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This Department of War release reproduces Project Blue Book records on the Tremonton, Utah film of 2 July 1952. In them, Navy Chief Photographer Delbert C. Newhouse explains how he filmed a group of bright objects near Tremonton. ATIC memos and a December 1952 travel report record Navy and General Mills balloon specialists judging that the objects closely resembled pillow balloons. A January 1953 memorandum discusses publicly releasing the film. The file also includes unrelated sighting reports from Phoenix and Massachusetts, plus material about Donald Keyhoe.
“Hill”5 pages
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the type of motion shown by the objects, moving from right to left, or generally
from east to west ~s the ce.mera was situated. This agrees with Figure I, show
ing the single object reversing course from left to right 1 or west to east.
10c and d. The relative positions of these objects in the first sequence
follow a definite formation plan of either three pairs, a trio, and a single,
or uerhaps five pairs (if one of the trio and the si le are actually a nearby
pair). It ap!)Ek'U'S that the objects tend to remain in -oosition for curved uath
maneuvering. A possible shift in formation aunears at the start of the trio
paths. otherwise, the objects definitely anpear to undulate in -obase in this
secuence; as in the other seouences also.
lOe and f. Several repeated slow motion viev.riri~·s of the entire film do not
indicate clearly any abrupt chP..nges in flight nath of any part of the formation.
At times the camera am:>ears to lag in followin{r the entire grou;p 1 and some of the
ten objects then move outside the field of view momentarily. Whether or not a
particular object remains motionless for a moment deuends uuon the rela.tionship
of group movement to camera movement.
10g. As exo12ined in ParafTa-;:>h lOf, sometimes objects may move out of the
field of view. In a few instances, n0Fcver 1 certain objects may change in
brightness considerably I and uractically appear or disanpear ,rell within tne
field of view. In the second seouence, which lasts about 14 St::Conds, the lower
two pairs in Figure II flare up suddenly ne&r the center of the field of view,
being invisible cl moment before. As they fl<.Xe uo, they appe to curve more
rapidly to the left and. u:p,.\iards than the center trio. Reversing this seauence
in slow motion shm·1s thc.t t.nese four oojects were faintly visible just before
they disanoeared at about the same position.
tabulation of flight sequences and durations is listed in .A_?pendix III.
COllCIBSICJllJS
1. Subject motion picture film apparently recora.s the motions of ten un
known aerial objects, all alike in observed characteristics of movement and size.
2. The exact nature of these objects cc.nnot be determined, because they
are visible only as small spots of light. It can be deduced, however, that they
are either non-s _Jherical in shape and similc1__r to bright mete.l in reflectance, or
else variably self-luminous by some means.
3. There is apparently a coordination of movement to some extent among
these objects. They seem to move in formations \·'hich c:-re probably three-dimen
sional in arrangement. The l ar gest anoue.r size of the entire group is on the
order of 6 to 8 de~rees of arc.
4. The movements of these objects sug,_o-est flight paths consist~· of skew
curves in space. In one instance a single object changed course ana. followed a
nearly straight line path with reasonable uniformi t--,1 of motion t an a.ngu.lar
velocity of about 2.1 dee,;rees. During this straight line flight it remained
reasonably uniform in brightness.
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DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 923007 Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 156 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.