DOW-UAP-D102, Project Blue Book File on Tremonton Film, Utah, 1952
WAR.gov / Department of War PURSUE Release 06
This document records the Project Blue Book investigation and subsequent assessments of an incident near Tremonton, Utah, on July 2, 1952.
Document Highlights
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Short overview
The U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book case file on the color film that Navy Chief Photographer Delbert C. Newhouse shot near Tremonton, Utah, on July 2, 1952: 156 pages of teletype messages, memoranda, letters and photo analyses written between 1952 and 1956.
Why this is interesting
The file lets readers follow how the same thirty feet of 16mm Kodachrome produced opposing findings. Newhouse’s own statement speaks of about ten or twelve objects “milling about in a rough formation,” filmed with a handheld Bell & Howell camera and a three-inch telephoto lens against a sky without any reference point. An undated photo analysis in the file counts ten objects, considers their brightness greater than that of any bird and measures an angular velocity of about 2.1 degrees per second for the single object that broke away; the U.S. Naval Photographic Interpretation Center’s report of May 1953 (see also DOW-UAP-D098) assumes a distance of five miles, which it calls arbitrary itself, computes speeds between 378 and 2,457 mph and accelerations of hundreds of g from it, rules out birds, balloons and aircraft, and points to its lack of equipment, money and personnel. Air Force memoranda document the counter-checks: a December 1952 visit to balloon specialists in Minneapolis to test the “pillow balloon” idea, the objection of two astronomers that the Navy’s brightness measurements were methodically wrong, and the internal debate in February 1953 over how to release the film to the press without provoking questions about the Navy report. A 1956 photogrammetric study by R. M. L. Baker, Jr. of Douglas Aircraft tests aircraft, chaff, birds, balloons, insects and mirages and reaches no definite conclusion, while an Air Force memorandum of the same year sees little reasonable doubt that the objects were seagulls; letters from 1953–54 trace the search for the deteriorated original film, whose footage is presented as DOW-UAP-PR159 (further paired records: DOW-UAP-D103 to D105).
Selected passages
- “There was no reference point in the sky and it was impossible for me to make any estimate of speed, size, altitude or distance.”
- “It is the majority opinion of the group conducting this analysis that these images are light sources.”
- “However, as in the case of the "Montana" analysis, no definite conclusion could be obtained.”
Background
This document records the Project Blue Book investigation and subsequent assessments of an incident near Tremonton, Utah, on July 2, 1952. Project Blue Book was a 1952-1969 U.S. Air Force program to investigate the nature and origin of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The file describes the Air Force’s assessment of the principal witness, Delbert C. Newhouse, a U.S. Navy Warrant Officer specializing in photography, as honest and reliable, and as an expert with more than 1,000 hours of aerial-photography experience. Newhouse reported observing 12 to 14 reflective objects and recorded the event on color motion-picture film using a handheld Bell & Howell Auto Master camera. The file reflects an evolving Air Force assessment of the imagery over several years. Early documentation considered several possible explanations, including sunlight reflecting from birds or balloons, and a mirage effect, and did not identify the objects conclusively. Later assessments became more confident that the objects were seabirds reflecting sunlight, citing identifiable seabirds and similar films showing seabirds as bright points of light under comparable conditions. However, the film’s limited detail and lack of fixed reference points prevented reliable determination of the objects’ distance, size, altitude, or linear speed from the film alone. AARO Comment: The file contains conflicting references to the film format. Several documents describe a 35mm film, while contemporaneous submission documentation identifies the original as a 50-foot roll of processed 16mm Kodachrome color motion-picture film recorded with a handheld Bell & Howell Auto Master camera. Newhouse reported exposing approximately 30 feet of the roll during the incident and using the remaining film later that day to record unrelated mountain scenery in Idaho. Other records show that 35mm positive and negative duplicate blowups were produced from the original 16mm material. The file also indicates that the original film was duplicated for preservation, citing its deteriorating condition. The footage retained by the National Archives and Records Administration and presented in this collection as DOW-UAP-PR159 is a digitization of a 16mm print.