Documents / Report
This confidential progress report, dated 4 May 1953 and signed by L. W. Keith, went from the Navy's Photographic Interpretation Center to the Director of Naval Intelligence. It analyzes movies of unidentified objects filmed in Utah on 2 July 1952 and in Montana in 1950, which the U.S. Air Force had asked the Navy to interpret. Using plots, density readings and velocity estimates, the analysts judged the objects to be probably light sources that were disk shaped and moved at high speeds. They concluded the objects could not be identified as natural phenomena or commonly known man-made objects.
From the source:Release of 2026-08-07 Incident: 1950, 1952, Montana, Utah. 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, assumptions that constrained its confidence level, tentative conclusions, and recommendations for future research. The Center assessed, generally, that the objects depicted in the film demonstrated characteristics that were inconsistent with those of natural phenomena or commonly known aerospace technologies. The memorandum 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.
“Expedition X”1 page
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Code 01/HWW/1bh J12 MAY 4 1953 Serial: 99 0105 CONFIDENTIAL SECURITY INFORMATION From: Officer in Charge To: Director of Naval Intelligence (OP-322H4D) Subj: Interpretation of Movies of Unidentified Objects; progress report on Ref: (a) Conf ltr DNI OP322Y5/rtm, dtd 27 Oct 1952 with enclosures thereto (b) Conf memo, Chief, Topical Division, USAF, AFOIN 2A2, dtd 24 Nov 1952 with enclosures thereto (c) PIC Conf ltr 01/HWW/gcl, ser 0263 dtd 5 Dec 1952 (d) Rest memo, Chief, Topical Division, USAF, AFOIN 2A2, dtd 16 Feb 1953 Encl: (1) Charts 2-13 1. Reference (a) is a request from U. S. Air Force for the interpretation of movies of unidentified objects taken in Utah, 2 July 1952. Included among the enclosures are approximately 30 feet of processed, 16mm color motion picture film and a list of questions for guidance in determining the type of analysis desired. Reference (b) requested interpretation of additional movies taken in Montana, 1950. This report supercedes reference (c) and presents the test procedures and methods designed to answer the questions contained in enclosure 7 of reference (a). The results and analysis were performed by the Photogrammetry Division, Evaluation Department of this Center and do not necessarily represent the official attitude of the Department of the Navy or this Center. 2. Tests and Procedure. The film exposed in Utah is in very poor condition; dry, brittle, and with a tendency to break. After initial viewing, duplication of the film was performed in order to preserve the film. In the duplication process some color correction was made to permit better viewing of the objects. To prepare plots of the objects, a stop frame projector was rigidly mounted at a fixed distance from a finely-ground glass screen. The magnification was 22 times giving a format size of 14.2" wide. This proved very satisfactory and provided a shadow free image upon which overlay plots could be made. ## a. Plots.
Report, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 23 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.