Shamokin UFO Sightings of 1952

 

Late in the afternoon of Tuesday, July 22, four men enjoying a round of golf at the Shamokin Valley Country Club (now known as the Indian Hills Golf Club) had an experience they would never forget. This foursome, comprised of William Fetterolf and his son, Norman, Paul Wehr and James McAdoo, was near the Number 7 hole, west of the clubhouse, when they spotted a strange object in the sky. Intrigued by the aerial apparition, they scampered up a hill to obtain a better view.

According to William Fetterolf, the object was flat and round, shiny, and made no sound. It remained in full view for about twelve seconds, traveling in a north to south direction, before disappearing over the mountains. Norman Fetterolf told reporters that the object, which was flying at a great height, did not resemble any type of aircraft he had ever seen. Interestingly, these men were just four out of dozens of Shamokin-area residents who reported seeing "flying saucers" during the month of July.

Also Seen in Williamsport

The description of the shiny flying disc seen over the country club matched witness descriptions of a similar object seen that same evening in the skies over New Jersey. Several residents of Trenton and Millville (New Jersey) had seen it, and reports were also received from as far away as Maine and Massachusetts. One particularly interesting report came from the Wildwood station of the Lycoming County Ground Observer Corps in Williamsport (fifty miles north of Shamokin), shortly before the golfers said they saw the UFO flying in a north to south direction.

"An object moving at a tremendous rate of speed came from the north," stated Harold Blaker, the observer on duty at the Wildwood station. "The object turned too sharply to be a conventional plane." After reporting the sighting to authorities in Harrisburg, the Air Force scrambled jet planes to search for the strange object.

The Air Force, along with the Civil Aeronautics Administration, could provide no answers to what the witnesses had seen. However, intelligence officers at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey took the reports seriously, asking the public to reports any "strange or unidentified aerial objects". This would seem to rule out the possibility that the objects were weather balloons or some sort of experimental military aircraft. 

As luck would have it, the Air Force got its wish; during the month of July, more than two thousand reports of unidentified flying objects were submitted from across the county, with most sightings coming from the east coast. Two days earlier, on July 20, several unidentified objects had been picked up on radar near Washington, D.C. It was an air traffic controller at Washington National Airport, across the Potomac River from the nation's capital, who spotted eight unusual "blips" on his radar screen, flying at a low speed within 70 miles of Washington. The control tower, operated by the Civil Aeronautics Administration, reported the incident to the Air Force.

Seven of these eight mystery objects were visually observed by Captain S. Casey Pierman of Capital Airlines Flight 807 on July 20, between Washington and Martinsburg, West Virginia. According to Captain Pierman, the discs changed their speeds, sometimes flying at a tremendous velocity, sometimes "hanging almost motionless".

 
Cold Air Layers, Not Saucers, Says Air Force

On July 29, radar screens over the nation's capital once again displayed unknown objects-- this time for several hours between 1:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. This was the third time in ten days that radar picked up "whatzits" near Washington. This compelled Major General John A. Samford, Director of Air Force Intelligence, to hold a news conference explaining that air traffic controllers had not picked up flying saucers, but "cold air layers". According to Samford, in hot and humid weather layers of cold air can be sandwiched between layers of warm air. This temperature inversion, according to military officers, can produce anomalies on radar screens.

While this may be true, this certainly does not explain the object seen by witnesses in the skies over Williamsport and Shamokin late on the afternoon of July 22, 1952.

Sources:
Sunbury Daily Item, July 22, 1952.
Sunbury Daily Item, July 24, 1952.
Shamokin News-Dispatch, July 24, 1952.
York Gazette and Daily, July 30, 1952.