THE DOCUMENT
DOW-UAP-D104, “Final Personnel Record for Newhouse Delbert C US Navy 1957”, a Department of War record from the U.S. Department of War’s PURSUE Release 06, published at war.gov/ufo on 18 September 2026. The title is the release’s, taken from the file name; the record has no title of its own. It is the Bureau of Naval Personnel’s file on Delbert Clement Newhouse, U.S. Navy, and it is three file jackets scanned end to end, each behind its printed cover: an Officer’s Miscellaneous Correspondence and Orders Jacket stamped CLOSED, with a National Archives and Records Administration key punch sheet over it (pp. 1 to 287); an Officer’s Selection Board Jacket stamped SEPARATED (pp. 288 to 499); and an Officer Fitness Report Jacket (pp. 500 to 585). Inside are orders with their endorsement chains, leave reports and leave records, appointment and service cards, applications, clearance certificates, awards correspondence, four portrait photographs and a run of fitness reports from 1942 to 1959, some papers in two or three copies. The papers are dated from October 1942 (p. 438) to 20 November 1964 (p. 466) and are filed by kind in runs that mostly go newest first, not in one date order. The text layer is OCR of typescript, carbons and printed forms, often damaged; 22 pages had none as issued and carry this project’s OCR. No page carries a redaction or an exemption code, and the release added no footer.
Why this one is worth your time
Release 06 Briefing 1 read the Air Force’s case folder on the film taken near Tremonton, Utah on 2 July 1952, DOW-UAP-D102, including the 28th Air Division’s report that the Navy chief photographer who took it claimed over 1,000 hours in the air as a photographer. Release 05 Briefing 4 read the Navy’s 1953 analysis of the same film, DOW-UAP-D098, which named no witness.
D104 is the Navy’s own paper on that man, released under his name: the file the Bureau of Naval Personnel kept on him from 1942 to 1964. It says where he was posted in 1952 and when he was on leave, and it holds his own earlier statement of his hours in the air and what the Navy did with it. It never mentions the film.
What the document says
Oakland, 1952. He reported for duty at the Naval Supply Center, Oakland, California at 1850 on 5 February 1952 (p. 91) and was detached on 11 June 1954 (p. 490). His fitness report for 1 July to 31 December 1952 gives his duties for all six months as Assistant Stock Control Officer for Photographic Materials, Aviation Supply Depot, and Junior Duty Watch Officer. Its blocks for the command’s employment and for commendable or adverse reports are blank, and its six lines of remarks, over the name of Rear Admiral T. Earle Hipp, cover his supply work, his dealings with others and his character, and mention no absence or event (p. 543). The file’s other papers from 1952 include leave reports, photographic temporary duty at Inyokern in August (p. 79) and a final Secret clearance certified at Oakland on 22 September on a National Agency Check, for access required in the performance of officially assigned duties (p. 38).
The leave of June and July 1952. Two Reports of Leave of Absence, both dated 9 July 1952 and both from the Commanding Officer at Oakland, report 12 days from 19 to 30 June (p. 83) and 7 days from 1 to 7 July (p. 82), each under approved leave papers dated 1 May 1952. His officer’s leave record enters the June period and then a 30-day annual credit dated 30 June 1952 at the foot of one sheet, and the July period at the head of the next (pp. 492, 490). Together they run 19 days without a gap, by my count. Neither form has a line for where an officer went or why, and none of the four pages says.
The photographer. His application of 17 October 1947 traces his service from recruit training in January 1933, through the Naval School of Photography at Pensacola from June to December 1935, to charge of the photographic laboratory at NAS Guantanamo Bay from November 1940 to August 1942 (p. 387). Its first page, at item (g), reads Chief Photographer’s Mate, Aviation, all aerial photographic operations including aerial mapping with single and multiple lens cameras and motion picture photography, read from the page image (p. 388). A fitness report of 28 February 1949 puts the Pensacola course in 1945 and recommends him for the Naval School of Motion Picture Photography (p. 559). Later photographic posts include Coco Solo, Philadelphia and Pearl Harbor (p. 388), the Naval Photographic Center at Anacostia (p. 555), Utility Squadron FIVE on Guam (pp. 69, 527), USS ESSEX (p. 508) and the Pacific Fleet Photo-Triangulation Group (p. 503).
Flying. On 20 October 1943, as an Ensign at NAS Coco Solo, he asked to be ordered to duty as an aviation technical observer, stating that he had had approximately one thousand hours experience in the air on photographic aerial missions in eleven years of active duty; his commanding officer and the Commandant, Fifteenth Naval District recommended approval (p. 422). On 12 November 1943 the Chief of Naval Operations returned the request recommending disapproval (p. 418), and the Bureau of Naval Personnel disapproved it, finding that his duties did not fulfil the requirements for Technical Observer orders (p. 417). On 29 October, between request and refusal, Commander Fleet Air Wing THREE had authorised him to wear the Air Crew Insignia without stars, stating that the records indicated he had served more than three months as a regularly assigned member of the crews of combatant aircraft at Guantanamo Bay in the first half of 1942 (p. 54). Six fitness reports of 1948 to 1950 type NON AVIATOR, NON-AVIATOR, Non Aviator or Non-Aviator across the printed block for flight hours, which the form asks of an aviator only, read from the page images (pp. 373, 555, 557 to 560).
Rank, and the end of the file. A letter of 21 November 1949 from the Secretary of the Navy, signed for the President, says that the President terminates his temporary appointment as a Lieutenant, effective 31 December 1949, in view of the reduction in the officer personnel strength of the Navy, and that he will revert to his permanent status as a Chief Photographer, designator 8311 (p. 364, read from the page image), a commissioned warrant status (p. 313). The 1952 leave reports, clearance and fitness report call him CHPHOT (pp. 38, 82, 83, 543). He was transferred to the retired list on 1 April 1960 in the rank of Chief Photographer, W-4, and advanced on the retired list to lieutenant (p. 293). The latest dated paper, a Bureau letter of 20 November 1964, encloses his Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal (Lebanon) (p. 466).
What the document does not say
Its text never names the case. Tremonton, Utah, saucer, Blue Book, unidentified, sighting and 1377, the Blue Book case number, each return no hit in D104; film returns one, inside OCR damage at p. 512, and none as a whole word; motion picture returns two, item (g) of his 1947 application at p. 388 and a course on a Pensacola letterhead at p. 483. The counts are case-insensitive, substring and whole word, over the issued layer, this project’s OCR of the 22 pages that had none and its supplementary OCR of seven more; handwriting is largely outside any count, and so are four pages with no usable text in any layer (pp. 226, 228, 364, 498). A second search with spaces and punctuation stripped, against the OCR’s letter-spacing, finds the same zeros and one more motion picture, the 1949 recommendation at p. 559.
It does not say where he was on 2 July 1952. The week falls inside charged leave from Oakland, and neither leave form nor the leave record has a line for a destination (pp. 82, 490).
It gives no Navy figure for his hours in the air. Hours gives a figure for his flying only at p. 422, his own statement of 1943; its other 15 hits are printed flight-hours headings on fitness report forms and messages quoted in a 1958 commendation.
It names no Air Force intelligence office. ATIC returns 16 hits, every one inside another word, and all 19 hits for Air Technical are the Naval Air Technical Training Unit at Pensacola. Of 25 hits for intelligence, 23 are printed labels on fitness report forms, one is the 1952 clearance’s printed copy list, which names the Director of Naval Intelligence (p. 38), and one is a 1958 remark from USS ESSEX that thousands of aerial photographic prints were developed to support intelligence requirements (p. 508). His Wright-Patterson Air Force Base tour of 1948 to 1949 was as the Bureau of Aeronautics’ liaison with the Air Materiel Command for buying photographic items (p. 356).
The file does not say where the 1957 in its release title comes from. It is neither the first nor the last year of the papers and no jacket cover carries it; the latest papers in the first jacket, the one stamped CLOSED, are of May 1957 (pp. 3 to 5).
It does not name the Naval Photographic Interpretation Center, whose 1953 report Release 05 Briefing 4 read: Interpretation returns no hit. The Naval Photographic Center at NAS Anacostia where he served in 1950 (p. 555) carries a different name and address.
The release redacts nothing in D104. Home addresses, the names of his wife and children, his date and place of birth, medical examinations, insurance entries and other officers’ service numbers are all in the clear; pp. 38, 39, 303 and 329 each carry one or more of these kinds. None of it is repeated here.
From the record
7-1-52 to 7-7-52 Incl.
DOW-UAP-D104, p. 82, the dates on the Report of Leave of Absence of 9 July 1952 for seven days, the leave that contains 2 July 1952
(g) Chief Photographer’s Mate, Aviation, all aerial photographic
DOW-UAP-D104, p. 388, item (g) of the information with his application of 17 October 1947; the entry continues: operations including aerial mapping with single and multiple lens cameras and motion picture photography
(i) Graduate of Naval School of Photography at Naval Air Station
DOW-UAP-D104, p. 387, item (i) of the same application, on its second page; the entry continues: Pensacola, Florida
I have had approximately one thousand hours experience in the air on photographic aerial missions during
DOW-UAP-D104, p. 422, paragraph 2 of his request of 20 October 1943 to be ordered to duty as an aviation technical observer; the sentence continues: eleven years active duty in the Navy.
flying as Technical Observer are not required in the proper
DOW-UAP-D104, p. 418, the Chief of Naval Operations’ endorsement of 12 November 1943 returning that request recommending disapproval; the sentence begins: It is believed that orders to duty involving, and ends: performance of subject officer’s regular duties.
Authority is hereby granted you to wear the Air
DOW-UAP-D104, p. 54, Commander Fleet Air Wing THREE to Ensign D. C. Newhouse, 29 October 1943; the sentence continues: Crew Insignia without stars
2. During the period 27 August 1948, to 29 September 1949, while on
DOW-UAP-D104, p. 356, the Bureau of Aeronautics endorsement of 19 December 1949, which dates his Wright-Patterson tour from 27 August 1948 where his fitness report enters 24 August (p. 560); the sentence continues: duty at the Bureau of Aeronautics General Representative, Central District Headquarters, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio
Where the case connects
With D102, on the points both records print. Station: his letter of 11 August 1952 sending the film is on the letterhead of the Aviation Supply Depot, Naval Supply Center, Oakland, under a reference beginning NT4-28, the office symbol of D104’s Oakland endorsements (D102 p. 113; D104 p. 91), and a 28th Air Division teletype of February 1953 places him at the same depot (D102 p. 34). Number: D102 prints his service number on that letter and, one digit different, in that teletype, both read on the page images; D104 gives the letter’s form in 236 whole-word hits, 226 of them in the issued layer and 10 in this project’s OCR, and the teletype’s form in none, and its page images at pp. 38, 82, 83, 422, 490 and 543 agree with the letter. Rank: D102 calls him CPO in the interview report (p. 6) and, in the teletype, gives the title he stated as chief photographer, a commissioned warrant officer (p. 34); D104 calls him CHPHOT. Hours: the interview’s over 1,000 hours and his approximately one thousand hours of 1943 (p. 422) are both his own statements, nine years apart.
The date: his letter puts him about 7 miles north of Tremonton at 1110 on 2 July 1952, on a drive from Washington, D. C. (D102 p. 113); D104 has him on charged leave from Oakland from 1 to 7 July. That the leave and the drive are one absence is an inference from the dates, not something either record states.
With Release 05 Briefing 4: D098 never named him, and D104 never names the film, the analysis or the Center that made it.
Read it yourself
DOW-UAP-D104, “Final Personnel Record for Newhouse Delbert C US Navy 1957”, is hosted at war.gov in PURSUE Release 06. It is 585 pages and unredacted. The two leave reports dated 9 July 1952 are pages 83 and 82 of the PDF, the leave records pages 490 and 492, the 1943 flying request page 422, and the fitness reports pages 503 to 583.
Read the file. Decide for yourself.
Related wiki entries
The wiki entries below give background on the programme and publisher behind this briefing, and on the subjects it touches.
References and further reading
- DOW-UAP-D104, “Final Personnel Record for Newhouse Delbert C US Navy 1957”, PURSUE Release 06, U.S. Department of War, hosted at war.gov/ufo
- Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE), U.S. Department of War, war.gov/ufo
- AARO UAP Records, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, aaro.mil/UAP-Records
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 06 Briefing 1, on DOW-UAP-D102 and DOW-UAP-D103, the Project Blue Book files on the Tremonton film
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 05 Briefing 4, on DOW-UAP-D098, the Navy’s 4 May 1953 analysis of the same film