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/HW/lbh
Jl2 . '{
Serial: , n,0.
),
COOF~IAL
SECURITY INFORMATION
Subj: Interpretation of Movies of Unidentified Objects;
progress report on
were 2457 and 378 mph respectively. These figures differ f'rom those
given in reference (c) a nd were computed f'rom measurements obtained
under more controlled conditions. Acceleration "1,S determined from the
formula :
a :c Vf - VO ••bT .. ere:
a= Acceleration
Vf = final velocity
VO= initial velocity
T =time= 1/16 second
..Since "g" is equal to 32.17 ft/sec2 it was computed that:
Maximum acceleration = 21,168 mph/sec: 965 g
Minimum acceleration : 1,104 mph/sec= 50 g
Maximum deceleration= 32,448 mph/aec • 14 79 g
Minimum deceleration : 2 ?2 mph/sec= 12 g
Velocit • and acceleration determinations were al so made from
the Montana film. I n this case, terrestiaJ. objec t s appeared in the
film and were held to as control, Subsequently, the velocity a nd
acceleration determinations are considered to be more reliable. On the
assumption of (b) a nd (c) above the maximum and minimum velocities of
the left object are 13 (4 a nd 361 mph respectfull j' . For the right object
t hey are 1117 and 169 mph. Accelerations were computed a.a:
Left Object Right Object
Maximum acceleration mph/sec 14,016.639 g 12646. 5 {6g
Minimum acceleratio~ mph/sec 0 .. 0 g O • Og
Maximum deceleration mph/se c 13, 184: 6o1 g 14238 .. 651g
Minimum deceleration mph/sec 0 • 0 g O -= Og
The above determinations were ma.de from a total of 322 measure
ments. It was noted that the acceleration and determinations were in
multiples of 12.5 approximately. This may be of significance although
no stud:;r has been conducted to determine this.
9 . Velocity a nd acceleration were treated in sub-paragraph 8
above. Paragraph 2a indicates the controls used during this investi-
gation.
1 ,,. .
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SECURITY INFORMATION 6 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.