Albert Chop and the Tremonton film release
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 10
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| Type | Event (blocked film release) |
|---|---|
| Person | Albert M. Chop (died 15 January 2006), Air Force civilian press officer for UFO matters, 1952–53 |
| Film | Tremonton, Utah, 16 mm colour film by Navy Warrant Officer Delbert C. Newhouse, 2 July 1952 |
| Navy analysis | Photo laboratory at Anacostia: "intelligently controlled vehicles", not aircraft or birds |
| Robertson Panel | January 1953: possibly seagulls |
| Blocked | Press release drafted by Edward Ruppelt and approved by ATIC, rejected by the Pentagon |
| Film portrayal | Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956) |
| Date | 9 February 1953 |
| Topics | Disinformation & hoaxes (topic) |
| People | Albert Chop, Delbert Newhouse, Donald Keyhoe |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 48 |
| Year | 1953 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1953 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 12 |
Albert M. Chop (died 15 January 2006) was the U.S. Air Force's civilian press officer for UFO matters in 1952–1953. He handled the media during the July 1952 Washington, D.C., sightings. He later said the Air Force had planned to release an analysis of the 1952 Tremonton, Utah, UFO film before the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel intervened. Project Blue Book's chief, Edward Ruppelt, separately recorded that his press release on the film, approved by the head of the Air Technical Intelligence Center, was rejected by the Pentagon.[1][2][4]
Career
Chop began as a newspaper reporter in Dayton, Ohio. After the Second World War he joined the press section of the Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and became its chief. He began as a skeptic about UFOs. He said his view changed after talking to senior officials who were convinced that many sightings represented "very real craft of unknown origin". In 1952 the Air Force public relations chief, Colonel DeWitt Searles, transferred him to the Pentagon's press section to handle UFO inquiries. The move came at the request of General Samford and General Sory Smith of the Defense Department's public information office. On the night of 26 July 1952 Chop was in the radar room at Washington National Airport as unknown targets were tracked over the capital and jets were scrambled. He later worked in public affairs at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. He was photographed in 1965 at his console in Mission Control as deputy public affairs officer during a Gemini 4 simulation. He was later interviewed at his home in Palm Desert, California, for the Sign Oral History Project.[1]
Chop and Keyhoe
Chop dealt regularly with Donald Keyhoe, the retired Marine major and author. He said Keyhoe would often be waiting in his office with new questions. The Air Force's policy then was to release details of a case if asked about it, and Keyhoe had a good network of informants. Chop cleared 51 items for publication in Keyhoe's 1953 book Flying Saucers from Outer Space, signing an itemised list "as the true account of subjects discussed, opinions expressed, and material cleared". The items included more than 40 formerly classified sighting reports, from the Washington National Airport radar cases to a B-29 radar case over the Gulf of Mexico, where the object's speed was computed at 9,000 mph. They also included the Tremonton case. Among the cleared statements was one that "an increasing number of Air Force personnel" were convinced the saucers were interplanetary. Chop also wrote a blurb for the book calling Keyhoe a "responsible, accurate reporter".[2][3]
The Tremonton film
On 2 July 1952 the Navy chief photographer Delbert C. Newhouse was driving with his wife and two children to Oakland, California. About seven miles past Tremonton on U.S. Highway 30S, his wife noticed a group of objects in the sky. Newhouse had 21 years in the Navy and 2,000 hours as an aerial photographer. He saw about a dozen shiny disc-like objects "milling around the sky in a rough formation". He filmed them with a 16 mm camera and a three-inch telephoto lens, then followed one that broke away to the east.[4][8]
The Air Force photo laboratory at Wright Field studied the film for several weeks and concluded: "We don't know what they are but they aren't airplanes or balloons, and we don't think they are birds." Fighter pilots who watched it said no airplane could do what the objects were doing. The Navy's photo laboratory at Anacostia then spent about two months on a frame-by-frame study. It concluded that the objects were intelligently controlled vehicles, not airplanes or birds. In January 1953 the Robertson Panel questioned the Navy analysts' densitometer technique. One physicist suggested the objects might be seagulls soaring on a thermal, if Newhouse had unconsciously panned his camera. Ruppelt disagreed at the time, though he later watched gulls over San Francisco and noted a "strong resemblance".[4][10]
The blocked release
The panel had recommended that nothing be held back. When the press learned of the film, Ruppelt agreed to show it to newsmen. He wrote a press release, approved by General Garland, then chief of the Air Technical Intelligence Center, and sent it to the Pentagon. It reported the panel's view that "until proved otherwise there is no reason why the UFO's couldn't have been sea gulls", but said the seagull theory was only an opinion. "When the Pentagon got the draft of the release they screamed, 'No!'" Ruppelt wrote. "No movie for the press and no press release. The sea gull theory was too weak, and we had a new publicity policy as of now – don't say anything." He added that a January 1955 Air Force information letter told personnel, in essence, that they were talking too much about UFOs.[4][7]
The CIA claim
Chop's account that the CIA blocked the release and ordered a debunking campaign comes chiefly from Keyhoe's books, including his 1973 Aliens from Space. The CIA's reading room includes records showing that the agency followed what Keyhoe wrote, among them a 1953 internal review of his book. The Robertson Panel had recommended a public education campaign to reduce interest in UFOs.[3][5][9][11][12]
Later years
Chop later joined NICAP and became a critic of official UFO policy. In a letter to Keyhoe of 27 November 1957 he described appearing on television with the analyst Robert Baker against an Air Force spokesman. He said Baker, who had spent over a year analysing the Montana and Utah films, privately felt there were "possibilities these things are interplanetary vehicles". Chop was the central figure of the 1956 documentary-drama Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers, in which he was played by Tom Towers. The producer, Clarence Greene, had contacted Chop about a sighting of his own and obtained the Tremonton and Montana films through him. The film follows Chop from skeptic to believer, ending with the Washington sightings.[1][6][8]
People and topics
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Albert Chop — Air Force press officer for UFO matters in 1952–53 who later joined NICAP.
- Central Intelligence Agency — The U.S. foreign intelligence agency, which has followed UFO reports since the 1940s.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — The Ohio air base that housed Project Blue Book and is linked to the Hangar 18 legend.
- U.S. Navy — The U.S. naval service, whose pilots reported the UAP encounters revealed in 2017.
- Delbert Newhouse — Navy photographer who filmed the 1952 Tremonton, Utah, UFO footage.
- Robertson Panel — Robertson Panel
- Donald Keyhoe — Retired Marine officer, author and director of NICAP who campaigned against UFO secrecy.
- NICAP — The leading U.S. civilian UFO group of the 1950s and 1960s.
On the Timeline
- Robertson Panel (18 January 1953) — The CIA's Robertson Panel recommends stripping UAP of special status and reducing public interest.
- CIA memo on Civilian Saucer Investigation (9 February 1953) — A CIA officer admits monitoring a public UAP meeting in Los Angeles.
See every 1953 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- UFO documents — CIA Reading Room · cia.gov · archived copy
- Edward J. Ruppelt — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
References
- "Albert M. Chop", Sign Oral History Project · sohp.us · archived copy
- "Sightings cleared for Major Donald E. Keyhoe by Albert M. Chop", NICAP · nicap.org · archived copy
- Donald Keyhoe — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Patrick Gross, "The Tremonton film" (Ruppelt's account), UFOs at close sight · ufologie.patrickgross.org · archived copy
- CIA reading room: UFO documents · cia.gov · archived copy
- UFO (1956 film) — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- The Tremonton film — Patrick Gross · ufology.patrickgross.org · archived copy
- Keyhoe letter on the Tremonton film — Patrick Gross · ufologie.patrickgross.org · archived copy
- CIA review of Keyhoe's 'Flying Saucers from Outer Space' (1953) · cia.gov · archived copy
- archive.org · archive.org · archived copy
- archive.org · archive.org · archived copy
- archive.org · archive.org · archived copy
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Donald Keyhoe”, “UFO (1956 film)”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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