Invasion Washington: UFOs Over the Capitol

"Invasion Washington" is an interesting treatment of the famous Washington National (airport) sightings of July 1952, written by Kevin Randle, who has become the voice of reasoned inquiry on the UFO topic.Although I enjoyed the book, I felt it was hurt by a couple of problems -- first, the author's tendency to "waffle" in his explanations of some sightings and second, a number of editorial problems that give the book a slap-dash, hurriedly-put-together feel.In some cases, I'm still not sure whether Randle feels a given sighting is truly unidentified or not. In other cases, I get the impression that he ignores credible evidence out of some sort of fear that he might appear too gullible (in particular, when he dismisses a photograph as a hoax without addressing the explanations of the original investigators OR the fact that some 40 eyewitnesses saw the object).My objections to the editorial problems may stem from the fact that I am an editor. Still, when I see numerous misspellings, mispunctuations, and sentences that seem to lose their way in mid-stride, I have to conclude that someone was not paying attention.Nontheless, the book overall is worth a read; it is a good treatment not only of the Washington National sightings in particular, but of what I consider the UFO "Age of Innocence" in general.

Dr. Kevin Randle has researched the UFO mystery for nearly a quarter-century, and he's earned a reputation as one of the few "ufologists" to be taken seriously. Unlike many UFO "fanatics" who do little research and who treat every UFO sighting as "proof" of alien visitation, Randle does thorough, objective research and openly admits that he's skeptical of many UFO reports (and he's highly skeptical of all UFO "abduction" reports). However, Randle, a former Air Force Captain, also doesn't believe that the testimony of thousands of reliable, competent UFO witnesses can simply be dismissed; and that the "physical evidence" of UFO sightings - radar traces, photographs, burn marks on the ground - does provide some "proof" that the UFO mystery is real and not fiction. "Invasion of Washington" is one of Randle's finest and most persuasive books to date. Reaching a half-century back into UFO history, this book focuses on what may be the single most important UFO case in American history. On two consecutive Saturday nights in July 1952, dozens of strange lights were seen above the nation's capital. Even more importantly, the objects were also detected by radar at Washington National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base at the same time. Radar experts in both radar centers confirmed that the strange objects were "solid targets", and a worried Pentagon even ordered jet fighters to intercept the UFOs. Weirdly, when the first few fighters arrived, the UFOs all vanished AT THE SAME TIME - they all disappeared off the radarscopes! However, when the fighters ran low on fuel and left, the objects just as suddenly returned - convincing the observers in both radar centers that the objects were under intelligent control. Eventually, however, at least one of the fighter pilots was "surrounded" by the strange lights, which then took off at fantastic speeds away from the fighter. The "Invasion of Washington" made front-page headlines in newspapers around the nation, and President Truman even called the head of the Air Force's Project Blue Book - the top-secret group investigating UFO sightings - to ask what was going on. With Blue Book being swamped by UFO reports (more UFOs were reported in 1952 than in any other year in US history), a concerned Air Force held a press conference at the Pentagon - the largest since World War Two - to address the issue. General John Samford dismissed the UFO sightings as "mirages", and the radar traces as "temperature inversions" - but never offered any evidence for these explanations. Randle easily disproves both theories - there were numerous "temperature inversions" throughout the month of July 1952, yet these two nights were the only times that visual sightings were made of UFOs, and radar operators in both radar centers noted that the UFOs were "strong, solid" blips, while the temperature inversions recorded on the radarscopes were weak returns which the operators easily filtered out. He also offers compelling evidence that the Air F