Photo Fakery: Washington, DC Flying Saucers 1952

The DC Deception (Last Updated 9/18/21)

The flying saucers reported over Washington, DC in July 1952 is one of the most famous events in UFO history. Objects were tracked on radar, and Air Force planes were sent out to investigate, and reportedly, UFOs were seen by at least one pilot and radar operator. 

It's an important historical event, worthy of examination, but...

There are rumors and myths too, such as it being widely witnessed by panicking citizens or that photos exist of the event.

Weird Science-Fantasy #26 from EC, 1954 

If you need a recap, it was covered at the time in the August 4, 1952 issue of LIFE magazine

It was also covered in a NBC television broadcast, "We the People," which featured interviews with the radar operator witnesses. See The Saucers That Time Forgot: UFOs on TV: The 1952 Washington, DC Saucer Flap.

Had there been a photograph of UFOs during the incidents, Life Magazine would have been happy to publish them. None surfaced despite this being among the most heavily publicized cases in US history.

The Fake

In 1965, over a decade after the events, a photograph was published, and ever since has appeared in almost every discussion and article on the Washington, DC, case, from books, to the internet, documentaries, and television shows. The trouble is, it's a phony.

Well, the photo itself is real, but it is misrepresented and fraudulently used, then accepted and repeated as genuine by people who should know better. It was taken several years after the event, and instead of UFOs, it depicts the reflection of the Capitol's lamps - lens flares.

Many versions exist, cropped in color...

black and white for a more "historical" look...

tweaked with photoshop and so on...

Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos reports:

FOTOCAT's input follows:
Event date: July 19, 1952
Location: Washington, D.C. (USA)
Date information: Non-event (actually dated 1965)
Event is filed as: Lens flares
Time: Between 23:40 and 06:00
Photographer: Unknown
 http://www.nicap.org/reports/520719washington_report.htm

The first known publication of the picture is in Ray Palmer's Flying Saucers No. 81, Summer 1973

This time, Flying Saucers are not real.

Exposed and Forgotten

As seen on the magazine cover above, it's often cropped to remove the lamps, the source of the "UFOs." It was exposed long ago, in a detailed analysis by Colman von Keviczky that was published in Official UFO Magazine #9, July 1976. A summary by Dr. Bruce Maccabee :

This picture which shows the Capitol dome and lights at the left side is, I believe, just a fraction of the total picture which shows the whole Capitol building, parking lot lights in front of it and numerous "UFO" lights in the sky at both the left and right sides of the dome. Colman von Kevicsky, years ago, showed the "UFO" light images were actually lens "flares"....reflections within the lens of the bright streetlights and parking lot lights in front of the Capitol. 

Reconstruction of the Official UFO Magazine analysis,
showing how the "UFOs" correspond to the lamps as lens flares.

UFOs: The American Scene by Michael Hervey, 1976.
“Jacket photograph: UFOs over the Capitol, Washington, D.C."

UFO Exist! by Paris Flammonde, G.P. Putnam´s, 1976, featured a large photo section in that center that included the photo, but did not present it as genuine. The caption stated it was a: “supposed UFO formation… a reoccurrence of the classic 1952 case.”

UFO Exist! by Paris Flammonde, 1976

The photo was included in April 1979 Omni magazine issue in "UFOS: A Gallery of Photographs," the Lee Spiegel article, "First Contact." The tiny caption describes the picture:

"famous UFO formation over Capitol thought by many to be a reflection in camera lens."

Omni, April 1979

The Omni article prompted skeptic James Randi to include the photo in his 1980 book, Flim-Flam!, where he included a diagram demonstrating how the lens flares reflected the lights at the base of the building.

Here's another photo analysis from 2009. 1952 Washington DC UFO (Capitol Building) photo: 
http://lookathimnow.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/1952-washington-dc-ufo-capitol-building-photo/

Motion Pictures?

Nevertheless, once a fake gets into the UFO bloodstream it lives forever. The internet and television assured its immortality. There are even phony motion pictures of it.

http://youtu.be/HedoH9PUn1g?t=10m25s

Disney's Alien Encounters from New Tommorowland, 1995 features a clip 

of animated UFOs over the Capitol at 10:26.

UFO's: The Secret Evidence 2005 featured 

a different animated version of the photo.

Breakdown - 1952 UFOs Over Washington DC Video

explaining the phony film version

Also recycled for Unseen Alien Files, where astonishingly, 

it was labelled a reconstruction.

Recycled in Stephen Greer's 2013 Sirius,
b&w to make it look "authentic!"

Steven Bassett used the same phony animation in Paradigm Research Group's 2013 in 
promo video for the Citizen Hearing on UFO Disclosure.  

MUFON's Hangar 1: The UFO Files featured many imaginative recreations.
Here, they imitate EC comics,

add in Shell Alpert's Salem, MA UFOs from July 16, 1952 = 

Hangar 1: Presidential Encounters from 2014

National Geographic produced UFO Conspiracies 
aka Invasion Earth. Their recreation from 2014.

Baloney Indicator

A Google Image search returns many, many versions.

2016 Update:

Jan Harzan, the director of MUFON, used this fake photo on a 2016 UFO lecture, saying, "These are visual photographs of the actual objects."

Jan Harzan, Oct. 29, 2016, lecture at the Explorers Club event Space Stories in New York.

These are just a tiny fraction of the appearances of the photo. By gathering some of this data, maybe this will show up alongside the search returns, and people can get some better information on the history. We've not seen the last of this one, but just remember that whenever you see it, you are looking at a lie, ineptitude, misinformation or disinformation on the part of whoever is presenting it. 

The DC deception's inclusion as an indicator of a high baloney content. It shows that they're not a trustworthy source. 

2018 Update:

The Italian UFO group CUN hosted a presentation in Rome on Oct. 27, 2018 by Tom DeLonge on the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Luis Elizondo on the AATIP.  Elizondo discussed some UFO history, including the famous 1952 Washington, DC saucer event saying:

"In the early 1950s, the United States had another very significant event over our nation’s Capitol. Once again, these objects were identified both with the naked eye and again on radar, and unlike Roswell, many people had cameras and were able to take photographs. And what you see here are real photographs, along with the story - the headline story that came out."

"real photographs"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQbO-jWKzVM&feature=youtu.be&t=1h30m

Elizondo's picture came from the internet, a YouTube preview image for the video, "UFO Sightings over Washington D.C. and The White House in 1952," by FindingUFO.

It is composed of two images:
1, a frame from a CGI-animated version of a picture of lens flares from UFO's: The Secret Evidence, and
2, a b&w version of an image from the 1954 comic book, Weird Science-Fantasy #26 found in the files of Project Blue Book.

Luis Elizondo published an update on the Facebook page of To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science on Nov. 1, 2018, which stated in part:

"While providing general background, I indicated that one particular slide contained real photographs of UAPs over Washington DC. It did not. The slide was intended to be illustrative but was presented as factual and with the help of a few individuals, I quickly realized the error. I acknowledge the misstatement and sent an immediate 'mea culpa' note to my TTS Academy team... it was an oversight on my part, and it will not happen again."

2021 Update

James Fox's documentary, Phenomenon was shown in by the Travel Chanel in their “Shock Docs” series about paranormal encounters as The UFO Phenomenon. 

While labeled "Artistic Rendition," Fox's use of it perpetuates the legitimacy of the phony saucer photo, which matches nothing that was witnessed or photographed.

This fake UFO photo is like Dracula in the movies. It rises from the grave again and again.

. . .

Thanks to Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Nab Lator, Gilles Fernandez and the others mentioned above for helping straighten out the fact from fiction in the DC picture.

Hangar 1, MUFON and Mandate 0463

Hangar 1: The UFO Files, opens with the statement,

"The following incidents are from real case files.

They are from actual UFO investigations."

Here's what Mutual UFO Network's website says about the series:

"The premise of each episode is to examine a number of MUFON cases, looking for patterns that tie in to historic UFO events and try to show what the alien agenda may be. Actual footage and recreations will be used along with expert testimony...  The show will showcase MUFON’s mission to educate the public about the UFO phenomenon. 

Stay tuned because the 'truth is out there' or shall we say, it’s actually in HANGAR 1.” 

Illustration

In the first episode of Hangar 1: The UFO Files episode one, “Presidential Encounters,” there's a clip showing a document used to illustrate the US Government UFO cover-up. 

According to the show, after President Eisenhower met aliens at Muroc Air Force base in 1954, he tightened the lid on UFO secrecy. The narration states, "A secret policy was adopted that stated that any information on the matter of extraterrestrials was a matter of National security and therefore classified." They show and quote from a document, Mandate 0463.

"under no circumstances are the general public or public press to learn of the existence of these entities, the official government policy is that such creatures do not exist."

The problem is, it's a phony. 

Hangar 1 The UFO Files - Presidential Encounters - Video Dailymotion

Mandate 0463 seen at 3:26

Public Exposure

Jason Colavito’s blog was the first one to examine the false document:

They show a document on screen labeled “MANDATE 0463” from 1 March 1954, but I can find no record that this paper actually exists outside of the show...

Here’s the MAJESTIC-12 language attributed to “Chapter 5: Extraterrestrial Biological Entities” of the Group Special Operations Manual dated April 1954, reformatted on this show to fabricate a “1 March 1954” memo, by computer, in Times New Roman... "Under no circumstances is the general public or public press to learn of the existence of these entities. The official government policy is that such creatures do not exist, and that no agency of the federal government is now engaged in any study of extraterrestrials or their artifacts. Any deviation from this stated policy is absolutely forbidden.” This is the same text Hangar 1 uses, but they excerpt only some sentences from the MJ-12 manual in crafting their own fake memo.

The whole thing we see on screen appears to be a complete fabrication from this passage of the fictional MJ-12 documents, and no one on this show acknowledges or addresses the deception involved in creating this fake document as an “illustration.” http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-hangar-1-ufo-files-s01e01-presidential-encounters  (3/2/2014) 

A Fake Based on a Fake: SOM 1-01 Special Operations Manual

The SOM 1-01Manual

SOM 1-01 was evaluated as a fake by reputable UFO experts, including MUFON's Richard H. Hall and Thomas P. Deuley:

The SOM 1-01 manual arrived in the mail to Don Berliner as a roll of film from an anonymous source. This immediately raises suspicions, since there is no identifiable source whose veracity and reputation can be checked and no original documents that can be subjected to forensic analysis...We believe this to be a hoax document; a deliberate fake designed to mislead the public and to plant false information in the UFO research community... See http://www.cufos.org/ros5.html 

Robert Hastings has also written about "SOM 1-01" in Operation Bird Droppings
"As was the case with the earlier batch of MJ-12 'documents' that surfaced 25 years ago, the newly-disseminated MJ-12-related SOM-01-I 'field manual' is undoubtedly a forgery."
More recently, in MJ-12: The Hoax That Quickly Became a Disinformation Operation.

For example, MJ-12 was prominently featured during the Citizens Hearing on Disclosure, held in Washington D.C. in May 2013. Linda Moulton Howe breathlessly characterized the MJ-12-related SOM 1-01 Special Operations Manual—which directs military personnel how to recover crashed UFOs and dead aliens—as having “stood the test of time”. Hardly! Military document expert and longtime UFO researcher Jan Aldrich has discovered over 50 factual errors and/or discrepancies in military protocol in the so-called “manual”.
http://www.theufochronicles.com/2014/10/mj-12-hoax-that-quickly-became.html

For some reason, SOM 1-01 was not used in the show. Instead, a different counterfeit document was created.

Mandate 0463: Further Discussions

A blurry look at "Mandate 0463"

Shortly after the broadcast of Hangar 1 episode: “Presidential Encounters,” other authors wrote about the use of Mandate 0463. 

Tim Printy at SUNlite: The show then decides to present something called Mandate 0463 (dated 3 March 1954), which states that the existence of aliens is to be denied by all DOD departments/personnel. Does such a document really exist? The document states that it was created at the 2374th meeting of the DOD on March 1, 1954. The DOD was created September 18, 1947. There were 2356 days between these two dates. According to Jason Colavito’s blog, some of the wording comes from the MJ-12 SOM-1 manual Chapter 5. 5 This document looked fabricated... (May 2014) http://home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/SUNlite6_3.pdf

Made for TV document.

Robert Sheaffer also covered the use of Mandate 0463:

MUFON has fabricated documents to look like genuine secret government UFO documents, and presented them in Hangar 1 as if they were authentic, with no explanation or disclaimer. If that isn't downright dishonesty, I don't know what else to call it. (3/13/14) http://badufos.blogspot.com/2014/03/mufon-jumps-shark.html

Sheaffer’s article is particularly interesting because a MUFON representative replied to it:

Terry Montgomery Groff March 13, 2014 at 3:03 PM "No, MUFON claims these programs are based on files in a real storage area in Cincinnati, Ohio that they call Hanger 1. Everything in the program does indeed have associated files in storage including information on Presidential encounters."

Besides the UFO skeptics, there were also online discussions of it at forums such as: 

http://www.theparacast.com/forum/ 

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/19/pg1/srtpages

Facebook, at various pages and groups, including, UFO UpDates and "The 'Official' Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) Facebook Page, with Rich Hoffman and Steve Hudgeons, Jr. 

Hangar 1 producers may not have been aware of the criticism, but members and officials of MUFON were. The Mandate 0463 clip was used again Nov. 14, 2014 in a MUFON promotional film:

Mandate 0463 is presented at 50 seconds in.

Negligence, or willful misconduct?

More documents "made for TV"

The Mandate 0463 document is a fake, made for television. Hangar 1 features plenty of discussion of speculative and undocumented material, but that is really a whole other topic. By displaying phony documents such as Mandate 0463, it seems to indicate that MUFON or the show's producers are having trouble distinguishing fact from fiction. Or, that they are unconcerned with the difference.

The UFO topic is polluted enough with misinformation and mistakes. There's no need to manufacture new ones. Was Mandate 0463's use in Hangar 1 negligence, or willful misconduct? 

In the public eye, this is exactly the situation that prompts the media to ask, “Idiot or Liar?”

 - - -

To learn more about Hangar 1: The UFO Files:

Jan Harzan is the executive director of MUFON and is featured on the program. 

MUFON Headquarters: 3822 Campus Drive Suite 201 Newport Beach, CA 92660

949-47MUFON or 949-476-8366

Hangar 1 is produced by Go Go Luckey Entertainment. 

IMDb gives the senior credits for the  “Presidential Encounters” episode as:

Mitch Marcus

...

director

Amy Cron	...	senior story producer
Christopher Lauer	...	line producer
Douglas Segal	...	executive producer
Kevin Tavolaro	...	senior story producer
Paul Villadolid	...	executive producer

Miracle of Fatima: Photographic Proof Part II

Photographic Fiasco: Finding the Source

In the piece, The Miracle of Fatima: Photographic Proof from the Vatican and LIFE magazine?,
we saw how a photo was erroneously presented as evidence. What was not discussed was how an error of that magnitude came to be. Luckily others knew where to look for answers.

Gilles Fernandez, is a scholarlly French skeptic s that corresponds with me, and he was very helpful in tracking down further details on the origin of the Fatima photo fiasco.  Gilles contacted Marc Hallet, who has an excellent history of the Fatima Miracle itself at his French language site.

LES APPARITIONS DE FATIMA    Google translation of Fatima article to English

The second of three bad photographs published in the book by Viscount Montelo

Gilles told me (summarized, retranslated):

Marc provided  a copy  of the "picture" from the first book it was in, by Vicomte de Montelo, (circa 1930) who described the picture as "Le phénomène solaire, 2°aspect" (the solar phenomenon, second aspect).

The book was

As Grandes Maravilhas de Fatima by Canon Manuel Nunes Formigão under the pseudonym “Vicomte de Montelo” Uniao grafica, 1927 (Note: Some references use the spelling "Montello," preserved here.)

Les Grandes Merveilles de Fatima Éditions du Pélican (1931)

Manuel Nunes Formigão aka 
Vicomte de Montelo

It must have been forgotten, because when about twenty years later finding copies of the photograph launched international news:


Marc Hallet provided an excerpt from MICHEL DE LA Ste TRINITE: "Toute la vérité sur Fatima" (The Whole Truth about Fatima),  St-Parres-Lès-Vaudes, Ren.cath., 1986, T.III, p.252-253.

Link to PDF of French text

Gilles was kind enough to translate the relevant passage:

The Whole Truth about Fatima (Fatima photograph history extract)

What happened? In December 1957, in the Portuguese Jesuit review “Broteria “, Professor Agostinho Veloso s.j., explains the origin of this lamentable error:
“The Chief of the Protocol of Portugal Foreign Ministry, Doctor João Mendonça found in the house of his parents four negatives that his brother Alfredo, already dead, had photographed. He thought that they were from Fatima and, the respective positives were published in one book of Dr. Formigao, under the pseudonym of “Vicomte de Montello".

“When Cardinal Tedeschini came to Portugal, again with the same good faith, Dr. Mendonça gave him enlargements of these pictures, as photographed at noon/midday, 13 October 1917. After, the “Osservatore Romano” published them, also in good faith”.

“However, the author of this notice [Veloso] had had the occasion to make some research and he verified that the pictures were not photographed at Fatima, nor at 13 October 1917, but in Torres Novas, 5P.M., 13 June 1925. Coming from Fatima, and he saw an astronomical phenomenon that he believed to be a repetition of the Fatima Miracle […], Alfredo Mendonça photographed it. Later, he died. And his family, discovering later the negatives, were mistaken concerning the date and place, and it is how the error was spread.”

This benevolent explanation, accepting without discussion the justification provided by those first responsible of this lamentable affair is maybe not the most plausible. Because the of the incredible carelessness of Dr. João Mendonça, granting by writing the authenticity of the pictures, without any serious evidence and without research nor verification, is for us very suspect. And the behavior how the anticlerical medias and Franc-Maçons – and “Le Monde “ newspaper the first one – was advised of the deception only several months after the publication of the pictures by “Osservatore Romana” is not less suspicious. If Dr. Mendoça was able to discover that the photographs he offered to the Cardinal Tedeschini, as authentic photographs of 13 October 1917 Miracle, were in reality photographed at 5 PM, 13 June 1925, in Torres Novas – what precision! - how can he have ignored it before? And how is it that opponents of the church were the first to know?

When we know how the Bourgeoisie of Portugal remained in great part liberal, skeptic, anticlerical and secretly affiliated to the Freemasons, another hypothesis, less benevolent, but likely has come to our mind: A trap, a deliberate deception whose victim was Cardinal Tedseschini, and following him, Osservatore Romano”.

from Toute la vérité sur Fatima by Michel de la Ste Trinité 

The first photo.

In Marc Hallet's book, Les Apparitions de la Vierge, he attempts to clarify things. Below is a mechanically transited passage.

In 1931, in the key work he devoted to the apparitions of Fatima under the pseudonym Viscount Montello, Canon Formigao published without too many comments three poor quality photographs purportedly showing the three phases of the solar miracle. These illustrations went long unnoticed until they resurfaced, November 18, 1951, in the Osservatore Romano where they were presented as photographs "absolutely authentic."  Meanwhile, in 1944, in the book he devoted to Fatima, Jesuit H. Jongen had already written, but without providing any evidence, that the solar miracle had actually been photographed. November 21, 1951, following the article from the Osservatore Romano, the Parisian newspaper Le Monde claimed that the photographs were false and the press organ of the Vatican soon issued a denial of them. On March 14, the Osservatore Romano belies the words in the French daily, and reaffirmed that the published material came from a trusted source. Careful, however, he added that even if they were found to be false, this does not belie the miracle of 1917 occurred " in front of tens of thousands of witnesses."

On 15 March, returning to this case, Le Monde wrote that Osservatore Romano admitted the possibility that these documents were false. It was not until December 1957 to find the key to the riddle. It was published in the journal of the Portuguese Jesuit. The Chief of Protocol of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal found four negatives taken by his late brother Alberto. As they were published in the book of Canon Formigao, he thought they had been taken at Fatima.  When the Portuguese Cardinal Tedeschini came, he offered enlargements of these photographs in good faith. And so they found themselves in the Osservatore Romano with the estimate  of a "reliable source." In fact, the pictures were taken on June 13 1925 17h at Torres Novas, while Alberto observed meteorological phenomenon that seemed to replicate the miracle of Fatima. Such, at least, now is the official theory (though little known) which obviously does not satisfy everyone. Another hypothesis is that there was a conspiracy to undermine the credibility of the Vatican. And here would not have been a coincidence, of course, if the enemies of the Church (it is here Le Monde) were aware of the fraud even before the Vatican.

The third photo.

I'll leave the conspiracy hypothesis alone, and focus on the historical information. The basic idea of seeing something like the photographs, and attaching significance to based on cherished notions has plenty of precedents and antecedents. When there is a will to believe, miracles will be found.

Marc Hallet's book (The Apparitions of the Virgin) at Scribd:

Les Apparitions de la Vierge et la Critique Historique by Marc Hallet 

Thanks again to Gilles Fernandez and Marc Hallet for their contributions!

Cash-Landrum case dramatized in New Discovery UFO Program, "Close Encounters"

As Seen on TV!

Coming soon! The Cash-Landrum case featured in a new TV show, Close Encounters! 
Check the clip below at about 1:15.
High on drama, technical accuracy is optional…

 Some frames from the Cash-Landrum incident portrayal:

The preview video from YouTube:

http://youtu.be/FsaO-aPxNKQ

Close Encounters Premieres January 10 on Discovery

"Close Encounters" - 13 episode re-enactment
Directors- David Weaver and Annie Bradley
Executive producer- Marlo Miazga and Anne marie Redmond
producer- Tiffany Martindale

Not a Bird. Not a Plane. Not Explained. The World’s Strangest UFO Sightings Explored in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, Premiering Jan. 10

UPDATE: 

Close Encounters on Discovery Canada

Hello Curt,

The Cash/Landrum episode will air on January 17th on Discovery Canada at 10:00 p.m. ET / 7:00 p.m. PT!

I hope this helps!

Close Encounters

New Canadian series taps the world’s most fascinating unexplained UFO sightings