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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.
UNCLASSIFIED The Navy report says the objects are: --a. Self-luminous or light sources b. Could not be aircraft or balloons ird is known is reflect enough light to cause the images shown on the film, It.can be noted that tbe Na:vy people deduced tbis from tbeir analysis of the~or the image on each frame. This required about a 11 000 manhours. It was brought out by two astronomers who heard a Navy briefing on the analysis of the movies that the method used to measure the brightness of each spot was wrong, therefore, the results of the entire study were wrong. 4. The subject of the release was discussed with Lt Col Johnston and Col McDuffy and it was decided that the movies would be released without com ment as to what they were and hope that no questions were asked about the Navy report. This is a "calculated" risk of another big "flap". 5. The other alternative is to quickly get more data on the subject. Several things can be done and are listed below in the order of how soon they DOWNGRADED AT o YEAR !NTJ!R could be accomplished: DECLASSIFIED AFTER l2 V~ DOD DIB. p200J.O ..~ • a. As far as gulls are concerned the big question is, how much _ M •.-..6~ ... .. ,.Jfff• light will be reflected? Can you see a gull reflecting light and not recog nize that it is a gull? To check this it would be necessary to go to a loca tion where you have a lot of gulls and bright sunlight and talce movies with a 3-inch lens. It would be necessary to know how far the gulls were away each time a movie was taken. At this time of the year florid.a is the only place where sunshine and gulls can be assured. b. Using special funds, have General Mills release a group of pillow balloons arranged in the same sequence as the objects are in the reovies and measuring the distance at which taken. lJNCLASSlFIED .,;., ;,..,--h,.~"- k? ~ )- ~ • .s-,.._ -i.... ~ \A"-'\. s~?R -~1.J2-t1~ - ~ f',c,.,L<. ~/ .L, 4...f'/ /4,I ' DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 923007
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