DOW-UAP-D098, Film Analysis of Unidentified Objects, 1953
WAR.gov / Department of War PURSUE Release 05
This file contains a memorandum relating to the U.S. Naval Photographic Interpretation Center’s assessment of two films allegedly depicting unidentified airborne objects, captured in Montana and Utah in 1950 and 1952, respectively.
Document Highlights
Note: Highlights are derived from OCR-recognized document passages and file metadata. Please verify important claims against the original scan.
Short overview
A 1953 memorandum records the U.S. Naval Photographic Interpretation Center’s assessment of two films that allegedly show unidentified airborne objects, filmed in Montana in 1950 and in Utah in 1952.
Why this is interesting
The file documents the analytic process, the assumptions that limited the Center’s confidence, its tentative conclusions and its recommendation for a better-resourced investigation, which it justified with a lack of funding and personnel. The Center generally assessed the filmed objects as inconsistent with natural phenomena or commonly known aerospace technology. The accompanying charts compare the films’ luminosity with the apparent angular size of the phenomena using contemporary photogrammetric methods.
Background
This file contains a memorandum relating to the U.S. Naval Photographic Interpretation Center's assessment of two films allegedly depicting unidentified airborne objects, captured in Montana and Utah in 1950 and 1952, respectively. The file documents the Center's analytic process, the assumptions that constrained its confidence level, its tentative conclusions, and its recommendations for future research. Generally, the Center assessed that the objects depicted in the film demonstrated characteristics inconsistent with those of natural phenomena or commonly known aerospace technologies. The memorandum also documents the Center's recommendation for a more well-resourced investigation to corroborate its presumptive findings, citing a lack of funding and personnel. The accompanying charts compare the film's luminosity with the apparent angular size of the phenomena, using contemporary mathematical modeling and photogrammetric analysis techniques.