On 12 June 1952, personnel at a U.S. Air Force radar site in Marrakech reported an unidentified return with an unusually high reported altitude and speed. The surviving two-page intelligence report is a record of what the crew reported. It contains neither a photograph of an aircraft nor a plotted radar track from which the published figures can now be independently reconstructed.
The principal source is an Air Intelligence Information Report dated 4 August 1952, preserved as a released scan hosted by NICAP. Both pages have been reviewed directly. The first establishes who prepared the account and how it reached intelligence staff; the second gives the short description of the observation. The later preparation date is not the incident date.
The radar site and the personnel
The document identifies the location as the Marrakech RBS site in what it calls French Morocco. That wording belongs to the political geography of the 1952 report. The modern country field is Morocco. The station coordinates printed in the report provide a location for the observing equipment, rather than the position of the unidentified target.
First Lieutenant Glenn D. Adams prepared the written account after interviewing Technical Sergeant Harold D. Adams on 4 August. These are two different people. Harold Adams is described as the non-commissioned officer in charge of radar maintenance at the site and a radar mechanic with four years of experience.
The first page also lists four airmen who were in the control room with him: a controller, two plotters and an operator. Their presence is a useful part of the reported circumstances. The two pages do not, however, reproduce four additional signed statements or establish precisely what each person independently saw. A list of personnel should not be expanded into five separately corroborated accounts.
What the equipment reportedly showed
The second page places the observation at 1126 hours on 12 June. It identifies the equipment as a modified SCR-584 radar, in operation during a stated period that day. Those operating hours are not the duration of the unidentified return. No reliable encounter duration is stated in the reviewed narrative.
According to the report, the return represented an aerial object above 60,000 feet, with an airspeed recorded at 652 knots. Its compass heading was initially 180 degrees and then approximately 165 degrees. Those are the original reported readings. The document does not provide the successive measurements, ranges, elevation angles or calculations needed to reproduce them.
The report says visual-flight-rule conditions existed, but that no other sightings were reported. Its description of this event is a radar observation. It does not give a corresponding visual description of a disc, sphere, cylinder or luminous object. Clear flying conditions should not be turned into a claim that someone saw the radar target with the naked eye.
Only one other aerial activity is mentioned: a Navy aircraft approaching the radar site at a reported 346 knots. The account distinguishes that aircraft from the unidentified return. It does not describe an interception, a pursuit, a collision risk or a visual encounter between the aircraft and the target.
From an observation to a written report
The first page explicitly says the report was not electrically transmitted because it reached headquarters too late. It explains that a written report was nevertheless thought useful to interested agencies and refers to another intelligence submission. That administrative history should not be recast as an urgent real-time alert. The referenced submission is not reproduced as a separate document in this two-page scan.
The distinction matters because the available narrative was written weeks after the observation. It identifies a named interviewee, his technical role and the equipment involved, making it more useful than an unattributed later anecdote. It remains a short account prepared from an interview, rather than a complete collection of operating logs, instrument records and independent crew statements.
The limits of the numerical claims
A precise number printed on an official form is still a reported result. The reviewed pages do not contain a calibration record, an error estimate, an atmospheric profile, photographs of the display or an independent station’s matching track. They therefore cannot establish the accuracy of the quoted altitude, speed or change of heading by themselves.
The missing material also limits explanations. Nothing in the reviewed pages demonstrates an ordinary aircraft identification, a particular propagation effect, an equipment fault or an artificial craft of extraordinary origin. Proposing one of those possibilities is different from testing it against the original measurements. No such retrospective test is claimed here.
The National Archives’ Project Blue Book reference page explains the wider archive and reproduces the Air Force’s general conclusions. It distinguishes unidentified reports from evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles. That institutional context is useful, but it is not an identification of this particular Marrakech return.
Assessment
Outcome: Insufficient evidence. The two-page report documents an attributable radar claim with an identified instrument, crew roles and reported readings. The reviewed material does not supply the underlying track, independent corroboration or technical analysis needed to verify those readings or determine a cause. It supports preserving the case as a historical radar report, without treating the reported performance as an established physical event.
The radar feature tag describes the actual observation method recorded in the source. No shape, occupants, landing, contact or underwater tag is assigned: none is established by these pages. The report image is the original typed record rendered for reading, not a reconstruction of what appeared on the radar screen.
Map location and dates
Map location: 31.609, −8.023 is a rounded observing-site reference derived from the coordinates printed on page two of the Air Force report: 31°36′34″N, 8°01′21″W. It is not the target’s location, flight path or a verified surviving radar installation. The historical coordinates are not used as current visitor directions or permission to enter any property.
The incident year is 1952, supported by the dated observation in the original report. The 4 August preparation date and later archive availability remain separate from the 12 June observation. The report’s 1126 notation is retained without inventing a time-zone conversion. Source, document rights, location and metadata review: 13 November 2026.