Donald Keyhoe in True Magazine

In the light of these earlier reports, the 1952 sightings now seem doubly important.
On June 19, 1952, a new incident occurred at Goose Bay Air Force Base-the fourth to date, just after midnight, a weird red light appeared, holding a southwest course. At the same time, tower radarmen caught it on their scope. After hovering briefly, at 4,000 feet, the light suddenly turrned white. At about this instant the blip on the scope "brightened." This effect, familiar to operators, is seen when a plane banks, the larger surface exposed to the radar beam causing a sharper return.

Apparently, the unknown device had tilted lor a swift maneuver. A second later, the blip returned to normal size, then vanished from the scope. The light disappeared at approximately the same moment. (This odd change in color, before a maneuver or increase in speed, has been described in numerous other cases.)

An even more puzzling incident was the Kirksville, Missouri, affair of July 13. It was 9 p.m. when Air Force radarmen picked up an unknown object, its blip indicating a solid device or machine the size of a B-36. Before it raced off into the night, its speed was tracked at 1,500 knots-over 1,700 m,p.h. Searching for a solution, one officer theorised that a thunderstorm might have caused the blip. but Washington Center controllers say this is impossible. To date, the A.T.I.C has found no explanation.
Week after week, jet fighters are "scrambled" at points around the country for "saucer'' chases. One of these alerts happened near Osceola, Wisconsin, three nights after the second Washington episode. As in many of these pursuits, the first reported speeds of the blips contrasted strangely with the objects' later maneuvers. Most of the blips were dawdling at 60 m.p.h. until the jets took off. Shortly afterward, one blip's speed jumped over 600.

Reaching 25,000 feet, one pilot spied some rapidly moving lights, a little east of St. Paul. At the same time, they were sighted by a trained Civil Defense sky watch observer, just before they disappeared.

A meteor shower was first considered a possible explanation. It is true that meteors can be tracked by radar: this method is now used by several observatories. But an astronomer at the Naval observatory, Washington, quickly ruled out this answer because of the first slow speeds. In addition, no meteor shower was reported on that night.

Two F-86 pilots had a little better luck in a chase on August 1. At the time, the press was refused permission to interview the pilots-a rule of the Air Defense Command. Since then, however, the A.T.I.C. has made details available for use in this article.
At about 10:45 on the morning of August 1, ground radar at Wright-Patterson AFB picked up an unidentified object between the base and Bellefontaine, Ohio. It was also reported by ground witnesses as a mysterious glowing sphere. The two jet pilots, Major ]ames B. Smith and Lieutenant Donald ]. Hemer, were immediately dispatched to intercept it if possible.

As they reached 30,000 feet, both pilots saw a brightly glowing object hovering above them. To make certain it was not a ground reflection, they carefully maneuvered to view it from various angles. The "saucer's" appearance did not change. Positive it was a solid object, both pilots switched on their camera-guns, nosed upward and made separate runs for pictures. Within a few seconds of the planes' maneuver, the "saucer" began to move off disappearing at a high rate of speed.

When the pictures were developed, a round shape appeared on both films. But its speed or distance prevented distinctive details from showing in the prints.
No final conclusion has been made by the A.T.I.C. in this case. That this might have been a balloon, as suggested, does not stand up, for two reasons. First, and most important, no balloon can hover, then suddenly race off. outdistancing fast jets. Second, ordinary weather balloons will not show on radarscopes; as stated before, it is necessary to attach a metal radar "target" to reflect the beam. But if ground radarmen had been tracking such a balloon, there would have been no mystery. All weather-balloon records are available to the A.T.I.C. and no radar-target balloon was within miles of the spot.

The only balloon in the general area was a standard radiosonde type, which holds a tiny radio transmitting set, and it was released thirty minutes before the pilots' encounter. Weather Bureau experts have informed me it is not possible to get a radar blip from this type of balloon. Even if it were possible, there would still be no explanation for the hovering and sudden burst of speed witnessed by two experienced pilots.

The violent maneuvers and high speeds frequently reported rule out all balloons -including the Navy's "skyhooks" which were once publicized as the correct explanation.

Every other conventional explanation has been proved false. One, given shortly after the Washington sightings, was put forth by a chemist named Noel Scott who is employed by the Army. Scott announced he had produced tiny "saucers" of ionized gas in a vacuum-jar experiment at Fort Belvoir. At the time, Scott told Air Force investigators he had no idea whether the conditions of his experiment were likely to exist in the atmosphere. To get the answer, I queried Dr. George Ray Wait, internationally known physicist of Carnegie Institute. Here's what Dr. Wait told me:
"I know of no conditions in the earth's atmosphere, high or low, that would duplicate those needed to make the laboratory models at Fort Belvoir."

In regard to unidentified objects observed visually and tracked by radar. Dr Wait posed a key question: Are they navigated?