Final Personnel Record for Newhouse, Delbert C., U.S. Navy, May 2, 1957 — Department of War File
This file contains the final personnel record of U.S. Navy Chief Warrant Officer Delbert C. Newhouse, who left naval service as a Chief Warrant Officer 4, then the highest Warrant Officer grade.
Incident Overview
On May 2, 1957, the Department of War preserved a service record that was declassified and published on September 18, 2026 as part of the sixth tranche of the Department of War’s Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE).
What the government released
This file contains the final personnel record of U.S. Navy Chief Warrant Officer Delbert C. Newhouse, who left naval service as a Chief Warrant Officer 4, then the highest Warrant Officer grade. In July 1952, Newhouse recorded 16mm motion-picture film near Tremonton, Utah; the film later became the subject of a Project Blue Book investigation. Project Blue Book was the U.S. Air Force program active from 1952 to 1969 that investigated the nature and origin of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). In addition to documenting routine assignments and training, the file records Newhouse’s career progression as a Photographer’s Mate, a Navy enlisted specialty responsible for photography and related imaging work. Project Blue Book investigators characterized Newhouse as an expert photographer based on his naval experience.
Related records
The release files this document with Historical Film of Reported UFOs, Utah, the Navy Photographic Interpretation Center film analysis, Project Blue Book File on Tremonton Film, Utah, Project Blue Book Photo File Relating to Tremonton Film, Utah, and U.S. Air Force Flying Discs File, which concern the same case. They were produced by different offices at different times, and are best read in sequence.
The case in this archive
This record is a primary source for the Tremonton film of 1952, written up here at length from the contemporary record. The file and the case history are worth reading against each other: the document is narrower and more cautious than the account that grew up around it, which is usually the point.
Status of the case
A service record is not evidence about what appeared in the sky over Utah, and it is not offered as such. What it documents is the photographer: his rating, his assignments and his training, which is the basis for the Air Force’s description of Newhouse as an expert. That description matters to the case because the analysts could not measure distance or size from the film, so the witness’s competence carried more of the weight than it would in a case with instrument data. A skilled photographer can still film something he cannot identify, and the record says nothing about what the objects were.