UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 06 · SEPTEMBER 18, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · DOCUMENT · DOW-UAP-D102Project Blue Book File on Tremonton Film, Utah, 1952
This is the Air Force’s own case file on one of the best-known pieces of early UFO footage: the color film a Navy photographer shot near Tremonton, Utah, in July 1952. It is worth reading less for the sighting itself than for what it shows about how Project Blue Book worked, because the paperwork follows the Air Force’s thinking about the same short film as it changed over several years.
What the investigators made of it
The witness, Delbert C. Newhouse, was a Navy warrant officer whose specialty was photography, and the investigators took him seriously: they rated him “honest and reliable” and credited him with over 1,000 hours of experience in aerial photography. He described 12 to 14 shiny objects and filmed them on a Bell & Howell Auto Master held in his hands.
At first the Air Force would not commit. Its early documents weighed birds or balloons catching the sun, and a possible mirage, and left the objects unidentified. Later reviews leaned firmly toward seabirds, pointing to birds that could be picked out and to comparison films in which seabirds appear as bright points in similar light. What nobody could do was measure anything: with little detail and nothing fixed in the frame, the film alone gives no reliable distance, size, altitude or speed.
A confusing paper trail
AARO’s note flags a records problem. Some pages call the film 35mm, but the paperwork from when it was handed in describes a 50-foot roll of 16mm Kodachrome. Newhouse said he used about 30 feet on the objects and the rest on mountain scenery in Idaho later that day. According to AARO, the 35mm material consists of enlarged duplicates, both positives and negatives, printed from the 16mm original, which was itself copied because it was deteriorating. The footage in this collection, DOW-UAP-PR159, is a digitized 16mm print. For the full story of the sighting, see The Tremonton Film.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released September 18, 2026, quoted in full
This document records the Project Blue Book investigation and subsequent assessments of an incident near Tremonton, Utah, on July 2, 1952. Project Blue Book was a 1952-1969 U.S. Air Force program to investigate the nature and origin of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The file describes the Air Force’s assessment of the principal witness, Delbert C. Newhouse, a U.S. Navy Warrant Officer specializing in photography, as honest and reliable, and as an expert with more than 1,000 hours of aerial-photography experience. Newhouse reported observing 12 to 14 reflective objects and recorded the event on color motion-picture film using a handheld Bell & Howell Auto Master camera.
The file reflects an evolving Air Force assessment of the imagery over several years. Early documentation considered several possible explanations, including sunlight reflecting from birds or balloons, and a mirage effect, and did not identify the objects conclusively. Later assessments became more confident that the objects were seabirds reflecting sunlight, citing identifiable seabirds and similar films showing seabirds as bright points of light under comparable conditions. However, the film’s limited detail and lack of fixed reference points prevented reliable determination of the objects’ distance, size, altitude, or linear speed from the film alone.
AARO Comment: The file contains conflicting references to the film format. Several documents describe a 35mm film, while contemporaneous submission documentation identifies the original as a 50-foot roll of processed 16mm Kodachrome color motion-picture film recorded with a handheld Bell & Howell Auto Master camera. Newhouse reported exposing approximately 30 feet of the roll during the incident and using the remaining film later that day to record unrelated mountain scenery in Idaho. Other records show that 35mm positive and negative duplicate blowups were produced from the original 16mm material. The file also indicates that the original film was duplicated for preservation, citing its deteriorating condition. The footage retained by the National Archives and Records Administration and presented in this collection as DOW-UAP-PR159 is a digitization of a 16mm print.