September 2, 1952 — Midway Airport, Chicago, IL
12:01 a.m. CAA radar controllers Robert L. Terneuzen (GCA), Ralph L. Frick, Dale E. Warner, Warren J. Weber, and Radar Maintenance Technician Gordon R. Copeland track as many as 30 targets simultaneously at Midway Airport in Chicago, flying in various directions with an average speed of 175 mph at about 2,000 feet.
The 755th Aircraft Control and Weapons radar station in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, claims that the Midway Airport Tower supervisor has called them at 2:50 a.m., saying there are 40 targets plotted by airport radar flying from 3,000 to 6,000 feet at a speed of 120–150 mph. The targets are the size of blips from light planes or larger (the best target quality is in the 6–10-mile range) and move in no particular pattern—sometimes erratically and sometimes in straight lines up to 15 miles long. In at least one instance, the targets fly in formation with an aircraft. At 5:14 a.m., the Air Defense Command is alerted and authorizes the scramble of two jets from the 4706th Interceptor Wing at O’Hare Airport in Chicago.
At 5:55 a.m., a pair of F-86 Sabre jets piloted by Capt. William W. Maitland and Lt. Beverly L. Dunhill, lift off and are vectored right through the targets as shown on radar, making passes at 800 and at 4,000 feet without making contact. The F-86s are evidently without airborne radar because they only mention visual descriptions. Maitland and Dunhill later tell the media: “We didn’t hit anything. We didn’t see anything. We went through the target showing on the scope and there was nothing there, not even a cloud.” The jets break off their aerial search at 6:19 a.m. and return to base. By 7:00 a.m. all of the mysterious targets disappear off the scopes toward the south. The Midway radar crews are convinced the targets are returns from tangible bodies, but CAA chief Bob Zeigler overrules them and blames “peculiar atmospheric conditions.” [Eberhart]
Record Card:
AF-112 / Air Intel Report:
Bob Zeigler Report:
Misc newsclip from Blue Book files:
Sources:
“Sabre Jets Fly through ‘Object,’” Spokane (Wash.) Spokesman-Review, September 3, 1952, p. 1;
Brad Sparks, Blue Book Unknowns Catalogue, Case 810, p. 171;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 4th Ed., pp. 81–84;
NICAP, “40 Targets at Midway Airport”;