Early in the morning of July 19, 1952, two former Air Force personnel were driving down Highway 211 near Centerville, VA, when their car was struck by an object falling from the sky, which left powder burns on the hood. The two veterans were puzzled about the object, but inexplicably, left it behind on the road without getting out of the car and examining it. That bizarre incident [was] the beginning of ... a series of sightings in July and early August 1952 in the vicinity of Washington DC. Occurring disturbingly close to the epicenter of the nation's political and military power, the sightings aroused a public and media frenzy, and prompted inquiries all the way up the chain of command to President Truman himself. Declassified government documents, books on UFO history and other sources ... provide ample details, but no ultimate explanation for what multiple eyewitnesses and radar screens saw. The first major event occurred at 20 minutes to midnight on Saturday, July 19, 1952, when an air traffic controller at Washington National Airport spotted seven mysterious unidentified aircraft on his radar screen. The aircraft were flying about 15 miles to the southwest of the nation's capital and not following any approved flight paths. Then, other objects appeared, all over the screen. They were moving toward the White House and the U.S. Capitol.