20.04.2024

The 701 club: Case 1074: March 20, 1952 CentReville, Maryland

Don Berlinner describes the case as follows:

March 20, 1952; Centreville, Maryland. 10:42 p.m. Witnesses: WWl/WW2 veteran A.D. Hutchinson and son. One dull orange-yellow saucer-shaped light flew straight and level very fast for 30 seconds.1

Sparks’ entry is more informative:

March 20, 1952. Centerville (Queen Anne’s County), Maryland. 10:42 p.m. CIA clandestine employee [OPC?] who was WW1/WW2 Army veteran and pilot with extensive flight experience, A. D. Hutchinson, and son (Hutchinson Jr.), saw a dull orange-yellow saucer-shaped light, lighting looking like that of old-fashion light-bulb and about 2-3x size of aircraft wing light [or about 4-6 ft?], fly straight and level very fast from SW to SE about half way between horizon and zenith [or roughly 30° to 45° elevation], possibly about 5 miles away [better estimate about 1 mile], then made 2 sudden vertical jumps on order of 2° upwards each jump, jumps being like a “basketball bounce,” before disappearing behind trees. No sound. 

The Blue Book file

Unlike many of the files, this case contains a pretty good amount of information:

•It was seen at 10:42 PM

•Described as an orange-yellow saucer shaped light

•Its size was described as two to three times size of an airplane wing light

•It was about 45 degrees elevation and went from west to east.

•Its speed was described as very fast

•During its flight it jumped twice vertically at an extremely fast speed. This “jump” was not very high. The notes indicate this value was about 2 degrees. The witness described it jumping “a foot” while estimating the distance at five miles. This actually calculates to be much less than 2 degrees (arc tan 1/26,400 = .002 degrees). One assumes the investigator must have worked with the witness to come up with an approximate angular distance. 2 degrees is about four moon diameters.

•There was no noise

•The duration was listed as “approximately” 30 seconds.

•Notes on the document indicate the angular distance covered was about 90 degrees. It was first seen in the SW and disappeared in the SE behind some trees.

Analysis

Anytime there is a short duration object that moves in a fairly linear path, one has to consider the possibility that the object was a bright meteor. The thirty second time frame seems long for a meteor but the witness stating it was “very fast” and there was no sound makes me question the time estimate. One also must remember that the witness stated it was “approximately 30 seconds”, which means it could have been less.

Long duration fireball meteors are not that unusual. Most are estimated to be a few seconds long. 10 second durations are unusual.

Over 20 seconds is rare. That being said, estimates made by observers often tend to overestimate duration. I examined 54 fireball reports in the AMS database for January 2024.4 Five events had observers estimating the duration at 20 or 45 seconds. In some cases, it was one observer. In other instances there were multiple reports of these long durations, even though the bulk of the observers listed the time as being less than10 seconds. I have seen videos of long duration fireballs. The April 26, 2017 fireball over Florida lasted about 20 seconds in the video recording found in the sky sentinel database.

ATIC ruled out a meteor due to the “sudden climb”. I am assuming they are referring to the “bouncing” motion, which were described as not being very high (about “a foot”/2 degrees). I have seen this kind of observation with stationary stars, satellites, airplanes, and other natural/man made events. While interesting, this part of the observation can be considered as a possible perceived motion by the witness and not the actual motion of the object. They were looking at a light moving rapidly across the sky and this could have been something similar to the auto kinetic effect.

I also considered the possibility that this was just an aircraft. Centreville, Maryland is located on the eastern shore of Maryland.

There would be plenty of air traffic in the region. However, the duration seems too short for an aircraft. To have that angular speed, the airplane would have to be low in altitude and heard by the witness.

Conclusion

This event has the possibility of being a bright meteor. I could find no confirmation of this kind of event in the newspaper archive or Sky and Telescope but that is not unusual. Getting the press to report fireball meteors is not easy and Sky and Telescope only published stories about fireballs if they were widely observed. I would classify this as a possible meteor fireball and have it removed from the list unidentifieds.

Quelle: SUNlite 2/2024