As pilots report a surge in unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), more commonly known as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), the echoes of America’s most dramatic UFO encounter, the 1952 Washington Flap, have resurfaced.
Notably, the early 1950s were dominated by the menace of the Korean War, which also marked the onset of the Cold War between the US and the former Soviet Union.
The US fighter pilots were told to maintain a readiness posture, be airborne in minutes, and stay vigilant for the possibility of Soviet bombers approaching the mid-Atlantic.
As the Korean War progressed, the Red Scare intensified, and the prospect of a Soviet bombardment seemed imminent, these fighter pilots were ordered to intercept unknown objects flying around the White House and Pentagon in 1952.
At the same time, however, the United States was experiencing a record-breaking year for UFO sightings, which meant that pilots who were tasked with chasing away hostile aircraft would encounter never-before-seen, unusual, and inexplicable flying objects.
As recently recounted by CNN in a detailed report, a major UFO-related drama unfolded over two consecutive weekends in July 1952.
On July 19-20, radar operators at Washington National Airport, Andrews Air Force Base, and others tracked erratic blips—objects dipping, hovering, and vanishing across a wide area. This was corroborated by a commercial pilot who saw bright lights pacing his plane.
At the time, officials dismissed the incident and blamed temperature inversions, which are atmospheric layers that can bend radar beams.
However, the events of July 26, 1952, were to prove them wrong.
On July 26, 1952, multiple radars detected over a dozen solid targets maneuvering in a way not seen before. Much like the previous week, controllers at the DC airport spent hours watching unidentified targets dip, stop, disappear, and then resurface on radar screens throughout a 100-mile sweep.
Upon contacting their counterparts at Andrews AFB, they discovered that they were both tracking the same objects.
Late at night, Lt. William L. Patterson of the 142nd Fighter Interceptor Squadron and fellow pilot Capt. John McHugo, flying the F-94, was dispatched to intercept these objects.
At 20,000 feet, controllers guided Patterson toward a group of blips around Andrews, where he confirmed seeing four bright lights. But he noted that they didn’t blink or drift.
Controllers observed in real time how the radar blips responded, navigating the sky in a manner that no known aircraft could: they quickly reversed, hovered, made abrupt 90-degree turns, and raced in and out of sight at breakneck speed.
As Patterson went full throttle ahead, the lights broke formation and started to converge on Patterson’s interceptor before he could get any closer.
The tower’s radar scopes revealed that the targets were closing in on him, and he was surrounded by dazzling light in the cockpit. However, when he radioed the tower asking what he should do next, he was met with silence from stunned controllers and military officials who had been guiding him and monitoring the engagement thus far.
Before he could take a meaningful action, the lights disappeared.
By this time, radars identified more targets exploring the capital’s sky, so Patterson was told to chase after them. However, all of them disappeared before he could get to them
Low on gasoline, he flew at maximum power for almost an hour before landing back at base. Meanwhile, his wingman, McHugo, who had been directed to a different sector, reported no visual sightings.
It is pertinent to note that the modern UFO phenomenon began in 1947 with pilot Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of flying disks near Mount Rainier, sparking widespread media interest. However, the two incidents of July 1952 that spanned two weekends were dubbed the “Washington Flap” and set off mass hysteria and interest in UFOs.
Here’s What The Washington Flap Set Off
The US Air Force had a program to investigate Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), aimed at determining whether they posed a threat to national security or were extraterrestrial.
Capt. Edward Ruppelt, head of Project Blue Book, sent military officers to investigate the matter as soon as he learned of the Washington Flap. Lt. John Holcomb, a Navy radar specialist, and Maj. Dewey Fournet, the Pentagon’s Project Blue Book liaison, rushed to the control tower at National Airport, where they met with the radar operators who had tracked the blips the previous week.
The screens displayed over a dozen targets dispersed around the area, from Andrews to northern Virginia, as they watched on.
There was an atmosphere of mass hysteria related to the UFOs as seen in sensational media reports. On July 29, the front page of The Cedar Rapids Gazette in Iowa brandished the headline: “SAUCERS SWARM OVER CAPITAL” without any official evidence.
Public panic overshadowed the presidential election and the Olympics. Ruppelt later estimated that almost 16,000 stories regarding unexplained objects were published in 148 major newspapers in just six months.
Even Albert Einstein weighed in cautiously: “Those people have seen something.”
As clamouring for answers grew intense, Air Force Director of Intelligence Maj. Gen. John Samford convened the largest and longest Air Force news conference since World War II.
Accompanied by Ruppelt and other intelligence officers, he attempted to placate the press by assuring that there was “about a 50/50” probability that the blips were caused by a temperature inversion that may have distorted the radar waves.
Interestingly, he deftly avoided answering clarifying questions from reporters while denying accusations of hostile reconnaissance or a cover-up. However, these conspiracy theories continue to be discussed to this day.
However, declassified files today show coordinated radar-visual confirmations that defied easy explanation.
Subsequently, the Air Force’s Project Blue Book officially labeled the sightings in Washington as “unknowns.”
The classification has remained the same for over 70 years, with no explanation for the dozen coordinated radar reports or the bright, moving lights that pilots witnessed firsthand. Interestingly, the events of July 1952 are still up for debate, even among UFO specialists.
UFOs Are Still Omnipresent
Seventy-three years later, the mystery endures, and a year-on-year surge has been recorded in UFO/UAP incidents, including visual sightings.
For instance, a pilot operating a Piper PA-32RT-300T Turbo Lance II over Rhode Island skies reported seeing a suspicious “small silver canister” hanging just feet from his wingtip at 3,500 feet altitude, as revealed by an air traffic control (ATC) audio clip that resurfaced earlier this month. During real-time contact, the pilot described the object as “astonishing” and ruled out usual explanations such as drones or balloons, as it appeared immobile.
This is not an isolated incident.
Earlier, Ryan Graves, a former US naval lieutenant who formerly piloted an F/A-18, testified to having seen UFOs. That incident occurred when two aircraft from his squadron flew side by side, and one of these unidentified objects flew directly between them.
Grave noted that a team member characterized the object as a “dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere,” adding that although these objects occasionally remained stationary in an odd manner, they did not act like “tethered balloons.”
Another major incident in recent memory is the Tic-Tac UFO incident, which is also the best-documented and most credible unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) case in modern history. It took place in November 2004 during training exercises involving the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group off the coast of Southern California.
At the time, radar operators aboard the USS Princeton detected unusual objects over several days, descending rapidly from about 80,000 feet to sea level in seconds.
On November 14, 2004, Commander David Fravor and his wingman were diverted to investigate. They visually observed a white, oblong object 40-46 feet long hovering above disturbed ocean water.
The object reportedly had no wings, rotors, or visible propulsion, and it allegedly mirrored Fravor’s movements, then accelerated at an extraordinary rate, reaching a predetermined combat air patrol point 60 miles away in under a minute.
A follow-up flight piloted by Lt. Cmdr. Chad Underwood captured infrared (FLIR) footage of a similar object, which he nicknamed “Tic Tac.”
All these years later, UAPs or UFOs continue to be seen, reported, and documented using various sensor technologies. They are now officially investigated by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), established in 2022, across air, sea, and space.
According to data from the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), a nonprofit organization that collects reports of UFOs and investigates cases, more than 2,000 incidents had been reported by mid-2025.
While these sightings were once linked to extraterrestrial beings, there is a lot of dissonance now. An explosive Pentagon report from 2024 that was publicised in mid-2025 claimed that UFO sightings were just conspiracy theories planted and amplified by it as a cover-up for classified military programs.
The agency discovered that the US military intentionally planted UFO conspiracy theories, including those linked to Area 51, to hide classified weapons programs during the Cold War.
As per the report, these disinformation efforts were aimed at concealing the testing of military equipment from people who had unintentionally witnessed classified military tests. The Pentagon disseminated disinformation, including photoshopped images of flying saucers. In fact, at least one of the theories was cooked up to conceal the testing of the F-117 Night Hawk, the US Air Force’s first prime stealth fighter jet.
Before this, in 2013, the CIA declassified documents confirming Area 51’s role in testing U-2 spy planes, SR-71 Blackbirds, and other advanced aircraft, explaining some UFO sightings as misidentified military projects.
Separately, AARO released an extensive report (hailed as historic) in March 2024, stating that there was no evidence that the US officials had encountered aliens.
It asserted that most sightings were just misidentified ordinary objects, adding that some cases required further study. Presenting the report, AARO stated that there are now 50 to 100 UAP sightings every month, up from earlier figures.
Skeptics question the link between these UAPs and national security threats, citing common causes for UAPs, such as meteorological phenomena, drones, and malfunctioning radar. However, not all of them can be directly attributed to military programs. On the contrary, the sightings are viewed through the lens of potential national security threats.
“Highly credible people and professional observers are seeing objects that appear to exhibit capabilities beyond the state of the art,” Ryan Graves told space.com. “In the data received, there seems to be this core anomalous aspect that we can’t just ignore or rationalize away,” he stated.
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