August 5, 1952 — Haneda AFB, Japan
11:45 p.m. A complex radar-visual sighting takes place at Haneda AFB [later Tokyo International Airport], Japan. Control tower operators watch a disc as it passes over Tokyo Bay at about 1,500 feet. It is a dark round shape surrounded by a bright light with a curved outer edge and smaller lights around it. While being tracked on radar, a scramble alert is issued at 11:55 p.m., and an F-94 Starfire jet from nearby Johnson Air Base [now Iruma Air Base] in Sayama, Saitama Prefecture, goes after the object. The interceptor, piloted by 1Lt. Wesley R. Holder and Radar Observer 1Lt. Aaron M. Jones Jr., chases the object, which speeds away while being tracked by onboard radar. During the next 30 minutes, the UFO disappears and reappears throughout the sky, vanishes when the jet closes in, performs intricate maneuvers, and at one point splits into three radar targets. The jet searches over Tokyo Bay until 12:33 a.m. when it is recalled. [Eberhart]
Holder/Jones Statement:
Timeline:
Map:
Sources:
Project Blue Book, Status Report No. 8, 31 December 1952, pp. 34-35;
Edward J. Ruppelt, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, pp. 187–189;
Edward Condon, Final report of the scientific study of unidentified flying objects conducted by the University of Colorado, pp. 123–126;
Brad Sparks, Blue Book Unknowns Catalogue, Case 767, p. 166;
James E. McDonald, “Science in Default: Twenty-Two Years of Inadequate UFO Investigations,” paper presented at the Symposium on UFOs, 134th Meeting, AAAS, Boston, December 27, 1969, pp. 20–34;
http://kirkmcd.princeton.edu/JEMcDonald/mcdonald_aaas_69.pdf
Carl Sagan and Thornton Page, eds., UFO’s: A Scientific Debate, Cornell University, 1972, p. xxiv;
Loren E. Gross, UFOs, a History: 1952, August, The Author, 1986, pp. 24–27;
Martin L. Shough, “Radar and the UFO,” UFOs 1947–1987, Fortean Tomes, 1987, pp. 217–219;
NICAP, “F-94 Pilots Tracked Object for 90 Seconds”;
Patrick Gross, “The Haneda AFB Case, Japan, August 5, 1952”;
Martin Shough, RADCAT: Radar Catalogue: A Review of Twenty-One Ground and Airborne Radar UAP Contact Reports Generally Related to Aviation Safety for the Period October 15, 1948, to September 19, 1976, National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, NARCAP Report TR-6, December 8, 2002, pp. 26–42;
