The Washington DC UFO Flap (1952)
On the nights of July 19-20 and 26-27, 1952, unidentified objects flew over the restricted airspace of the US capital, above the Capitol and the White House. Several radars detected them simultaneously, an airline pilot visually matched them to the radar returns in real time, and fighter jets scrambled to intercept — the objects vanished as the jets approached and returned once they left.
Witnesses
Controllers, pilots, military
Why it endures
The largest Pentagon press conference since World War II was hastily convened to reassure the public — an implicit admission of how serious the event was.
Official version (contested)
The Air Force blamed a temperature inversion disrupting the radars. Yet the cases remain filed as "unidentified" in the Project Blue Book archives.