On Saturday night/Sunday morning of July 19 1952, radar targets were seen passing near and over Andrews Air Force Base near Washington D.C. Strange lights were seen streaking off at incredible speeds, and the restricted airspace around the White House and the Capital was breached by unknown craft. On the night of Saturday July 26, the Andrews AFB radar again picked up mysterious targets flying around the capital area.
Curtis Peebles, writing for the Smithsonian Institution, agrees with the statement made by at the time by Major General John Stamford, director of Air Force intelligence: the many reported incidents on those nights were due to temperature inversion weather conditions.
In the film Plan 9 from Outer Space, Ed Wood pointedly disagrees, as have many other researchers. The CIA itself also privately disagreed with the Air Force’s public statement, and created the Robertson Panel to look into the potential threat of UFOs. (Peebles, 73)