Washington, D.C. UFO Sighting, 1952 — AARO Records (D214P16)
A first saucer wave case from Washington, D.C.. In the summer of 1952, there was an increase in UFO sightings over the Washington, D.
Background
In 1952, in Washington, D.C., the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) recorded the unidentified-phenomenon case described below. The case is preserved in AARO’s 2024-2025 publications and consolidated annual reports to Congress, declassified or released in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Defense reporting cycles.
One of the first wave of “flying saucer” reports that swept the united states after the kenneth arnold sighting of june 1947 and the roswell incident of july 1947.
The case appears in materials produced or curated by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
What the document records
In the summer of 1952, there was an increase in UFO sightings over the Washington, D.C. area that gained widespread attention. The CIA formed a special study group to review these and other UFO cases from Projects SIGN, GRUDGE, and ATIC. The study group determined that 90 percent of reports were explainable and dismissed the remaining 10 percent as incredible, finding no evidence of Soviet or extraterrestrial technology.
Type of case
The case is a visual sighting reported by ground or air observers.
Status
AARO designates unresolved cases as those for which the agency has not concluded the events were anomalous, has not concluded that they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Conventional candidates for sightings of recent periods include commercial drones, classified test platforms, satellite re-entry, balloon traffic, atmospheric optical phenomena, and astronomical objects.