The Light over Tripoli That Went Out Like a Lamp

Señor de Salas of the Spanish Legation in Tripoli watched the light on the night of 22 September 1952. It approached from the south at great speed and came down low over the city. It travelled along for a while. Then it shot upwards with "positively no sound" and went out as if a lamp had been switched off.

He was not the only one. Four Italians took it for a meteorite until they saw it climb. A Welsh couple saw a brilliant ball flash across the gap over the sea. Several groups reported it over Tripoli and out to sea to the north.

What is on the record

The account is US Air Attaché report TR-12-52 from Tripoli. It sits in Project Blue Book's files, but in an unrelated folder: the one for Unknown no. 2105, a Tucson, Arizona case. The Tripoli report has nothing to do with Tucson. The same attaché report also covers a sighting from Garian on 19 September 1952, which is a separate event.

The attaché did not gather the accounts himself. He took them from the Sunday Ghibli, a local weekly. The report calls de Salas a reliable source. The attaché still judged the source and the information as a whole "questionable". An officer of the 7th Air Rescue Squadron suggested a weather balloon released from Wheelus Field. No one followed that up in the file and no evaluation was recorded.

The Hatch database lists the sighting as a fiery, football-sized object out over the sea.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD: a released government record names who saw it. De Salas is the only identified witness. His wife, an English couple, the Welsh couple and the four Italians also appear in the report but are not named. The account is second-hand, drawn from a newspaper, and the attaché who forwarded it doubted it. Nothing else in the archive speaks to that night. The tier measures sourcing, not truth. What climbed and went out over Tripoli is not resolved here.