The first sighting of a light by an airline pilot took place shortly after midnight, when an ARTC controller called the pilot of a Capital Airlines flight just taking off from National.  The controller asked the pilot to keep watch for unusual lights—­or anything.  Soon after the pilot cleared the traffic pattern, and while ARTC was still in contact with him, he suddenly yelled, “There’s one—­off to the right—­ and there it goes.”  The controller had been watching the scope, and a target that had been off to the right of the Capitaliner was gone.

During the next fourteen minutes this pilot reported six more identical lights.

About two hours later another pilot, approaching National Airport from the south, excitedly called the control tower to report that a light was following him at “eight o’clock level.”  The tower checked their radar-scope and there was a target behind and to the left of the airliner.  The ARTC radar also had the airliner and the UFO target.  The UFO tagged along behind and to the left of the airliner until it was within four miles of touchdown on the runway.  When the pilot reported the light was leaving, the two radarscopes showed that the target was pulling away from the airliner.

Once during the night all three radars, the two at Washington and the one at Andrews AFB, picked up a target three miles north of the Riverdale Radio beacon, north of Washington.  For thirty seconds the three radar operators compared notes about the target over the intercom, then suddenly the target was gone—­and it left all three radarscopes simultaneously.

But the clincher came in the wee hours of the morning, when an ARTC traffic controller called the control tower at Andrews AFB and told the tower operators that ARTC had a target just south of their tower, directly over the Andrews Radio range station.  The tower operators looked and there was a “huge fiery-orange sphere” hovering in the sky directly over their range station.

Not too long after this excitement had started, in fact just after the technician had checked the radar and found that the targets weren’t caused by a radar malfunction, ARTC had called for Air Force interceptors to come in and look around.  But they didn’t show, and finally ARTC called again—­then again.  Finally, just about daylight, an F-94 arrived, but by that time the targets were gone.  The F-94 crew searched the area for a few minutes but they couldn’t find anything unusual so they returned to their base.

So ended phase one of the Washington National Sightings.

The Bolling AFB intelligence officer said he would write up the complete report and forward it to ATIC.