The Sperry UFO case was a sighting of an Unidentified Flying Object by the captain, Willis Sperry, and other crew of an American Airlines

DC-6 The Douglas DC-6 is a piston-powered airliner and cargo aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 to 1958. Originally intended as a military transport near the end of World War II, it was reworked after the war to compete with th ...

airborne near Mount Vernon, Maryland on 29 May 1950. Media exposure of the case helped to establish a popular perception of UFOs being reported by "credible" witnesses such as airline pilots; Sperry was interviewed for several newspapers and was later featured in

Clarence Greene Clarence Greene (August 10, 1913 – June 17, 1995) was an American screenwriter and film producer who is noted for the "offbeat creativity and originality of his screenplays and for films noir and television episodes produced in the 1950s. ...

's 1956 semi-documentary film '' Unidentified Flying Objects: The true story of flying saucers''.Willis Sperry was an experienced and respected pilot with a very wide flying experience, including the first (and only) attempt to deliver mail by towed glider, which took place in 1935 (see Glines, C. ''The Saga of the Air Mail'', Ayer, 1980, , pp.143-44)

The sighting

Sperry's aircraft had left

Washington Airport Washington Airport was the second major airport to serve the city of Washington, D.C., in the United States. Located in Arlington, Virginia, near the intersection of the Highway Bridge and the Mount Vernon Parkway (where The Pentagon's south ...

at 9:10 pm EST on a flight to

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

and was climbing to 20,000 ft. Weather conditions were clear, with the ground obscured by haze, and a full moon around 25° above the horizon. At approximately 9:30pm, seven miles west of Mount Vernon, copilot W. Gates alerted Sperry to a bright blue or bluish light ahead of them and increasing in size.Project Blue Book documents
on Sperry case,

NICAP The National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) is an unidentified flying object (UFO) research group most active in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s. It remains active primarily as an informational depository on th ...

(accessed 08-08-08) In a letter to ''

Flying Flying may refer to: * Flight, the process of flying * Aviation, the creation and operation of aircraft Music Albums * ''Flying'' (Grammatrain album), 1997 * ''Flying'' (Jonathan Fagerlund album), 2008 * ''Flying'' (UFO album), 1971 * ''Fl ...

'' magazine several months later, Sperry described the light as "a brilliant, diffused, bluish light of fluorescent type ..25 times the magnitude of the brightest star".Sperry
Letter to ''Flying'' magazine, September 1950
Project 1947 (accessed 08-08-08) To avert a possible collision, Sperry banked the aircraft and changed course 45° to the right; the light appeared to stop before changing course to parallel the aircraft on the left. During this period the light very briefly passed between the aircraft and the upper part of the moon, revealing an object with a long silhouette (somewhat reminiscent of a

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

) without visible wings or empennage. In his 1950 letter, Sperry stated the blue light was on the front of the object, which was also seen by the copilot and by flight engineer R. Arnholt.''Ibid''. In the 1955 interview deposited in Project Blue Book archives prior to the release of Greene's film, the blue light was stated to be on the object's tail. The object having appeared to pass behind the left wing, the pilots banked to the left and resumed their previous course, but Gates spotted the light again through the right window "as though it had circled behind them". The light then appeared to head eastwards behind the aircraft, and was observed again by Sperry towards the rear left travelling in the direction of the Atlantic; he estimated the total time of observation as around one minute, during which time the light had appeared to be completely stationary at least twice.Sperry
Interview by J. E. McDonald
Project 1947 Sperry reported his observations to Washington control tower, but they had observed nothing on radar. He also spoke to his passengers, stating that one man had seen an "extremely bright light passing the left side of the ship".Sperry, letter to ''Flying'' magazine. In the 1955 interview "two or three" passengers and a stewardess were stated to have seen a light.

Later interviews

Apart from newspaper interviews immediately following the sighting, the press having been notified by control tower staff, and his appearance in the 1956 film (where the case was featured alongside the

Mantell Incident On January 7, 1948, 25-year-old Captain Thomas F. Mantell, a Kentucky Air National Guard pilot, died in the crash of his P-51 Mustang fighter plane near Franklin, Kentucky, United States, after being sent in pursuit of an unidentified flying objec ...

, Gorman Dogfight and others considered unexplained at the time), Sperry was also interviewed by KABC-TV in 1964.Transcript of KABC-TV interview, 1964
Project 1947 He and Arnholt were further interviewed in 1968 by the prominent

ufologist Ufology ( ) is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial alien visitors). While there are instances of government, private, and f ...

James E. McDonald James Edward McDonald (May 7, 1920 – June 13, 1971) was an American physicist. He is best known for his research regarding UFOs. McDonald was a senior physicist at the Institute for Atmospheric Physics and a professor of meteorology at the Univ ...

. Sperry later learned that Hank Myers, subsequently pilot of President

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...

's plane, had been piloting another Washington-bound AAA aircraft between

and Knoxville on the same night, and had witnessed a bright meteor which fell eastward from the zenith, but which then appeared to move horizontally for several seconds. Comparing times and the relative position of his aircraft with that of Myers, Sperry felt that this was possibly the same phenomenon or object as he saw.Sperry
Letter to R. Barrow, 1976
(accessed 08-08-08) Both he and Gates, the copilot, had however "emphatically discounted" the possibility of the phenomenon being a meteor, due to its movements.

References

{{UFOs Accidents and incidents involving the Douglas DC-6 Alleged UFO-related aviation incidents 1950 in Maryland

The sighting

Later interviews

See also

References