Documents / Case file
This U.S. Air Force Project Blue Book file compiles 1952 and 1953 messages, memos and reports on the movie film Navy Chief Photographer Delbert C. Newhouse shot on 2 July 1952 near Tremonton, Utah. It records interviews with Newhouse's family, requests about the film, and Navy and General Mills balloon experts judging that the objects closely resembled pillow balloons. It also covers internal debate about releasing the film to the press. Unrelated reports from Phoenix, Lexington and Highland Park sightings are included too.
From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 7/2/52, Tremonton, Utah. This document records the Project Blue Book investigation and subsequent assessments of an incident near Tremonton, Utah, on July 2, 1952. Project Blue Book was a 1952-1969 U.S. Air Force program to investigate the nature and origin of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The file describes the Air Force’s assessment of the principal witness, Delbert C. Newhouse, a U.S. Navy Warrant Officer specializing in photography, as honest and reliable, and as an expert with more than 1,000 hours of aerial-photography experience. Newhouse reported observing 12 to 14 reflective objects and recorded the event on color motion-picture film using a handheld Bell & Howell Auto Master camera. The file reflects an evolving Air Force assessment of the imagery over several years. Early documentation considered several possible explanations, including sunlight reflecting from birds or balloons, and a mirage effect, and did not identify the objects conclusively. Later assessments became more confident that the objects were seabirds reflecting sunlight, citing identifiable seabirds and similar films showing seabirds as bright points of light under comparable conditions. However, the film’s limited detail and lack of fixed reference points prevented reliable determination of the objects’ distance, size, altitude, or linear speed from the film alone. AARO Comment: The file contains conflicting references to the film format. Several documents describe a 35mm film, while contemporaneous submission documentation identifies the original as a 50-foot roll of processed 16mm Kodachrome color motion-picture film recorded with a handheld Bell & Howell Auto Master camera. Newhouse reported exposing approximately 30 feet of the roll during the incident and using the remaining film later that day to record unrelated mountain scenery in Idaho. Other records show that 35mm positive and negative duplicate blowups were produced from the original 16mm material. The file also indicates that the original film was duplicated for preservation, citing its deteriorating condition. The footage retained by the National Archives and Records Administration and presented in this collection as DOW-UAP-PR159 is a digitization of a 16mm print.
“The Advance”1 page
------ - - • UNCLASSIFIED him to make any estimates as to size, speed, or distance.· Toward the end of his observation one of the objects reversed course and proceeded ava, from the rest of the group. He held the camera still and all owed this ingle object to pass aaross the fiel~ of view of the cpmera picking it Up again later in ita travel. He repeated this for two or three passes. By this time all the objects had disappeared. The movies have been studied by the Photo Beconnaiaeance J.abora~~ \lr~ A1r Develo~nt Center yright-Pat'kuon AFB, Ohio 1 and by the u.s. Navy Phou, Inter pretation Center, Washington, D. C. Since there was no known obj ect auoh a.a a cloud, tree, or mountain 1n the film, it waa hipose1ble to make even a. rough eatimate as to the speed, di tanae, or size. The size of the images on the movie film were too small to show BJlT details. ~e movie have been studied by persons engaged in work with balloons end the appearance and action of the objects ve s1mUar to that of pillow belloona. These balloons are called pillow bw.loona due to their e1mile.r1ty to a pillow.. Hundreds of these balloons were JllSde and nown 1n the u.s. end overseas during the Crusade for Freedom. Attenq)ts to trace these balloons to determine whether &n7 left over from the Crusade for Freedom ootild have been launched 1n the Tremonton area. were negative. Another strong poeeibility is t.bat the objeot vere sea gulls soaring thermal. a1r current•.~ • Movies of sea s taken una.er e1m'3ar lighting conditions showed the sea gulla present time the Air Force contemplates no :future action will be taken to ident1f'y the objeats. UNCLASSIFIED DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 923007 ANALYSIS DIVIS:ON F,LE --'-/O _o].3 FILE NU, BER INITIALS
Case file, from the pursue collection. 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.