1952 Washington, D.C., UFO Incident

From July 12 to 29, 1952, a series of unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings were reported in Washington, D.C., and later became known as the Washington flap, the Washington National Airport Sightings, or the Invasion of Washington. The most publicized sightings took place on consecutive weekends, July 18–19 and July 26–27. UFO historian Curtis Peebles called the incident "the climax of the 1952 (UFO) flap"—"Never before or after did Project Blue Book and the Air Force undergo such a tidal wave of (UFO) reports." This became one of the most known UFO sightings ever. This case remains a notable entry in historical unexplained-event archives and is included here as a curated historical report.

Source Title

Wikipedia: 1952 Washington, D.C., UFO incident

Source URL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Washington%2C_D.C.%2C_UFO_incident

Source Notes

Imported from Wikipedia REST, MediaWiki, and Wikidata sources on 2026-07-06. Review article citations and edit details before saving. Wikimedia image source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Washington_National_%281944%29.jpg. Coordinates inferred from location context using OpenStreetMap Nominatim query: Washington, D.C., United States.

1. Occurred Jul 19, 1952 12:00 AM UTC
2. Submitted Jul 6, 2026 10:17 PM Historical Archive created
3. Approved Jul 6, 2026 10:17 PM Moderator reviewed
4. Media Uploaded Jul 6, 2026 10:18 PM 2 media files