18 minutes, emitting reddish-white light and swinging like a pendulum.
Speaker 2:This is in lancaster california uh, deputy sheriff says, uh, one of them moved, leisurely, moved off in a southeastern direction. The other one just hovered there swinging like a pendulum. Very interesting. Uh, then there's in washington. An air force spokesman said a mystery object was spotted, was spotted near los alamos bomb laboratories shining metallic object flying through the air for more than 30 minutes last tuesday.
Speaker 2:Then, under that an article, professor Ronald H Menzel of Harvard University, talking about the Salem, that trio in formation in Salem, saying for more than six years, expressed doubt at the value of the picture. As I have maintained, reflections and refractions can account for all flying saucers, said Professor Menzel. Who has not seen the photograph? Who's not even seen the photograph? Okay, and then these two are just the rudest pieces all in this. August 3rd Rotterdam, new York.
Speaker 2:Police, motorists and pedestrians rushed to Potree Park yesterday on hearing that a flying saucer was in the sky over the park. The saucer turned out to be a scrap of lunch paper carried aloft by a gust of wind. That sounds like straight made up. That sounds like a completely fake story to me. I mean whatever, maybe, maybe it's real, but but also like why? The only reason to publish a story like that, which is not a story is not a piece of news, is to paint, you know, is to like, put like a patina of doubt onto all of these other stories that they're publishing. Just tuck that one in and then, right under that flying river, dished up.
Speaker 2:This is, I think, a really interesting piece. Uh, it's again. It's right under that story, it's right under all these others, um, and it's basically a story about a legitimate natural weather phenomenon that they're just filing alongside these unexplained sightings. The radar station at Illinois State Water Survey at the University of Illinois Airport detected a river in the sky the other night. Glenn E Stout meteorologist reported today. Mr Stout said the flying river was a reflection of a 100-mile section of the Illinois River 80 miles west of the University Airport. He explained that warm air trapped between layers of cold air had caused the phenomenon. That's the temperature inversion story that the Air Force is pushing four days later being again, again about a like it happened a few days ago.
Speaker 2:So all of these are like under the banner there, oh man. Then there's an article in the same paper about ball lightning, which is like a deep dive into what ball lightning is. It's in the same issue. The next day, saucer man doubts this exists, say. Air Force finds no basis. Major General John Ramsey, the Air Force saucer man, said today six years of flying saucer reports had reasonably well convinced him there was no such thing. But he edged cautiously around a suggestion that something more orthodox crossed the nation's Alaskan borders nearest to Russia last April. So like, the Air Force is here trying to split the difference between saying like we don't know what they are, but they're definitely not Russia, and yet they're still saying it's definitely not us and also we think it's some phenomenon.
Speaker 2:Then, on August 7th, scientist makes flying saucers, produces fiery objects, just like some scene shooting through the night skies, and explaining how like magnets can be used to recreate this. And then, just like, 10 days later, there's a. There's a. The Air Force then publishes the story about Venezuela some sightings in Venezuela that the Air Force says were just or I guess the Venezuelan Air Force says it was the Venezuelan Air Force engaged in a training exercise. And then in Colombia there's a sighting also. That's on the 18th. And then on August 21st, the Air Force releases pilots' last message during fatal pursuit of an aerial object.
Speaker 2:This is just very interesting to me because I would file this alongside the UFO reports. Hamper Air Force work. Basically, a pilot's trying to pursue a UFO goes too high, loses oxygen, crashes and dies. And then on the 24th is this very earnest cluck clucking article, innocence and Saucers article, innocence and Saucers basically saying like you silly fools, you're being manipulated. So okay, that was a very long rant, but I like went down a deep wormhole of reading all these articles and I found it really interesting just to see how the story starts moving, how the Times is like having this sort of like uh, this like schizophrenic reaction where they're like publishing these like credible sources and like doing reporting on it, and then alongside it they're slipping in these like but there's also weird weather shit that's happening and there's like a debunked report in Venezuela. Let's just like throw that in. And then here are a bunch of like op-eds talking about um, why, it's all very silly.
Speaker 1:I don't know what do you think what do you got? Good, unexplained phenomenon on both sides, both sides of this issue. One thing that jumped out at me is this special forces programs allegation. I've never heard the military say before we categorically deny any special forces involvement. But I think, even if they hadn't said that, it should be obvious that this couldn't have been us tech, because it would just be such a stupid thing to do with secret technology. Basically, like photobomb dc. Like you wouldn't. You would not do that.
Speaker 1:It's like a place where too many people can see you. It's like a place where too many people can see you. It's like a place where too many people are watching. It's way too sensitive politically and militarily. Like you do not fly your new secret spy planes over the capital of the country. You fly them in Nevada at night. Um, so I think that rules out one of the three best potential explanations for UFOs. At least in this case, it can't be secret us tech. Um, and then, uh, that's an interesting point about saying that they're pretty sure it's not the russian. I mean, certainly it doesn't sound like anything russia had. Um, did you say that? Somebody said that they were sure that it wasn't russia.
Speaker 1:Did the air force make a statement like that no no, okay, it's just kind of obvious that it wasn't russia, um.
Speaker 1:And then to the meteorological phenomenon um, you've got this like tri force of observation, the radar and admirals seeing burning orange balls in the sky and fighter pilots seeing lights.
Speaker 1:So it's just like too many things for it to be a spoof like atmospheric problem that like, yes, could fuck with radar but wouldn't also manifest as a freaking fireball with a green tail or as like fast moving lights and certainly not fast moving lights in formations that then like change directions.
Speaker 1:Um, so that's just like, returning to this theme, that the, the, the two best possible explanations other than non-human technology just like don't seem very likely, and one is human tech, the next is meteorological, and like they're both definitely in the conversation, um, but just because we've never met an alien publicly, uh, doesn't mean that the most likely thing is not non-human technology. I would give it like 80 non-human technology and then like 10 meteorology and 10 secret human tech, something like that. But it's it's very weird that it all it gets like balanced out in a way that results in the meteorology explanation being the most likely and that the newspapers are dutifully reporting that. As somebody who read all these articles, did your gut check feel to you like this was information that was being pushed by the military establishment into the media, or did it feel more like the media trying to like apologize for the weirdness and like guess at other explanations or something else?
Speaker 2:well so, knowing then that the robertson panel comes into existence shortly after this I think it's 1953.
Speaker 1:Which is like called for by the CIA. Their like office of science hires this astronomer to basically debunk a bunch of the best Project Blue Book findings.
Speaker 2:With the general goal being to, like, tamp down public interest in UFOs. So, knowing that that's like where this is heading, and seeing that air force, that article about you know the air force saying that it's hampering their, their mission, to have all these ufo reports coming in, that to me suggests that, yeah, the, the. It seems plausible, very plausible, that the air force is forces, or somebody is like shopping these stories, at least you know, hoping that the media will will pick up these stories so they can start building that narrative.
Speaker 1:I did bump into one interesting theory about why they might do this when I was reading about these sightings, and that was that they had a theory within the intelligence community that, whether or not UFOs are like extraterrestrial, that Russia could create a panic in America by like faking sightings or something, and that if the public were primed to freak out about this, that there might be like a massive destabilizing social event. And so the argument there goes that they're like muddying the waters with these phony stories and their bullshit explanations in order to diffuse the possibility of a massive social panic, not necessarily about aliens, but, um, caused by Russia about aliens, you know, it's like. So there's a slight difference there in the the expectations of how people will behave Like. On the one hand, there are, there's this like protecting people from the idea of aliens or of like other non-human intelligences, uh.
Speaker 2:And then there's this, this other like more kind of garden variety cia idea of like protecting america from manipulation by a foreign power uh, still using this alien idea, but nonetheless like of a more earthly political nature well, okay, yeah, and and like alongside that is the idea that, like we are at this time really concerned about stuff coming in from russia, you know, like I don't know, missiles or craft or spy planes, um, and so this, this is actually like potentially a, you know, valid national security concern there's actually a valid, yeah, reason for the air force to want to also now yeah, because they don't want to overload their their circuits here and they also don't want
Speaker 2:I don't know. It's interesting like they want people to. You know, like if we saw something from russia, we would want people to report that to the military, um, but they're basically trying to get people to not report weird stuff that they see in the sky. Um, okay, but just before we started recording, I went, I opened um ufos, the leslie kane book, to see what it's got in here. Cool, you're gonna love this, okay?
Speaker 2:so general john sanford, the air force general who holds the the press briefing with washington, the guy who says we have of date, we have of date we have, as of date, come to only one firm conclusion, that is, that it does not contain any pattern of purpose or consistency that we can relate to any conceivable threat to the United States.
Speaker 2:And meanwhile, this same month July of 1952, god just. Same month, july of 1952, God just. The FBI was briefed through the office of Major General John Sanford, the Director of Intelligence, and he told the FBI, or the office, his office told the FBI, that it was quote not entirely impossible that the object cited may possibly be ships from another planet, such as Mars. Air intelligence was quote fairly certain that they were not ships or missiles from another nation in this world. The FBI memo reports Whoa, another FBI memo stated some months later that some military officials are seriously considering the possibility of planetary ships. Wow, so while Sanford is holding his press conference and telling the press nothing to see here, no conceivable threat, he's telling the FBI that it's not entirely impossible that the objects may be ships from another planet, such as Mars.
Speaker 1:Wish you could imagine him justifying by saying, like okay, we think they might be aliens, but also they don't seem to be engaged in any threatening behavior. You could imagine him justifying by saying, like okay, we think they might be aliens, but also they don't seem to be engaged in any threatening behavior. So I'm not lying by going out and saying this doesn't look like it could be threatening at all.
Speaker 2:Well, he's telling us he thinks it's weather, he thinks it's a temperature inversion. He's telling the press and the public that he thinks it's a temperature inversion, and then he's telling the FBI it might be interplanetary craft.
Speaker 1:Okay, which sounds like they have made the decision. The elites in the military and intelligence community and probably the political community have made the decision at this point that they don't want to freak people out and this is like a very obvious sort of plank of ufology, but like it's. I think it's worth saying anyway. That's like people who are closer to the data on this and like have the real opinions from the like inside expert club, think it's, it's actually possible that this phenomenon is non-human and technological and they don't want to tell people because they don't want everybody to worry and or cause civilizational collapse.
Speaker 2:I think it's understandable why the air force would not want to say that to the public, that it's conceivable that these are, these are interplanetary craft. It's totally, totally understandable. So I don't know. I'm not I'm not even really incensed about the, about the uh lack of forthrightness from the air force around this that's really interesting.
Speaker 1:I'd like to explore that because I think that has that that take stays relevant for the next 70 years and it's, like, still very much relevant today that, uh, you can't, on some level, get too angry at the intelligence, military and even political apparatus that's dedicated to keeping this secret, because they're just doing it, because they don't know what might happen if they tell us what they think is really going on. And I think the don't know is really important there, because they can't. They can't predict with certainty that people would freak out, that there would be like a run on banks or guns or like panic rooms, but they don't know that it wouldn't cause that. And they, they have this information, but they don't have any upside, like the, the, the benefit to them of sharing this take is, like it is imaginary, basically, like there's not.
Speaker 2:I can't even really think of of a of a like hard brass tax benefit to the military to telling us what they really think about this it's not just that they can't predict how the pop, how the public would react, but also they don't know how the NHI would react, and they also don't know how foreign adversaries and allies would react. There's just like a lot of unknowns and like, to some extent, the state's job is to maintain the status quo and you know, there's only one thing you can know for sure about releasing this kind of information, and that's that it would alter the status quo.
Speaker 1:Right, that's a really good point. Then that puts kind of the rest of us on the hook for giving a shit about this question of the nature of reality. Um, and it like falls to randall's like us and the ufo community to like hold the torch, but but it falls to us because there aren't large mainstream institutions in the media and the scientific and the academic world that are pursuing this full-throatedly and they really should be. So those are like the three pillars of of culture that I get the most upset with. But I'm also kind of curious about this idea of like wanting to grab someone's lapels and like yell into their face, but like realizing that the lapels are like everyone or like half of civilization.
Speaker 1:I want to like shake the status quo expectation of the people who don't think it's probably aliens, which is like I don't know half, like maybe half of the world thinks it's aliens and that's like not a big deal, just some evidence to suggest that we wouldn't freak out if we found out that it actually was. But like a good solid half of the world and like most of the elite culture gatekeepers think it's crazy to assert that it's probably aliens. They think I like, at the best, to assert that it's probably aliens. They think at the best, the non-human intelligence hypothesis is a 1% to 9% chance, not the 80% chance that you basically have to conclude it is if you engage in good faith with the evidence. So does that do anything for you, this idea of being frustrated at such a large group of people that you don't even know what to do with that frustration?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I don't know what to do and we'll talk about that. I think another time about like what to what to do about it. I will say my like.
Speaker 2:I have more space and grace for the you know, military and security state in this early time period than I do now like at the beginning of these sightings and like I guess to hear grush say it, we're like 15 years in, maybe in 1952, uh, like we really probably don't know very much about what's going on and we're also in the cold war and uh, you know, so I, I have more patience for it there. Um, and then my patients just like where's? The? The more, the more times they they try to just brush it off or they put out some BS report like the latest arrow report to try to tamp down our interest in it. The less patience I have for it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hear that and I think it. It especially for some reason bothers me that the scientific community doesn't care. But they're they're taking their cues from the military community and I, I I do wish that somebody in the military or intelligence apparatus could just like see their way to giving those people enough of a lifeline that they they were to just like open the door a little bit, to like more funding going to people like gary nolan and avi lobe, like those. Those people could do a lot of potential good with more federal funding and if there were, like you know, a hundred avi's lobes and gary's nolan, then we could get somewhere scientifically with this which might help us get somewhere militarily with it. So it just seems like it would be in everybody's benefit to move forward in this investigation and it's really frustrating that we're not.
Speaker 1:I also wanted to parenthetically say that I heard somewhere a citation needed that even blue book ruled out this temperature inversion explanation as as believable for the 1952 DC settings. And if even project blue book is telling you it's crazy, then like it's crazy, that is not a believable explanation. So do you want to talk just a little bit about how, like, we go from this massive event where everybody's paying attention to this current status quo where, like, if you bring up UFOs online, you'll probably get called a grifter. How did we get where we are today where, like most serious, people think this is crazy after having such a major public event?
Speaker 2:crazy after having such a major public event. I mean, dang dude, you know a concerted, longitudinal campaign of misinformation and obfuscation from government entities that we trust to protect us and tell us what's going on in the world, at least in the us, and I guess all this is from a us perspective. And then, and then, just like a like, you know a sort of like cultural, you know a cultural stance that develops over time, wherever it originates, that says that you're, you're crazy, and just like peer pressure, and maybe something inherent about human beings wanting to fit in and uh, and that being, you know, a really powerful force so maybe, as we wind toward an outro, it might be nice to imagine the world we would like to see.
Speaker 1:And this is kind of returning to this thesis that I kicked us off with a little shoutily, but I'll do it in more of a tea room voice this time, and I have a specific vision for it which we can try to manifest together, all of us, which is that we're currently in this space, now which we weren't even 20 years ago, of saying you know, there are so many stars out there and so many planets around those stars that it's really unthinkable to imagine that there isn't life out there somewhere in the universe. And you hear that a lot like among normie conversations everywhere, and also among like scientists who are talking about the UFO issue but then like, don't want to take the next step. They'll do this dance of like the universe is huge. We now know that one in every five stars has a habitable planet. That's trillions and trillions of chances for civilizations to develop. So almost certainly there's life out there somewhere to develop. So almost certainly there's life out there somewhere. So what would be great is if we could take that same energy of confidence obvious confidence and move it to the world of what's actually happening around planet earth and end up with some vision of like.
Speaker 1:Of course non-human intelligence is visiting planet earth. Of course they are like. There are so many stars and so many planets that it's crazy not to imagine that they wouldn't be visiting here with their hyper advanced technology. Think about how far human tech has come in the last 200 years. Then imagine another thousand years or another million years of that technology. And it's very easy to imagine fleets of visitors deceiving iPhones and being faster than our fastest jets. And in fact it's so easy to imagine that it's kind of silly to think that we don't live in that scenario. And then someday maybe we'll like normalize this vision of it probably being true, with the expectation that we'll eventually prove that it is true and that'll help us get there faster. What do you think?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that's a great vision, man, and honestly, I think that's like a pretty good place to end on. I feel like there's so much that we could just keep digging into on this, but I feel like you've painted a nice hopeful vision of of like a bridge there great, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, let's all send out our cosmic hope waves and bring that reality closer to this timeline. Thank you for engaging, even on a sniffly day. I'd imagine we might touch 1952 again as we continue to explore, because it's a big, sprawling event and we didn't even get to some surrounding context, like the fort knox visitation in the years before or the flatwoods monster event that happens in september of 1952.
Speaker 2:I mean, really, I was blown away by just the volume like my papers of of how many articles were published dozens of articles in a period of like a couple weeks so if there's one tldr for everybody, it's read about this.
Speaker 1:Listen to more content about 1952 because, uh, it should be much more common knowledge than it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah cool all right well, thanks so much, man thank you, dude, appreciate it.
Speaker 1:See you next time, bye, bye.