Portland, MaineSeptember 1952

Unidentified

Summary

On the night of September 16, 1952, a Navy P2V patrol aircraft from Brunswick Naval Air Station in Maine spotted two mysterious objects flying near Portland. The pilot, Lieutenant J. M. Boak, and his crew maintained visual contact with the objects for about 20 minutes. The airplane's radar also picked up the targets intermittently during this time.

The upper object appeared as a dark shape with no visible lights. Below it flew a second object with four or five lights arranged in a circle. The two objects seemed to fly together in a formation that resembled refueling operations. When the Navy pilots tried to get a closer look, the objects maneuvered away without breaking formation. At one point near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the objects turned toward the Navy plane, and the pilot broke off pursuit. The objects then turned southwest and disappeared from sight.

The investigation that followed raised an interesting possibility. The timing and location roughly matched when two Air Force KC-97 tanker aircraft were operating in the area. However, the pilots of those tankers reported they were flying separately, not in formation, and they said they never saw any other aircraft following them. The Air Force verified the KC-97 flight times and routes, and the details did not line up well with the Navy crew's observations. Some officials thought the Navy pilots might have witnessed an in-air refueling operation, but the evidence did not support this conclusion clearly.

The Air Force officially rated this case as unidentified. The scanned case file reproduced below contains 51 pages as held by the National Archives.

Reported location

Portland, Maine

Date of incident

September 1952

State / country

ME / US

Page count

51 scanned pages

USAF evaluation

unidentified

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 15

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 51

View transcribed text

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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28949976