BRENTWOOD, MD., March 1952March 1952

On either March 22 or 29, 1952, a man stood in his yard in Brentwood, Maryland, looking at his television antenna when he noticed a formation of objects in the sky to the west and north. He watched them for about one minute as they traveled northward at what appeared to be a great altitude, roughly two miles up.

The objects were arranged in a flat V formation, though the lines did not stay perfectly straight. Instead, some of the objects seemed to flutter and drop slightly behind the others before catching up. The man described them as grey and oval in shape. He was struck by how fast they moved. Based on what he thought was their distance and size, he estimated their speed was faster than a jet airplane.

The sighting caught the attention of Air Force officials in April 1952, likely because it resembled a series of photographs taken over Lubbock, Texas, the previous August. The man wrote to the Department of the Air Force to report what he had seen. He worked for the Interstate Commerce Commission. The Air Force began gathering information about the incident, including newspaper articles and photographs related to similar sightings.

However, the file contains limited investigation details. The OCR text becomes heavily garbled on the final pages, making it difficult to determine what formal analysis or conclusion the Air Force reached. The case file indicates the Air Force evaluated this sighting, but no clear final determination appears in the available records. This case is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 7 pages of microfilm.