Documents / Report
This confidential progress report from the U.S. Naval Photographic Interpretation Center in Washington, dated May 1953 and addressed to the Director of Naval Intelligence, analyzes motion picture film of unidentified objects. The footage was taken in Utah on 2 July 1952 and in Montana in 1950. Analysts used frame plots and densitometer readings, and most of the group judged the images to be light sources. They computed velocities and accelerations that ruled out birds, aircraft and balloons, and 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.
Code 01/HWW/lbh .n2 Serial: n," •\ ' 00.ffFIDEft'FIAL SECURITY IlWORMATION Subj: Interpretation of Movies of Unidentified Objects; progress report on 1. Analysis of the graph correlating luminosity and size indicate that as the luminosity of the objects increase, the size is larger also. This could be the e:ffect of viewing directly, a reflecting surf'ace. This is considered not probable becaUQe of the length of time they were viewed continuously on the film, approxi mately 90 seconds, and because of the angle through which they were photographed, approximately 6o degrees. It is felt that if these images are reflective surraces, blinking would occur during a period of 90 seconds while passing thro~h a n angle of 6o degrees when photographed at the rate of 16 frames per second. 'l'his premise would permit highly reflect!ve balloons or spheroids to be a possibility. However, the velocit:J and acceleration computations (sub paragraph 8) rule this possibility out. It appears, there:fore, that if these objects are a reflecting surface, .., they are o'f a design, speed, and power not commonly known . The vel ocity and acceleration attributed to the objects may be caused b y light reflected off a highly reflective surface onto an atomospheric screen where a slight angular turn of the reflective surface would appear as high acceleration. This possibilit.,· is considered not probable because of the sun angle and atmospheric condition reported at the time of photography and because of the variations in luminosity which, under the above conditions would remain constant. I It is the majority opinion of the group conducting this analysis that these images a.re light sources. This will explain the non-blinking and variations in luminosity - but not the velocity or acceleration factors. In either case, light source or reflective surface, it appears as if the objects are of a nature which ve are not able to identify in terms of natural phe nomena or commonly known me.u -made objects. 2. There is no indication of' what kind of objects could have caused the images except that they must be of a construction, design, a nd material not commonly known . This is indicated b y the computed acceleration rate and elocity (answer 8). For the same reasons, birds, aircraft and balloons are rul~ out. 3. An analysis of the char t s relative to movement indicate that there were group and. indi vid.uaJ. movement. Within a group it appears as if' the individua.l objects were moving counter-clock-wise al.ong an elliptical or similar track. Thus vhen two objects crossed the camera line of sight they will appear to fuse i nto one. As they continued along their paths it will appear as if one object became two. This occured at reglar intervals at approximately every 25th :rrame as plotted in charts 5a and 5b . CON:PIDBf¥:PI:AL SECURITY INFORMATION 4
Report, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 23 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.