it seemed impossible
-- but there it is
PART SEVEN OF EIGHT PARTS
By the end of July 1947 the UFO security lid was down tight. The few members of the press who did inquire about what the Air Force was doing got the same treatment that you would get today if you inquired about the number of thermonuclear weapons stock-piled in the U.S.'s atomic arsenal. No one, outside of a few high-ranking officers in the Pentagon, knew what the people in the barbed wire enclosed Quonset huts that housed the Air Technical Intelligence Center were thinking or doing.
-- Captain Ed Ruppelt
Chief of the Air Force Project Blue Book
The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956)
ON JUNE 24, 1947 A PILOT named Ken Arnold reports seeing nine aerial objects from his plane -- and the term 'flying saucer' enters history.
Seventeen days later, an official press release announces that 'the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc' -- and a legend is born.
This is the story of those amazing two and a half weeks when it all began... exclusively as told through the daily newspaper reports of the time.
TUESDAY : 8 JUL 1947
Nationwide:
Source: Massillon Evening Independent, Ohio - 8 Jul 47
Here's Flying Saucer To End All Flying Saucers
HERE'S FLYING SAUCER as envisioned by artist after hearing latest "eyewitness" reports. This saucer has everything but the cup and a man from Mars in the cockpit. (International)
Source: St. Petersburg Times, Florida - 8 Jul 47
Ship Officer's Story
Russia Has Atom-Powered 'Flying Saucer' And Death Cloud Controlled By Radio
LOS ANGELES (INS) -- The Los Angeles Examiner reported last night that, at the suggestion of a top-flight nuclear physicist, it had turned over to the FBI a letter concerning Russian atom-powered "flying saucers" and deadly, controlled radioactive clouds.
The examiner said the communication was offered to federal agents after the physicist had termed the contents of the letter as "not entirely nonsense," although it was written in halting and sometimes almost incoherent English.
The writer gave the source of his information as the officer of a Soviet tanker which recently was in Los Angeles harbor.
The alleged atom-powered plane was described as only 18 inches thick, as being kidney-shaped and as having no propellers.
The pilot, in flying the strange ship, is said to lie on his stomach and is artificially cooled against the heat generated by the craft's supersonic speeds.
The writer quoted the Russian as giving this further description of the plane:
"The outer surface of the plane is highly polished. Both upper and lower surfaces are convex like a giant lens.
"The lifting force is an entirely different (new) principle, found about ten years ago among the unpublished papers of a Russian chemist and developed recently at one of Russia's research laboratories.
"Energy is required only for climbing, but no energy is need for support when the airplane goes along the earth's gravitational contour lines."
The business about the controlled radio-active cloud came up when, according to the writer, the Russian asked where he could sell 18 polar bear pelts he had been given for very dangerous work.
The Russian was said to have related that he was assigned to go over the route over which the lethal cloud had passed and pick up dead animals.
The experiment is supposed to have started in the vicinity of Lake Baikal and to have killed every form of life under it -- birds, animals and worms.
The writer related that the Russian gave this account of the development:
"They loaded a few small ships with all kinds of animals and directed the cloud over them.
"During this experiment a violent storm blew the cloud far north into the tundra, but before it dissipated it destroyed all life on its way.
"The cloud may be controlled from land, from a plane or from a robot-plane leader. As I understand it, the control is based on electro-magnetic waves and the cloud has two components, the carrier and the killer."
Source: The Oregonian, Oregon - 8 Jul 47
Air Forces Deny Discs U.S.-Made
If there is any such thing as a flying saucer disc, washtub or luminous ball of any kind flying around loose, it was not made in America. That was the official announcement from the army air forces Monday night in answer to the epidemic of reports from 40 states ranging from the Northwest to New England.
"Neither the AAF nor any other component of the armed forces has any plane, guided missile, or other aerial device under development which could possibly be mistaken for a saucer or formation of flying discs," Maj. Gen. Nathan F. Twining, chief of the AAF air material command, told The Oregonian unequivocally when reached by phone at Kirtland army airbase at Albuquerque, N.M.
Air Force Investigates
"Some of these witnesses evidently saw something," General Twining, a native of Portland, declared. "But we don’t know what. We are investigating."
AAF laboratories at Wright Field confirmed General Twining’s statements to The Oregonian.
The navy and atomic energy commission also officially announced they had no knowledge of or connection with the mysterious missiles.
One of the most promising reports from Russell Baird, pilot of a photographic plane near Bozeman, Mont., collapsed when the pilot announced he had merely been "gassing around the hangar" and had no intention of telling a story for publication.
Another apparently fizzled out when national guard pilots from Spokane failed to find any trace of flying platters "big as houses" supposed to have fluttered into the timber near St. Maries, Idaho.
Reports Come In Yet
But more reports continued to come spinning in, most of them as elusive and varied as the reported missiles themselves.
A Rutland, Vt., woman said she saw a brilliant object in the night sky which she assumed to be a "flying saucer," although it was stationary.
At Cambridge, Mass., a housewife said she saw "a group of white flying saucers whirling around and going at a tremendous speed."
Harvard university astronomical observatory took note of New England’s entrance into the game of "spinning the platter," but said it had had no luck so far in photographing one of the discs.
Curbstone explanations of the phenomena ranged from the theory they were radio-controlled flying missiles sent aloft by U.S. military scientists to the suggestion they might be merely sunlight reflected from the wing tanks of jet-propelled planes.
The mysterious saucers first were reported June 25 in the state of Washington, but Charlie T. Hamlet, superintendent of the Kingsport, Tenn., Times-News composing room, said he had seen the discs two years ago.
They were "of a bright, aluminum color" and "were going at a terrific speed," Hamlet said, explaining he kept quiet about them because of the Oak Ridge atomic bomb plant, then a war secret.
Aluminum Discs Seen
Norman Hargrave, a Houston, Tex., jeweler, told a Chronicle reporter Sunday that he had found an aluminum disk floating near the beach while he and his wife were walking along the beach.
He said the disk was about 20 inches in diameter and six inches thick.
Monday, however, Hargrave said it was all just a joke.
But the Chronicle, in its final edition Monday pointed out that "there are some mysterious facts contained in his (Hargrave’s) first report that lend credence to the tale."
Hargrave reported the disk bore this inscription:
"Military secret of the United States of America, army air forces M 4339658. Anyone damaging or revealing description or whereabouts of this missile subject to prosecution by the United States government. Call collect at once LO446 army air forces depot, Spokane, Washington."
Officer Denies Report
In big letters, Hargrave said were plainly printed "nonexplosive."
At Spokane, Col. Frank D. Hackett, commanding officer of the Spokane air depot, told the Associated Press late Monday that he knew "nothing about" the reported finding of a flying disk on the Texas Gulf coast other than that his public relations office had received a call from the Houston Chronicle.
Source: The Oregonian, Oregon - 8 Jul 47
Guard Planes Plan Search
Pictures Sought Of Mystery Discs
Northwest national guard air squadrons went on an emergency footing Monday, determined to keep Oregon, Washington and Idaho skies under constant surveillance until the mystery of the "flying saucers" is solved.
Fighter groups from Portland, Boise and Spokane began arranging sector patrols designed to include every portion of the Northwest in a systematic search for the strange aerial visitors.
Col. G.R. Dodson, commander of Portland's 123rd fighter squadron, was in close communication with Col. Tom Lamphier, leader of the 190th squadron at Boise, and Col. Frank Frost, Spokane squadron commander. The top air officers plotted the areas in which the discs have been reported and made plans for regular patrols by fast, camera-equipped warplanes in "flyways" established along the Columbia river from Walla Walla to the sea and from Puget Sound south to headwaters of the Willamette river.
Additional supplies of movie film for the planes gunsight movie cameras was being flown here from Washington, D.C., the officers reported.
Disc Contact Hoax
Earlier in the day Col. Robert Delashaw and Maj. David Warwick, regular AAF officers attached to the ONG fighter squadron as instructors, took two P-51s up for a fruitless search flight over Portland after a report that an unidentified object had been sighted in the sky above the Eastmoreland golf course.
Additional supplies of movie film for the planes' gunsight movie cameras are expected to arrive Tuesday by air express from Washington, D.C., squadron headquarters announced.
Colonel Dodson said he had been informed by telephone from Spokane that Colonel Frost led two search missions in flights over the St. Maries, Idaho, area where picnickers Sunday reported seeing eight huge, shining discs land in a dense forest. The searchers found nothing, he said.
The story of a P-38 tangling with one of the hurtling hallucinations while engaged in aerial mapping at 32,000 feet over Montana also proved to be a complete hoax.
Russell Baird, pilot of the photographic plane at Bozeman, Mont., said he was "just sitting around the hangar gassing" and somebody must have told the tale to the newspapers.
Source: Racine Journal Times, Wisc. - 8 Jul 47
* * * *
GLENVIEW, Ill. (UP) -- Camera-equipped Navy fighting planes are standing by to track down any flying discs reported in the Chicago area, the Naval Air Reserve Station here said.
Source: Racine Journal Times, Wisc. - 8 Jul 47
* * * *
WASHINGTON (UP) -- Official Washington was sure today that it knew what the flying saucers were NOT -- but it hadn't the faintest idea what they were.
The Army Air Forces said preliminary study has revealed that the flying discs are NOT:
1. Secret bacteriological weapons designed by some foreign power.
2. New-type Army rockets.
3. Space ships.
Canada:
Source: Windsor Daily Star, Canada - 8 Jul 47
Two More Reports
More flying saucers hovered over Windsor about 5:35 last night, according to Breen Hogan, 692 Hall avenue.
Breen saw them from her bicycle and told her mother and father and three neighbors who all watched the objects move toward Sandwich. Breen described them as being "longer than they were wide, and of a silver blue color."
A Norman road resident who refused to allow her name to be published, told The Star today that she saw a "saucer" in the sky about 11:30 Saturday night as she stood at the back door of her home. It appeared off and on for about 10 minutes and looked like a second moon, she said. It was silvery in color and about the size of the moon and darted in and out among the clouds. This woman said the "saucer" gave off a blurred light and that it appeared perfectly round and had no streamer.
Source: Windsor Daily Star, Canada - 8 Jul 47
Over Lake St. Claire
BELLE RIVER -- Two flying discs were spotted over Lake St. Clair opposite Lake View Park, between 9 and 9:15 p.m. Sunday.
A Belle River business man and a Star correspondent watched two glowing objects manoeuvre high in the air over the lake for 10 minutes. Both objects appeared to be equal, about 15 to 18 inches in diameter. They threw off a "light bluish glow."
They came so close together that sometimes they appeared to touch. One man ran home for a camera but the discs had disappeared to the north by the time he had returned.
Mexico:
Source: Salt Lake Tribune, Utah - 8 Jul 47
Mexico Sees Them
MEXICO CITY. July 7 (AP) -- Seven flying disc-shaped objects have been reported sighted over northwestern border cities, Francisco Ernetso Duran, announcer for radio station XEFI of Chihuahua City, reported Monday.
Duran said five of the mysterious saucers, dubbed "discos valadoren" in Spanish, were reported seen in recent days over Mexicali and two over Cludad Juarez.
New Hampshire:
Source: Nashua Telegraph, New Hampshire - 8 Jul 47
Dog Points Way To One Of Flying Discs, Says Owner
Now dogs are seeing 'em!
The "flying saucers" have finally reached Nashua, but so far the only witness seems to have been a dog, although his testimony is partially corroborated by a housewife.
A Nashua woman reported to her husband yesterday that she thought she had seen one of the mysterious discs after she noticed the family bow-wow behaving "peculiarly." The dog, she said, kept looking up at the sky. She looked too, and there, -- she thought -- was one of the discs.
The dog had no comment.
Connecticut:
Source: Meridien Record, Connecticut - 8 Jul 47
"Flying Discs" Seen Zooming Across Sky Over Meridien
By daylight and by darkness at least half a dozen Meridien residents have descried mysterious objects in the sky which they describe as "flying saucers," whose presence has been variously reported from many sections of the country.
Tony Gamino of 261 Cook Avenue and Stanley Zukerman of Laurel Heights were standing at the corner of Summer and Cook Avenue about 7 o'clock last night when they saw what they described as a "flying disc" going south.
"It was about over the railroad tracks, quite high up and going very fast toward Wallingford," said Mr. Gambino. "We both saw it. It looked white as if the sun were shining on it. I never saw anything like it before."
What appeared to be a flying disc going north was glimpsed by Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Jordan of 20 North Court, Yale Acres, who spotted the object Thursday night as they were putting their car in the garage. What they saw, said Mr. Jordan, appeared to be the third of a circle, the other two-thirds being obscured by a cloud.
"We watched it for two or three minutes and wondered what it was," said Mr. Jordan. "It was coming from the direction of Wallingford, and appeared to be traveling at a great speed."
The object appeared to resemble the reflection of a searchlight, but it was not so large, said Mr. Jordan.
A woman who called the Record reported that she had seen what she described as a "flying disc" in the Southwest sky early Sunday evening. Another person reported seeing two flying discs in the vicinity of Westfield. "They appeared to be passing each other out," she said.
Massachusetts:
Source: Boston Globe, Mass. - 8 Jul 47
Over Charles River
Five flying saucers traveling about 300 miles per hour while several thousand feet in the air were seen passing over the Charles River at the Harvard Bridge toward Cambridge at 2:10 p.m. today, according to Silas Flashman of 1216 Commonwealth av., Ailston, 28-year-old liquor salesman.
Flashman told the Globe that each of the disk-shaped objects seemed to leave a vapor trail in its path. He added that four Army planes flying in V-formation came along in the wake of the saucers, apparently following the objects.
New York:
Source: Salamanca Republican-Press, N.Y. - 8 Jul 47
Area Residents Tell of Seeing Lighted Discs
Now the saucers are flying over Western New York and Northwestern Pennsylvania.
Reports of sighting mysterious discs, zooming through the sky over nearby areas, came today from residents of four communities in this section. Bradford, Warren, Batavia and Warsaw observers told of seeing the "flying saucers" which have become a nation-wide mystery.
In Bradford, George Zenner said, he saw one of the objects while walking home along East Main street about 8:50 p.m. yesterday. "About the size of dinner plate, flat and shiny" was his description of the disc, which he said was flying at twice the height of a telephone pole. He said there was no noise, although he heard a "zip" as it went shooting off toward the Bolivar Run area.
In Warren, Richard Belts, a recent high school graduate, said he had sighted a "saucer" last Thursday about 11 p.m. while riding in a car on Pennsylvania avenue. He did not report it until he later heard radio reports about the discs.
In Batavia, a family of three said they had seen a saucer-like object streak across the horizon on the night of June 29. They said it was less than two feet in diameter, greenish blue in the center, circled by orange. They, too, did not report it until they had read accounts of "flying saucers" being seen elsewhere.
In Warsaw, a businessman said he had spotted several illuminated discs while driving home from a meeting of county firemen last Friday night. His car was midway between Arcade and North Java at the time. The brightness of the moon was nothing to the white light that came from the discs, he recounted.
Pennsylvania:
Source: Connellsville Daily Courier, Penn. - 8 Jul 47
Two Persons Report Seeing Discs Over City During Monday
Those "saucers" were over Connellsville again yesterday.
That information came from Leroy Peterson and Joe Pilla, both residents of the North End of the city.
First information that the mysterious objects in the sky had been sighted here at all came yesterday from Mrs. G.E. Hart of Poplar Grove, who reported she had seen them about two weeks ago but had said nothing because she didn't attach too much importance to the fact and also because her husband had been inclined to laugh when she told him.
At 4:45 o'clock Monday afternoon Leroy Peterson called this his office to say that at that very moment he was watching the discs -- "right over the Narrows."
"You ought to come down and see them for yourself," is what he told a Courier reporter.
"They looked like pie-pans to me," related Peterson.
He said it was difficult to follow the discs because of the misty weather.
Before the phone conversation was concluded he said, "now they're going out of sight."
At 8 o'clock in the evening Joe Pilla called Radio Station WCVI here to report he was then watching the strange phenomena. Pilla lives in the veterans' housing project near Fayette Field.
He told the operator at the station that the objects looked "like pans" and that they seemed to be "going up Fayette street."
Source: Huntingdon Daily News, Penn. - 8 Jul 47
Countian Joins Ranks Of 'Saucer Spotters'
Mrs. Harry Theys of Robertsdale joined the ranks of serious "saucer spotters" on Sunday night when she evidently became the first Huntingdon County citizen to observe the "flying disc" phenomenon that is presently taking the nation by storm.
Mrs. Theys was hanging up laundry in her backyard at about 11:30 p.m. when she suddenly noticed something moving through the clouds. When she saw it again through a break in the clouds, she observed that is was a circular object about the size of her dishpan with a white ring around it.
Mrs. Theys watched it for a minute and then ran inside to tell her husband about what was happening overhead. But by the time he arrived outside he was unfortunate enough to get only a fleeting glimpse as the "dishpan" faded away. Mrs. Theys claims it made two sweeping circles and then disappeared.
Source: Titusville Herald , Penn. - 8 Jul 47
Meadville Man Sees Playful 'Flying Disk'
MEADVTLLE, July 7 (AP) -- D.W. Hall of Meadville, R. 2 reported that a "flying saucer" which disported itself over his home, six miles west of Meadville, was in a playful mood.
"It just skipped around and about away up in the sky," he said. "First it would seem as thin as a pencil, then it would take on oval shape. It looked about as big as a saucer.
"It seemed to have some sort of a hazy mist of its own and would dart in and out of it."
He said the "saucer" played about over his home for more than ten minutes.
Source: Altoona Mirror, Penn. - 8 Jul 47
Flying Saucers Are Seen Over Battlefield
GETTYSBURG, Pa, July 8 (UP) -- Six flying saucers did a low altitude, formation maneuver over the Civil war battlefield here yesterday, according to 18 Gettysburg college students.
The students said they were picnicking on the historic battlegrounds late in the afternoon and saw six "gray, shiny" discs dart across the sky, "rolling as they flew."
Frank Toms, a senior, said he saw saucers twice and "each time they were traveling In two distinct groups."
"I should say they were about 6 inches in diameter and about 150 to 200 feet above the ground," Toms added.
Maryland:
Source: Cumberland Evening Times, Maryland - 8 Jul 47
Snallygasters Next
Flying Discs Reported Seen Moving Across Cumberland
As forecast in the Evening Times of yesterday some Cumberland folks today reported they have seen the flying saucers.
From Mrs. John Hitchins, 238-1/2 Bond Street, comes word she saw a black disc object, "definitely not an airplane", pass across the sky June 27.
Mrs. R.G. Yancey, 522 Washington Street, reports that on June 26 she saw a round golden-colored object fly across the sky at an extremely fast pace.
As the flying saucer mystery continues it is reported from Middletown, Md., that residents there aren't much impressed about the discs as they remember the snallygastsers. And, compared to snallygasters, flying discs and flying saucers sound pretty tame.
The first snallygaster (snallygaster bovalopus) made its appearance in Middletown in 1909 and periodically ever since has swooped down from the skies to terrify Middletown and neighboring communities. The creature's last foray was in 1932, when observers reported it was wearing water wings and riding a bicycle.
It was seen on this occasion by the late Charles F. Main who said he saw the creature flying not more than 25 feet from the ground.
He said its wing spread appeared to be between 12 and 14 feet. At times, he said, it threw out long streamers like the arms of an octopus, but would draw them in again.
The snallygaster, he added, changed color several times, first appearing as black and then as white.
Mr. Main's son, who has succeeded his father in the ice-cream business, was asked yesterday whether he thought the flying saucers could be related to the snallygaster.
He hesitated to give an opinion.
"My father often spoke of it," he said, "But I have never seen a snallygaster, and I have never seen a flying saucer. I really can't say."
Later in 1932 a snallygaster died what then was described as "a horrible death," when it drowned in a moonshiner's vat full of hot mash.
George T. Danforth, who at that time was in charge of the Hagerstown prohibition office, and his agent, Charles E. Cushwa, reported the creature's demise. Both men are well known here.
The snallygaster circled for sometime above the 2,500-gallon vat, apparently attracted by the fumes. Finally, however, the fumes became so strong, and the creature fell directly into the mash.
Danforth and his agent rushed from their hiding place in the woods to find that the mash had eaten all the flesh away from the creature, leaving only its skeleton.
The remains of the snallygaster were lost to science when Danforth -- carrying out his prohibition duties -- ordered the vat and contents destroyed with a large charge of dynamite.
Residents that year were happy to learn that the snallygaster had been exterminated.
Then somehow or other, it was learned that it had left a number of eggs, which take anywhere from 15 to 20 years to hatch.
In 1944, for a short time, Westminster suffered a snallygaster scare.
The creature ultimately, however, was identified as a wildcat.
Virginia:
Source: Kingsport News, Tennessee - 8 Jul 47
Several In Richmond See 'Flying Saucers'
Richmond. Va. (AP) -- Several Richmonders Monday joined the growing throng of people who claim to have seen the whirling, dipping "flying saucers" which have been popping up all over the nation.
C.M. Grizzard, a telegraph operator at Broad Street Station, said he watched a flying disk dashing off to the east at 1:15 p.m. Sunday. Louis Gordon, who lives near the James River, declared he saw a disk at night time -- between 9:30 and 10 p.m. -- about two weeks ago.
But one fellow who saw the traveling saucers scoffs at the complicated explanations now going the rounds. O.H. Gresham, another Richmonder, says the saucers are nothing more than small, white clouds which chase each other around the horizon when the wind and sun conditions are right.
South Carolina:
Source: Charleston Courier, S.C. - 8 Jul 47
Darlington Woman Sees More Discs
DARLINGTON July 7. Special -- Two Darlington county residents within a period of only a few hours have reported seeing flying objects in this section of South Carolina.
Late last night Mrs. James Howle, of Montclare, reported that she saw a bright, round object moving across the elements and illuminating the sky. The object was going in a northeasterly direction. Shortly afterwards a plane was seen in the path of the object.
Mrs. Howle said the object was so bright that after it had disappeared there was a blueness in its place. She became quite excited upon discovering the strange object.
Later yesterday, J.U. Watts, Jr., Darlington attorney, who is associated with the law firm of State Senator James P. Mozingo, III, saw approximately a dozen wing-shape formations flying around 3,000 feet in the sky.
Source: Charleston Courier, S.C. - 8 Jul 47
'Flying Saucers' Reported Again
Flying saucers continued to whiz over Charleston yesterday, citizens in various parts of the county reported.
J.J. Kornahrens, who operates a filling station on the dual highway near Goose Creek, said last night he saw two shining objects about the size of saucers flying high above the creek about 5 p.m. He estimated they were from half a mile to three-fourths of a mile apart. They made no noise.
Mr. Kornahrens tried to point them out to passing motorists but these paid no attention, he said.
A shining object like a silver bird, traveling fast over Charleston toward the east was seen about 7:04 o'clock last night by Miss Mary Strickland, of 27 1-2 Hanover street, as she was returning from a service at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
With two of her sisters, Miss Strickland was in Amerherst street when her attention was called to a rainbow. While looking at it, she exclaimed, "Look at the silver bird." She said the shining object was moving between two clouds, without any noise that she could hear. She said it was not a plane.
Meanwhile word came from H.L. Babson, of 30 Madden drive, a crane operator, that on Saturday about 6 p.m. while fishing with another man in Pinopolis lake near Moncks Corner, he saw an object like a "shiny clam" flying through the sky headed east toward Charleston. His attention was first called to it by his companion.
Mr. Babson described the object as perhaps measuring 10 by 10 feet. The front looked larger than the back, and the top was flat and the bottom rounded.
It was not an airplane, Mr. Babson said. Besides flying much faster than a plane, it made no noise. On the lake, one can hear planes before they come into sight and after they leave, he said.
Mr. Babson said last night he believed the object he saw might have been the same as that witnessed Saturday about 6:17 p.m. by J.P. Cameron, at Byrnes Downs and the one seen about 6:20 over Charleston by Mr. and Mrs. S.A. Cothran.
Youngest Charlestonian to report anything resembling a flying saucer is Stewart Oltmann, six-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. William H. Oltmann, Jr., of Byrnes Downs.
Stewart dashed into the house yesterday morning when the family was having breakfast, at about 8 o'clock, and announced that he had seen an airplane without any wings.
The Oltmanns ran into the yard but whatever he had seen was gone, perhaps behind a cloud.
Mrs. Oltmann said the child had not heard anyone talk about the saucers and had no reason to report a wingless plane unless he had seen something resembling one.
Ohio:
Source: Massillon Evening Independent, Ohio - 8 Jul 47
-- Massillon Joins The List --
At Last, The 'Flying Saucers' Invade City!
The mysterious "flying saucers" which have been mystifying persons in all but five states in the country since they were first sighted two weeks ago, have reached Massillon, according to reports from several local residents who have observed eerie looking lights in the sky.
Approximately 10 residents in the northeastern part of the city have reported seeing the flying discs which have baffled science and made sky watching a favorite outdoor sport.
A local business man and members of his family observed what they described as a large hat, shining like a mirror in the sky, northeast of Akron, Monday about 7:30 a.m. The observers could not determine
whether the bright object rode in the clouds and disappeared or disintegrated in the air.
ANOTHER Massillon family sighted a yellow light, resembling an airplane, in the direction of a section of the city formerly known as Brookfield, last Thursday about 10 p.m. while gathered on their front porch. The light which appeared to weave among high places in the distance was first thought to have been an airplane but the sound of a motor could not be distinguished.
Five Ohio State university students reported they saw saucers streaking across the sky Monday evening as they batted baseballs on the practice diamond south of the stadium.
Previously, the discs had been reported over Dayton, Cincinnati, Youngstown, Akron, Springfield, Zanesville and Fremont.
Source: Sandusky Register Star, Ohio - 8 Jul 47
"Flying Saucers" Missing Sandusky? Area Reports 'Em
Although "flying saucers" have been reported seen in various parts of the country and even as near as Norwalk and Fremont, the elusive objects have failed to visit the nearby Sandusky community, a city-county survey showed today.
Officials at both Sandusky and Hinde-Dietrich airports as well as the local police and sheriff's departments have received no reports of the flying "will-o-the-wisps." Airport officials said flight ceiling was low Saturday and Sunday when the "saucers" were reported seen in adjoining counties.
Neighboring accounts follow.
------------
NORWALK, July 8 -- Two Huron-co farm families, living seven miles south of here on the New State-rd, reported that they saw the saucer-like missile flying through the air Saturday night.
The two families, Mr. and Mrs. Walter J. Baker and son, Terry, 4-1/2, and Mr. and Mrs. Walter Hoyt, each said that "at first sight the two objects resembled a huge searchlight being flashed across the sky at an undetermined height."
The families then said they could discern two separate pairs of disc-like objects the size of a basketball, but flat in appearance. They said that one disc overlapped the other and travelled in opposite circular directions."
------------
FREMONT, July 8 -- Mr. and Mrs. Edward Jenck today made the first report of the mysterious "flying saucers" being seen in this area.
The couple and their daughter Jane reported they saw one of the discs -- orange hued -- flying south to north over their home. It was also reported brightly lighted.
------------
BELLEVUE, July 8 (UP) -- Mr. and Mrs. Don Swartz reported today that they observed "flying saucers" last night for nearly an hour while visiting, at the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Drohen, in nearby York-tp.
They described the objects as brilliant saucers in the western sky, but said they later appeared to change into streaks and beams of light.
Source: Marion Star, Ohio - 8 Jul 47
More Marion County Residents Report Seeing "Flying Saucers"
Two More Marion county residents reported today that they have witnessed the "flying saucer" phenomenon over the area. J.W. Campbell, president of the Campbell National bank at LaRue, and his assistant, Orville Boblenz, saw the saucers about 10:30 Friday night, Mr. Campbell said today. The two were about five miles apart when they noticed the unusual performance of what they took to be reflections in the sky.
Mr. Campbell explained that he was driving home from Morral when he saw the lights shining in front of his automobile. After he discovered it was not a reflection from lights of a car behind him he got out of the car, thinking there must be some birds flying low in front of his auto. When he saw the "things" from outside they appeared to be reflections in the sky, he said.
"They were about two feet long and very thin," Mr. Campbell said. "There must have been two or three of them. They were traveling very rapidly in the sky and seemed to circle back and forth, first bright then disappearing. I watched them for about three miles while I was driving south. Then a black cloud came across the moon and they disappeared. They seemed to be very distant in the sky. I believe they were reflections of some kind."
Mr. Campbell said the saucer resembled reflections from a light but that there was no beam leading to them. He hesitated to mention his experiences, he said, because he had heard no one else talk of the saucers. At the time he had not read any [Illegible] of the appearance of "flying saucers" over the country. When Mr. Boblenz [Illegible] mentioned seeing them at the same time, Mr. Campbell was [Illegible] his eyes were not playing tricks on him.
[Illegible] discovering that the saucers have gained nationwide [Illegible] past several nights in hopes of seeing more, but nothing has appeared.
Source: Toledo Blade, Ohio - 8 Jul 47
'Saucers' Reported Seen Near Marion
From The Blade Correspondent
MARION, O., July 8 -- Two Marion residents were added today to the growing number of persons who reported seeing the "flying saucers." They are the first to report from this locality.
Mr. and Mrs. Earl Huntsman reported they saw a number of the disks while driving near Iberia on their way home from Galion.
Indiana:
Source: Tipton Tribune, Indiana - 8 Jul 47
Mystery Deepens As Discs Reported Here
The mysterious flying saucers that are sweeping the nation have invaded Tipton county, two county residents reported today. One was reported seen Thursday night west of Tipton while the other was reported seen near Hobbs about three weeks ago.
Mrs. Harry Graham, who resides west of state road 213 on the first road north of state road 28, reported that she and her husband and her mother, Mrs. Inez Hobbs, watched the discs for 45 minutes three weeks ago tomorrow.
They first were noticed around 10 p.m. Mrs. Graham reported, and they resembled round, white lights but they lacked trails or glow. She described them as round and appearing about the size of a saucer or dinner plate.
The discs resembled the beam from anti-aircraft lights used in war time, Mrs. Graham said, across the sky from east to north.
Came in Groups
She said that they were "not too bright" and came in groups of three, fours, or fives. They were "not too high," she added.
Mrs. Louis W. Curtis, 411 South Independence street, wife of the former circuit court clerk, reported that she saw a disc Thursday about 6 p.m. as she returned from a trip to Kokomo.
Mrs. Curtis was driving east on state road 28 about one mile west of Tipton when she noticed a bright object traveling south through the sky at a high rate of speed.
The object was described as being oval-shaped and traveling very high. It appeared to be made of silver or aluminum and was not large enough to be an airplane. It made no sound.
No other reports have been received of flying discs over Tipton county.
Wisconsin:
Source: Harrisburg Daily Register, Ill. - 8 Jul 47
"DISC" WAS A SAW BLADE. Object reported as a "Flying Disc" which struck a Milwaukee, Wis., church turned out to be a circular saw blade with wire and two small tubes attached. Father Joseph Brasky of the church holds the "disc." (NEA Telephoto)
Source: Wisconsin State Journal, Wisconsin - 8 Jul 47
'Flying Discs,' Dime a Dozen, Are Worth $3,000 in the Hand
More "flying saucers" were reported hurtling through Wisconsin skies today but they were still a dime a dozen. There were no takers for three rewards that would make a genuine flying saucer -- in the hand -- worth $3,000.
In Milwaukee, the state Civil Air Patrol (CAP) decided to do something about it and scheduled a mass flight of "about 250 planes" Monday to try to chase a few. Some of the pilots here, however -- like most Madison scientists -- remained skeptical.
Although the "flying saucers" now have been reported in almost every state, there has been only one authenticated case -- that of a Pittsburgh man. His were thrown by his wife. He got a divorce.
Learns Of Alert
Dr. Reginal Jackson of the Madison Civil Air Patrol first learned of the alert for Monday's flight from The State Journal.
"I'll take along my shotgun," he proposed. He was unable to estimate how many of the 50 members here would participate.
As army air and ground forces revealed they were investigating the reported cloud-hopping disks with an open mind, two veteran fliers at Elkhorn and Burlington turned in reports that led to the CAP'S planned flight.
Kenneth Jones, a flight instructor at Elkhorn air service, and Capt. R.J. Southey, Burlington, both saw rapidly-moving disks during plane trips Monday.
Saw White Ball
Janes said he was practicing take-offs and landings with a student when he saw a "white ball" speeding along at about 3,000 feet.
When he heard of Jones' experience, Southey decided to "go up and look around." He and Clem Hackworthy, Wauwatosa, spotted a fast-moving, "silver thing" over Eagle. Southey turned the controls over to Hackworthy and tried to photograph it but it vanished and reappeared 6 seconds later 10 miles away from his plane.
That was when Lieut. Col. Harry Schaeger, CAP wing commander in Milwaukee, ordered the flight for Monday.
Three Milton, Wis., college students late Monday reported seeing three flying discs in a V-formation coming from the northwest and heading in a westerly direction.
The students were Paul Schroeder, Milton, and John Potts and Harris Buros, Viroqua.
They had just finished a tennis game at Milton college when Potts sighted the disks.
Schroeder said he and Buros thought at first their classmate was kidding them until they saw the objects.
Schroeder watched the disks for full two minutes before they were blocked out behind tall buildings, he said.
Circular, Rotating
He described them as circular in shape and rotating slowly. He said they left a vapor trail behind.
He claims they looked like aluminum, and judged they were about 10 miles away at an altitude of some 4,000 feet.
"From that distance they were about the size of a basketball," he said.
"It sounds like a figment of the imagination, but they were there just the same."
In Madison, scientists were doubtful -- but cautious.
"Lots of natural phenomena could be distorted into something like this," explained Prof. Harry Harlow of the University of Wisconsin psychology department. "There have been many instances of such things in history, things like the Loch Ness monster that everyone 'sees.' To me, the reports sound mighty like curiosity or publicity-seeking.
"Of course, you can never be sure that something does not exist; but you can be awfully suspicious."
Wait the Word
At the North hall weather station, meteorologists were waiting words from big bureaus at Washington and Chicago that might throw light on the mystery. The large bureaus are checking weather conditions accompanying each report in hopes of finding a thread of coincidence, George Jenkins reported.
"Some of the people might be seeing 'ball lightning' -- but that's very rare in itself and many of the 'saucers' reportedly were spotted in fair weather," he puzzled.
Astronomers insisted the "saucers" could not be meteors and officials at Washburn observatory -- who were pretty reluctant to discuss the whole thing -- hadn't seen a one.
Meanwhile, the mystery of the saucers took on an international flavor.
The disks, already reported over most of the 48 states and parts of Canada, were reported over Mexico City. Several persons telephoned the Mexican national defense ministry to report the disks flying "in a westerly direction." A ministry spokesman said he didn't believe them.
Scoffed by Red
Russian Vice Consul Eugene Tunantzev in Los Angeles scoffed at suggestions that the saucers might be from Russia.
In Sydney, Australia, F.S. Cotton, psychology professor, told 450 students to go stare at the sky and see if they could spot any flying saucers. Within 10 minutes, 22 students returned, reported that they had seen the saucers and drew diagrams of the objects and their paths.
"What you have seen were red corpuscles moving across the retinas of your eyes," Cotton said. "You can now draw your own conclusions from reports from overseas."
Source: Rhinelander Daily News, Wisc. - 8 Jul 47
State Planes to Hunt Data on Puzzling Discs
MILWAUKEE, July 8 (AP) -- Lt. Col. Harry W. Schaffer of the Wisconsin civil air patrol announced last night his group planned to conduct a series of mass flights in hopes of learning something about the mysterious "flying discs".
The announcement followed reports by two experienced pilots that they had sighted "discs" in Wisconsin.
Schaeffer said he expected the mass flights to start next Monday and continue about a week. About 150 planes are expected to participate, he said.
The state C.A.P. will discuss the plans at a mobilization in Marshfield Saturday.
Kenneth Jones, flight instructor at the Elkhorn air service, Elkhorn, and Capt. R.J. Southey of Burlington were the pilots who said they sighted the "discs."
Jones said he was flying about 400 feet when he saw a "white ball" traveling at a terrific speed about 10 to 15 miles north of Elkhorn.
Southey said he had landed at the Elkhorn airport and heard of Jones' experience. He and Glen Hackworthy, Milwaukee, took off and climbed to about 3,600 feet.
Southey said he saw a "silver thing" moving at a great speed. He turned the controls over to Hackworthy and prepared his camera in hope of getting a picture but the object disappeared, he said, adding it re-appeared six or seven seconds later approximately ten miles away.
Source: Wisconsin State Journal, Wisc. - 8 Jul 47
Couple Sees 'Flying Disc' Over Madison
A "flying saucer" -- round, bright, and about 4 feet across -- was watched maneuvering over Madison for about 20 minutes Friday night by Mr. and Mrs. William Ecker, 2071 Winnebago St., Ecker told The Wisconsin State Journal today.
The "saucer" was first spotted by Mrs. Ecker, who called her husband to see it flying in a circle over the city, a mile southeast of their home.
"It would fly in a circle for about 5 minutes and then shoot off a mile directly south, tear back again, stand still for about a half-minute, and then start circling again," Ecker said.
"We saw it make three trips that way. The last time, it went south again and vanished. It was going very fast I'd say it made that mile in, at most, a quarter-minute. It was about the altitude of the mail plane and we saw it about the same time -- 9:30 p.m."
Ecker is convinced that the saucer was not a weather phenomenon and he's pretty sure that it's not a foreign weapon.
"If it were from Russia," he said, "the armed forces would be lot more excited about it. I think it is some device our government is testing."
Source: Racine Journal Times, Wisc. - 8 Jul 47
Discs Blush Over Racine
Racine presented America's first flying disc in technicolor Monday night.
Four calls, three to the Journal-Times and one to the sheriff's department, reported that a mysterious bright object was passing over the county on a southwest to northeast course. Unlike the nationally accepted, or standard brand flying discs, which are a colorless silver or white, Racine night-blooming discs were red!
Over Sturtevant, Too
Two persons who refused to give their names called the newspaper officer shortly after 9 p.m. and reported a round, red object in the sky. One saw it over Sturtevant, and another over the WRJN transmitter.
Glenn Jensen, who lives near the Horlick Dam, called a few minutes later, to report "a round, red thing, like a flare with two smaller white things above it" passing over the Jensen home. He said that the general direction of whatever he saw was from southeast to northwest. He said that his wife and a neighbor had seen the same thing.
Jensen said he has lived near the Horlick-Racine Airport for several years, and knows an airplane motor when he hears one. And he heard absolutely nothing when the "red thing" was passing over his home. The airport reported this morning that no landings were made at the field last night.
In Technicolor
Later in the evening, a man called the sheriff's department and told the desk sergeant that he saw flying discs over Wind Point on the lakeshore. He said his name was Dewey Trout, but he had no time to give his address. He was going outside and look for more.
Mrs. George Bell, 1419 Racine St., and Elmer Acklam, elevator operator at the Court House, reported today that they had seen the flying discs.
"I was up on the seventh floor looking out of a west window at 11:30 a.m. Monday when I was attracted by a blinding flash in the sky," asserted Acklam.
Mrs. Bell was looking in the western sky at 10 a.m. today and saw the reflection from a silvery flying disc.
R.J. Southey of Burlington was one of two pilots who reported seeing a "silver thing" moving at a great speed over the Elkhorn Airport. But Racine, the city of golf tournaments in December and ski slides in July, will have none of these ordinary silver gadgets. We got 'em in technicolor.
Source: Monroe Evening Times, Wisc. - 8 Jul 47
Seen at Albany
Peculiar objects sighted Saturday night at Albany in the eastern sky may or may not have been the mysterious "flying discs" being reported from various parts of the nation.
Some time after 9 o'clock, Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Peckham and Garland Rankin, in different parts of the village, report having seen "a dancing light" in the sky. No particular shape could be attached to the objects as they moved gracefully in oval flight pattern, through white clouds. Little thought was given to the sight until newspaper articles this week carried stories about the flying saucer.
Source: Wisconsin State Journal, Wisconsin - 8 Jul 47
Betty Cass
Madison Day By Day
As we were saying Monday in our news story about Professor McGilvary when the paper so suddenly went to press and left us talking to ourself...
Even after the first stories about the "flying saucers" appearing in the northwestern part of the country appeared in the papers... even then Professor McGilvary didn't talk about what he'd seen at Mrs. North's home, and for two reasons. First, he did not think it was of any importance to anyone and, second, he is extremely reticent about receiving any publicity. It was only after much persuasion, then, that he told us anything about his experience, and we aren't one to let a little thing like a paper going to press keep us from telling a good story, so today we go on with the details.
For those who "came in late," or didn't read the front page of yesterday's paper, however, what Professor McGilvary saw, late one evening about three weeks ago, was a round, illuminated object about two-thirds the size which the moon normally appears. If you think of the moon as being the size of a dinner plate, as many people do, what Professor McGilvary saw was about the size of a salad plate rather than the size of a saucer. It was also about the same color and degree of brilliance as the moon, and while it moved across the sky rapidly, it did not move as fast as a meteor, nor did it leave a trail of light as a meteor docs. Also it seemed to be illuminated, either from within itself or from without, instead of to have the fiery quality of a meteor.
So much for Professor McGilvary's having seen a strange phenomenon in the sky several days before the "flying saucers" were reported in the papers, and for his having a witness to having seen it... although anyone who knows Professor McGilvary would believe whatever he said, WITHOUT a witness. Now for what he thinks about what he saw.
After being as reluctant to discuss the probable source of the so-called "flying saucers" as he was to tell about his own sight of one, he said that he did not think they were "natural" astronomical phenomena. He feels that man has had a hand in their production, in one way or another.
"One possibility," he said, "is that they may have been caused in some way by all the atomic bombing which has been done. It's a fantastic theory, of course, but it shouldn't be ruled out as a possibility yet. The second, and more common theory, of course, is that there are experiments being made in this country of which the general public does not know. And the third possibility is that the Russians may have developed some invention of which we know nothing. They may have made further developments in the balloons which the Japanese sent over this country during the war, or they may have improved upon the rockets which they were supposed to have sent over the Scandinavian countries a couple of years ago.
"Personally. I don't know of any reason why there should be, suddenly, after so many centuries, such an unusual astronomical display."
And Prof. Joel Stebbins, director of Washburn observatory at the university, backs him in that belief.
"I do not know of any astronomical origin for the phenomena, as described by the many people who have reported them," Professor Stebbins says, "and until I see one, myself, I cannot make any statement upon it. "When I do see one, then I'll tell you what I think about them."
Iowa:
Source: Burlington Hawk-Eye Gazette, Iowa - 8 Jul 47
Two Here See Disks
Iowa City, Ia. (AP) -- A University of Iowa engineering student said Tuesday that he and a fellow student "put over" a flying saucer hoax Monday night. He said small helium filled balloons were attached to several paper saucers and set adrift.
------------
Three of the so-called flying saucers were reportedly seen Tuesday morning over the city by Charlotte Loose, 1210 Pond street, and Mrs. Carl Metz, 801 S. 5th street.
Miss Loose said she and Mrs. Metz saw the flying disks from the yard of her aunt's home. The aunt is Mrs. L.H. Courtney, 806 S. 5th street. The disks were reported about 11:15 a.m.
Miss Loose said, "They were up high and traveling fast toward the south. They seemed to be almost as high as the sun and then as we watched them they disappeared. They were silver in color."
Source: Burlington Hawk-Eye Gazette, Iowa - 8 Jul 47
Daytime Stars
Iowa City (AP) -- Possibility that the "flying disks" may merely be stars which are visible in the daytime was suggested by Prof. C.C. Wylie of the University of Iowa astronomy department.
Wylie said he thought most of the stories were imaginative interpretations and a wrong concept
of facts by observers.
At the Iowa City airport, officials said that what several persons described as flying disks passing over the city Monday evening probably were observation balloons which may have been released from the Moline, Ill., airport.
Illinois:
Source: Harrisburg Daily Register, Ill. - 8 Jul 47
Dewey Dallas Family Reports Seeing 'Flying Saucer'
Dallasania Family Claims Observed Object In Air This Morning
Dewey Dallas, his wife and grandson saw a silver saucer flying through the air at 10:40 a.m. today, Mr. Dallas reported excitedly at The Daily Register office.
Mr. Dallas, who resides seven miles west of Harrisburg in Dallasania community, said he saw an aluminum colored object sailing north eastward at a terrific speed as he was driving on the blacktop road connecting Carrier Mills and Route 13.
"I always thought it was just a lot of talk about these flying saucers," Mr. Dallas declared, "but they're a fact. I saw one myself and my wife and grandson saw it too."
He declared they were driving home from Carrier Mills and were about a mile from Route 13 when Mrs. Dallas looked up, saw an object, and asked him: "What is that going through the air?"
Flat and Round
"I looked up, too, and there was a bright, aluminum object that looked about the size of a dishpan traveling northeast at a terrific speed. It was going so fast that we saw it for less than a minute."
Mr. Dallas said he couldn't estimate the height of the sailing saucer as he didn't know the size of the object.
"I couldn't see a thing on it," he declared. "It was just aluminum, flat and round."
Mrs. Dallas said, "it was just as plain as it could be."
And Dewey Robert Dallas, five-year-old grandson, substantiated what they saw. He saw it, too.
"I hesitated about coming to the Register office to tell you about it because I knew some people would laugh," Mr. Dallas said. "I always thought they were the bunk but they're not."
Source: The Dixon Telegraph, Ill. - 8 Jul 47
Dixon Joins "Flying Saucer" Line! See Objects Last Night
Only Five States Still to Join Mystery Line on Flying Discs
Dixon moved into line on the nation-wide "flying saucer" mystery jag today with the report from a woman who wished to remain anonymous that she saw the mysterious discs over her west side home shortly after 1 p.m. yesterday, and an unverified report that one of the saucers had been sighted near GROP last night.
The west side resident in a telephone call to The Telegraph at 10:25 p.m. yesterday said the discs were "moving back and forth" over her residence, and estimated their height as about "twice as high as the house." She said she noticed them while sitting in her yard. She first sighted them at approximately 10:22 p.m., she said.
Five States Untouched
Meanwhile, reports from residents throughout Illinois, as well as the rest of the nation describe the mystery objects as of various hues and sizes and cavorting in different ways, according to the Associated Press.
Thus far, the only states whose skies were still clear of the discs were Nevada, North Dakota, Mississippi, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
Some said they were gleaming objects while others describe them dark or red.
Jesse L. Henderickson and Frank Abrogast of Kankakee said the five discs they saw were about the size of dinner plates and were rolling along, giving off a bluish light from an altitude of 300 to 400 feet.
The one disc which Elmer H. Schirmer of Freeport said he saw was about 4,000 feet high and moving in a horizontal position, but it was not bright.
Wilbur Luckey, a farmer north of Rockford, said the one he spotted was shiny and had the appearance of a "large electric clock".
At Peoria, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Boyer said they observed a gleaming flat object, tilted in the direction of its flight, disappear behind a tree.
Forrest L. Higginbotham reported seeing "a long, straight line" of 25 to 50 discs above East Peoria about sunset yesterday but they were not moving.
Harry L. Spooner, who is active in the Peoria Historical Society reported that what he saw was a reddish object. It was flying near his home and making a ringing noise.
A brightly shining object "about a mile up", caught the attention of J.L. Star, restaurant owner at Glasgow in Scott county. With the aid of a portable telescope which he carries in his car, he said he saw a conically-shaped, high-polished object with a round base about 25 or 30 feet in diameter. He said it oscillated slowly then suddenly "began to move swiftly toward the west" at about 300 miles an hour.
Sight One in September
As long ago as last September, Charles Harwood an Elgin barber, his son Fred, and Arthur Beauvais, said their attention was attracted to a flying saucer as they were driving on the highway after a squirrel hunting trip. But before they could stop the car to observe the object more closely it had disappeared, they said.
But whatever their shapes, sizes or behavior, R.L. Farnsworth, a Chicago amateur astronomer and member of the U.S. Rocket Society suggested they might be animate and came from Venus or they might be electronic eyes from Mars.
It is possible, he added, that Venus had evolved a form of life able to fly by use of electric currents, such as a sting ray fish which has an electric charge. And if they really are fish from Venus, Farnsworth said, they might find themselves out of bounds in buzzing the earth because they might not be able to survive in its atmosphere.
Alabama:
Source: Anniston Star, Alabama - 8 Jul 47
Annistonians See Saucers; Jag Reels Across Nation
At Least Four Here Report Having Seen Flying Discs; One Guess Is As Good As Another On Reported Celestial Disturbance
Anniston today joined the constantly growing list of cities in which the mysterious "flying saucers" have been observed, with a report from Fain Cole, who today told The Star that he saw one of the discs several days ago.
Mr. Cole, operator of a store on the Jacksonville Highway, said today that he saw "a round silver colored object, high up in the sky, and moving at a terrific rate of speed" last Thursday just before dark.
The "flying saucer" was also seen by Mr. Cole's daughter, Mrs. Joyce Backus, who was helping Mr. Cole close the store for the day.
Mr. Cole said today that he had mentioned seeing the strange object to several friends, but had thought nothing more about it until reading of the nation-wide mystery of the "flying saucers" in yesterday's Star.
Others See Saucers
Mrs. Eula Anderson, of 600 Mulberry Street called The Star late yesterday and reported having seen a "flying saucer" similar to the one described by Mr. Cole Saturday.
Mrs. Estoria Phillips of 624 Noble Street (rear) made the latest contribution to the mystery. She stated today that as she was standing in her yard talking to a visitor about 11:30 o'clock, she saw a bright yellow ball rise in the northern portion of the sky and travel swiftly toward the southeast until it disappeared. Its path lay up above the lower clouds, she explained. Mrs. Phillips stated that the ball was seen by a number of others nearby.
Meanwhile, reports from people who have seen the flying discs continue to pour in from every part of the nation, according to Associated Press and United Press correspondents.
Missouri:
Source: Jefferson City Capital News, Mo. - 8 Jul 47
Seen In Capital City
Police received an urgent call last night from a woman who had just seen a "flying saucer" cruising around "a little to the south," she said.
This interrupted the usual routine a bit, as members of the force and others present in the police station scurried down the stairs and across the street, ready for their first look at a "saucer."
The flying disc, presumably of the luminous variety, had vanished by this time, however, and the small crowd which had gathered dispersed without enlightenment.
Although the saucers have been reported flying over St. Louis and Kansas City, this may be the first disc to have taken a spin out to the capital city.
Source: Joplin Globe, Mo. - 8 Jul 47
Saucers Reported in Kansas City Area
Kansas City, July 7 (AP) -- Reports of flying saucers were many and varied in the Kansas City area with observers estimating the discs as flying from two to 10,000 feet in the air.
Dr. David S. Long, Jr. of Kansas City reported seeing seven discs about the size of grapefruit moving north over Lake Lotawana early Sunday morning and later swimmers at the lake reported seeing a shining saucer flying at about 10,000 feet.
Other saucer-like objects were seen at Greenwood, Mo., and at Independence.
Arkansas:
Source: Northwest Arkansas Times, Ark. - 8 Jul 47
Shaped Like Dog
De Queen, Ark., July 8 (AP) -- J.G. Groves, a farmer of near De Queen, said today he had seen a "flying saucer" that was "shaped like a dog." Groves said the bright object passed over his house last night, moving northeast to southwest at high speed.
Source: Northwest Arkansas Times, Ark. - 8 Jul 47
Seen At Tontitown
Tontitown, July 8 (Special) -- One of the "flying saucers" was sighted here Sunday, it was learned today. Vincent Paul Pinallo, a veteran of the Army Air Forces, said he saw one of the saucers over his house. It was traveling through the air in a northerly direction, he reported, and at a "slow speed." He said it appeared to be about the size of an ordinary saucer and painted silver.
Texas:
Source: Lubbock Morning Avalanche, Texas - 8 Jul 47
Army Said Studying Object At Houston
Two 'Flying Discs' Said Found In State
(By The Associated Press)
TWO flying discs were reported found in Texas and at least one is being investigated by military officials as the total number of Texans claiming to have seen the mysterious objects passed the 50 mark Monday.
The discs were reported found on a beach near Trinity bay, near Houston, and near Hillsboro.
The Houston Chronicle said a great deal of mystery surrounded the one found near there by Norman Hargrave, a jeweler, Sunday. He first reported that he had found the aluminum disc floating near the beach while he and his wife were walking. He described it minutely, even giving an inscription he said it carried.
Story Given Backing
Monday he said it was all a joke, but The Chronicle, after extensive checking, said "there are some mysterious facts contained in his (Margrave's) first report that lend credence to the tale."
Hargrave first said the disc bore this wording: "Military secret of the United States of America, Army Air Forces M433-9685. Anyone damaging or revealing description or whereabouts of this missile subject to prosecution by the U.S. government. Call collect at once, LD446, Army Air Forces depot, Spokane, Wash." He said the words "non-explosive" also "were carried.
It was recalled that the initial reports of flying saucers or discs originated in the Spokane area.
The Chronicle, meanwhile, telephoned Spokane, and said it "brought interest" on the part of the commanding officer, but he would not confirm or deny that the missile may have carried the message. Later he referred Houston to Wright Field, Ohio, but the commanding officer there was out of town.
Army Said Investigating
In Houston, Col. R.W. Warren, commanding officer of Ellington Field, said he had been instructed by Washington to investigate.
Houston police would not say if they had the missile.
(In Spokane, Col. Frank D. Hackett, commanding officer of the Spokane Air depot, told the Associated Press that he "knew nothing about" the reported finding of a flying disc on the Texas Gulf coast other than that his public relations office had received a call from the Houston Chronicle.)
The San Angelo Standard Times said yesterday that an observer with the McDonald observatory situated a mile high in the Davis mountains at Fort Davis said the flying discs are "man made" and not any asteroid disturbance.
"Nothing which originates in the sky would behave in the manner the discs are reported to be going," the Standard Times quoted the McDonald observer as saying. The observatory, housing one of the largest telescopes in the world, would advance no theory about what the discs might be, the paper said.
The second flying disc was reported found by Bob Scott, a farmer living two and a half miles west of Hillsboro. He said the disc fell on his place Friday, and that it resembled a saucer. He said it was so bright, he could not look at it very long.
He said he was afraid people might believe he was "going to extremes in imagining things" and he told no one but his family until yesterday.
Then he notified O.F. Kissick and Joe Gerick, Hillsboro, who went to the field and investigated. Most of it had melted, they said. Gerick said one piece looked like tin foil, but when he picked it up, it appeared to be celluloid.
Other Reports Studied
Another development in Houston was a suggestion by Charles Odom, 23, Air Force captain in the last war, that the flying discs might be "crystal balls" similar to those he said were used by the Nazis.
He said those balls were electronically operated, and while in mid-air would send back to a radar screen on the ground the altitude, speed and other data of bombers it approached. He said the balls would fly up to the altitude of bombers, were apparently magnetized, and then flew along with the plane formations.
Odom is now with Pan American airways.
His suggestion brought a comment from Col. J.D. Ryan of the 8th Air Force, Fort Worth Army Air Field, that he had never seen such balls, nor had he ever heard of them, although he made about 60 missions.
Col. Ryan said the U.S. now uses a balloon sent aloft to gain such information. The balloon has a reflector on the bottom which is picked up by ground radar. He said they were made of rubber, but as they expanded they became opaque.
More Discs Reported
Meanwhile, more and more Texans reported seeing the flying saucers. Mrs. Sadie McCauley of Houston said she saw seven flying over Texas City at 4:05 p.m. Sunday. She said she and several other passengers on a bus saw them from the Alvin highway. She said they were flying in a single line.
Mrs. R.R. Whitlock of Bonham said she saw one Sunday at 6:10 p.m. She said it was heading south. She said it fit the "usual description."
G.B. Garrett of Corsicana said he had seen one of the discs June 26 near Madisonville. He said it was headed in the direction of Houston at an undetermined speed. He said it looked like a huge shiny mirror, silvery in color. He said he saw it long enough to know it was not an airplane.
Mrs. G.A. Tanner reported seeing a disc from the window of her home at Bryan about 3 p.m. yesterday. She said the object, headed south, was "bright like silver" and seemed to be painted at the back. She said the "saucer" waved like a kite as it disappeared to the south.
Flying discs also were sighted over Rockport and Arkansas bay about 2:15 p.m. on an erratic course.
Mrs. H.C. Mullinax said they appeared to be out of control and in a "tailspin." Two airplanes were in sight at the time, she said, but it was not known if they sighted the discs.
Her daughter, Ruthie Mullinax, 13, first sighted the flat-shaped object. The disc wobbled in from the sea at an estimated 5,000 feet, drove back offshore, then returned, she said. Mrs. Mullinax said it appeared to be about the size of a large dishpan despite the altitude. It had a bright reflecting surface, she related, and thin edge and appeared to settle in the bay or gulf beyond St. Joseph Island.
A flying disc was reported seen at Abilene at 7:10 last night by Mrs. Cap Newman and her grandson, James Williams, who said it was traveling east at a fast speed about 2,000 feet high.
The Abilene Reporter-News reported J.E. Hardee as saying a flying disc disintegrated south of his home three miles form Snyder. He said it broke into five or six pieces and melted.
Source: Neosho Daily Democrat, Mo. - 8 Jul 47
------------
Hillsboro, Texas -- A Hillsboro newspaper man has examined what he believes to be the remnants of a flying disk.
Dan S. Shults yesterday went to the farm of Bob Scott south of Hillsboro to investigate a report that Scott had found a strange object in his garden. The farmer told Shults he didn't see the object fall, but found pieces of a spidery, dusty material last Friday morning. He describes it as about the size of a table saucer and so bright he couldn't look directly at it.
He told the newspaper man he picked it up but that it did not burn his hands and slowly dissolved. He described the object as thick as four pieces of tinfoil and transparent when examined at the side.
Source: The Paris News, Texas - 8 Jul 47
Parisians Report Seeing Discs Flying Over City
What appeared to be two of the strange flying discs currently baffling the nation were reported by Parisians to have passed over the eastern section of the city Monday night -- with one of the objects hovering about for almost ten minutes.
The first disc was sighted about 9 o'clock by two families, Mr. and Mrs. George Mims, 1440 East Houston St., and Mr. and Mrs. Billy Mims, 2418 West Kaufman Street. The four were at the Houston Street residence when the mystery disc was seen.
"It resembled a whirling ball of fire, but was silver in color and had a tail of sparks," Mrs. Billy Mims said. She explained that the object was not very high, traveling north at super speed without any noise.
"The thing seemed to be going downward as it went along," Mrs. Mims declared.
The second disc-shaped object was reported seen by Mrs. Mary O. Doolin, 1744 East Booth St., about midnight. She said she noticed the revolving shape when she was awakened by the howling of some nearby dogs.
"As I laid back again, I saw a bright reflection coming closer and closer in the sky," Mrs. Doolin declared. "The object came up to where I could see it very good. It resembled the spinning arch made by the blades of an electric fan," she continued.
The mysterious object waved about the sky for "almost ten minutes, and then sped away into the distance," Mrs. Doolin said.
The two strange objects seen Monday are the second and third reported seen in this area within the past several days. The first was reported last week by Mrs. Jerrold Ray of Paris, Rt. 5, who described it as round-shaped and traveling at excessive speed.
Source: Harlingen Valley Morning Star, Texas - 8 Jul 47
BROWNSVILLE (UP) -- Things come big In the lower Rio Grande valley. Even flying saucers are big as dishpans.
Anyway that's what Jack Watson reported Monday about the flying whatsit he saw.
At first I thought It was an airplane but then saw It was shaped something like a dishpan," he said.
"Then it went behind a cloud. I darn near ran my car into the curb looking at it."
New Mexico:
Source: Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico - 8 Jul 47
Researcher Says He Saw Disc, Near White Sands
WASHINGTON, July. 7 (AP) -- Dr. C.J. Zohn, doing rocket work at the naval research laboratory here, related that last June 29 he and three others saw one of the "flying discs" about 20 miles from V-2 rocket testing grounds White Sands, N.M.
However, he said this was four days before the V-2 test for which he had gone to New Mexico and that it had nothing to do with any Navy experiments.
Source: Roswell Daily Record, N.M. - 8 Jul 47
RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region
No Details of Flying Disk Are Revealed
Roswell Hardware Man and Wife Report Disk Seen
The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today, that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer.
According to information released by the department, over authority of Maj. J.A. Marcel, intelligence officer, the disk was recovered on a ranch in the Roswell vicinity, after an unidentified rancher had notified Sheriff Geo. Wilcox here, that he had found the instrument on his premises.
Major Marcel and a detail from his department went to the ranch and recovered the disk, it was stated.
After the intelligence officer here had inspected the instrument it was flown to higher headquarters.
The intelligence office stated that no details of the saucer's construction or its appearance had been revealed.
Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wilmot apparently were the only persons in Roswell who saw what they thought was a flying disk.
They were sitting on their porch at 105 South Penn. last Wednesday night at about ten o'clock when a large glowing object zoomed out of the sky from the southeast, going in a northwesterly direction at a high rate of speed.
Wilmot called Mrs. Wilmot's attention to it and both ran down into the yard to watch. It was in sight less then a minute, perhaps 40 or 50 seconds, Wilmot estimated.
Wilmot said that it appeared to him to be about 1,500 feet high and going fast. He estimated between 400 and 500 miles per hour.
In appearance it looked oval in shape like two inverted saucers, faced mouth to mouth, or like two old type washbowls placed together in the same fashion. The entire body glowed as though light were showing through from inside, though not like it would be if a light were underneath.
From where he stood Wilmot said that the object looked to be about 5 feet in size, and making allowance for the distance it was from town he figured that it must have been 15 to 20 feet in diameter, though this was just a guess.
Wilmot said that he heard no sound but that Mrs. Wilmot said she heard a swishing sound for a very short time.
The object came into view from the southeast and disappeared over the treetops in the general vicinity of six mile hill.
Wilmot, who is one of the most respected and reliable citizens in town, kept the story to himself hoping that someone else would come out and tell about having seen one, but finally today decided that he would go ahead and tell about it.
The announcement that the RAAF was in possession of one came only a few minutes after he decided to release the details of what he had seen.
Source: Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Wash. - 8 Jul 47
'Flying Saucer' Is Found in New Mexico
Army Gives No Details Of Mystery
Roswell Air Base Officer Reports Object Found Last Week by Rancher Turned Over to Brass
ROSWELL, N.M. (AP) -- The army air force here Tuesday announced a flying disc had been found on a ranch near Roswell and is in army possession.
Lt Warren Haught, public information officer of the Roswell army air field, announced the find had been made "sometime last week," and had been turned over to the air field through cooperation of the sheriffs office.
"It was inspected at the Roswell army air field and subsequently loaned" by Maj. Jesse A. Marcel, of the 509th bomb group intelligence office at Roswell, "to higher headquarters."
The army gave no other details.
Statement Given
Haught's statement:
"The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th (atomic) bomb group of the 8th air force, Roswell army air field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriffs office of Chaves county.
"The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriffs office, who in turn notified Major Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th bomb group intelligence office.
"Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher's home. It was inspected at the Roswell army air field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters."
Name Withheld
The rancher's name and location of his place were withheld.
George Walsh of radio station KSWS which provided first news of the announcement said only Major Marcel, Col. W.H. Blanchard, commanding officer at Roswell air field, and the rancher had seen the object here.
Source: Oxnard Press Courier, Calif. - 8 Jul 47
Army Grabs New Mexico Flying Disc
BULLETIN
ROSWELL, N.M. (UP) -- Possession of a "flying disc" was disclosed today by the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Roswell Army Air Base.
Officers at the base say that the "disc" was flown in a Super-fortress to "higher headquarters" undisclosed.
The intelligence office reported that it gained possession of the "disc" through the cooperation of an unidentified Roswell rancher, on whose ranch it landed, and George Wilson, sheriff at Roswell.
Source: Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Wash. - 8 Jul 47
* * * *
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey said Tuesday that a battered object which previously had been described as a flying disc found near Roswell, New Mexico, is being shipped by air to the AAF research center at Wright Field, Ohio.
Idaho:
Source: Spokesman Review, Wash. - 8 Jul 47
Search Failure
ST. MARIES, Idaho. July 7. (AP) -- The search for eight or more "flying saucers" which were reported to have landed on a mountainside near St. Maries, Idaho, was called off today after both flyers and a ground party failed to find a trace of the objects.
Mrs. Walter Johnson of Dishman had reported that the saucers fell last Thursday near Butler's bay on the St. Joe river six miles west of St. Maries.
Sheriff Oron L. Thomas, who led a search party of a dozen volunteers into the area, said he was confident that the district was well covered. He said he felt satisfied areas -- he called them "flyways" -- were listed as:
The Columbia river gorge, where he said the disks were reported in east to west flight.
The coast area from Roseburg, Ore. to Seattle, Wash. where south to north flight was reported.
The Snake river area from Lewiston to Payette, Idaho, where south to north flight was reported.
Source: Twin Falls Times News, Idaho - 8 Jul 47
"Flying Saucers" Seen by 16 More Residents of Area
Eleven more Twin Falls residents and five Jerome persons
reported seeing the mysterious "flying discs" Monday night
and their descriptions of the discs, though varied, conform
with the tales of others who have reported seeing them.
Between 9 and 10 p.m. Monday, John Anderson, who had
been visiting friends at 232 Second avenue north, saw the
discs and called them to attention of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Fuller, Mr. and Mrs. George Magers, Mr. and Mrs. Otto Rice and Mrs. Clyde Green.
The discs were reported by Mrs. Fuller to have come from the west over the city at a high rate of speed and in small groups during the hour the group watched them.
Three were in formation as they were seen by Mrs. Fuller and the group passing out of sight east of the city.
Single Disc Reported
The size of the discs seen by the group were described as "small."
Near 11 p.m. three boys reported seeing a single disc which appeared about the size of a motor scooter wheel and white in color.
The single disc was reported by Jackie Gentry, 14, Jimmy Brennen, 15, and Bob Sandaw, 15.
The three discs seen in formation appeared to have had wings although the sky was overcast and they were seen from a great distance.
Other shimmering objects seen by Anderson and others present were believed to have been bats flying over the city and the "shimmery" lights about them was believed to have been neon reflections from the city streets. The erratic course followed by these latter "things" was given as a reason for not believing them to be "discs."
Three flying discs, with an apparent diameter of three feet each, were reported seen flying southwest at great speed and height at 10:58 p.m. Monday by five Jerome residents, Mr. and Mrs. V.L. Vinyard, Sr., and Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Vinyard and Gordon Hoferd. They said the discs could be seen very distinctly.
Source: Spokesman-Review, Wash. - 8 Jul 47
Five Hecla Men See Flying Disk
WALLACE, Idaho. July 7 -- The first report of a flying disk being seen in the Wallace area came this afternoon from five employees at the Hecla tailings plant, west of Osburn.
It was first spotted high in the air by Joe Vander Vloedt, screen operator at the plant, who called to other workers, Conrad Preston, C.J. Landis, Ervin Zorb and Eddie Jackson, who said they watched it for nearly two minutes until it disappeared over the hills of Terror gulch, heading in a westerly direction.
Vander Vloedt said he was first attracted by what he described as a "flash in the sky."
Reflections Seen
Landis, who called the Wallace Press-Times to report the incident, described it as a "circular plane," and said there was a reflection "each time it bobbled about in the air."
"It was traveling fast and was very high," said Landis. "There was no sound and the object would disappear momentarily; then flash brightly as it dipped or bobbled."
The men said a plane appeared about two minutes later, but it was traveling in a different direction and they doubted it was attempting to intercept the disk.
Utah:
Source: Salt Lake Tribune, Utah - 8 Jul 47
Night Discs In S.L. Iridescent
At night those discs become iridescent.
You have the word of about 15 men and women who were enjoying their hobby of horseback riding Monday between 8:30 and 9 p.m. at 13th South and 4th West. The party included some of the city's best known horsemen.
They spotted a "ball of fire" flying over the west portion of the city and headed roughly northwest.
"We noticed it first when it seemed to make a vertical drop of several hundred feet," explained one of the party, a former antiaircraft gunner in the recent war. "Then it leveled out and moved rapidly northward. It seemed to be dropping just north of the fairgrounds as best we would orient it by the spotlight at the Centennial exposition."
He said the "thing" remained in sight much longer than an airplane could, but was so far away it was impossible to gauge its size.
Arizona:
Source: Tucson Daily Citizen, Arizona - 8 Jul 47
Gathering Place Of News And 'Flying Saucers'
In the newsroom of the Daily Citizen two reporters, Ed Dougherty and Bob Brooks, examine the latest suspect in Tucson's chase of the illusive flying saucer. Into the room Monday was brought the city's only concrete answer so far to the mystery of the latest national puzzle, which over six Tucsonians have reported sighting in flight. It was found by Al Franco at his ranch 12 miles south near the Nogales highway. Investigation revealed the "thing" to be no mystery to those in the know. It is, says the weather bureau, a "radiosonde modulator," a device sent aloft by balloon six times a day by the weather prognosticators to aid them in telling us what gives with the weather. At the movie camera is Wayne A. Cayton, photographer for Robert Allen Color productions, who is presently engaged in filming a story on "Life in Tucson," to be shown at the Fox theatre July 23, 24, 25 and 26. (Photo by Reggie Russell.)
Source: Flagstaff Daily Sun, Arizona - 8 Jul 47
Arizonans See Flying Saucers In Backyards
Southwest Skies Crowded By Disks
(By The Associated Press)
Saucers, discs and what-have-you are zipping through Arizona's skies in amazing numbers, according to a host of persons who profess to have seen the weird contraptions.
John W. Phillips, Nogales contractor, and his assistant, William Barker, reported they observed a disc "flying high and fast in a southwesterly direction as if toward the Gulf of Lower California" about 9:45 a.m. today.
Three patients at the Veterans Hospital at Tucson said they saw a flying saucer at 4:50 p.m. yesterday. Lewis Zesper, a former Army pilot, described it as oval shaped, about 25 feet in diameter, light metallic grey in color and wobbly in flight. He estimated its altitude at 4,000 feet and its speed as in excess of that of conventional jet planes.
George B. Wilcox of Warren, a retired Army major, reported he observed eight or nine discs June 27.
"As they came," he said, "I saw they were perfectly spaced one behind the other and traveling at terrific speed. They passed over in intervals of three seconds. They were all the same size. They would flash and then disappear with the speed of lightning."
Gene Holder, game warden in the Winslow-Tonto rim area, asserted such sights as purported to have been seen recently were "old stuff." Thirty years ago, he said, he saw what appeared to be a bright silver plate flying a few hundred feet over his head as he rode horseback on Rye Creek, south of Payson. It might have been a meteorite, he said.
A score of persons reported seeing "silver balls" at about 5,000 feet elevation from offices in the Heard Building in Phoenix yesterday afternoon.
Several other reports of discs being seen came from the Phoenix area.
James Corn, police radio operator, reported receiving a call from a man who said, "A couple of flying saucers just went through my back yard."
"Are you sure they were saucers?" Corn asked.
"Sure, my wife just threw them at me," replied the wag.
Source: Arizona Republic, Arizona - 8 Jul 47
Airborne Objects Watched
TWO SILVERY balls flashed across the Salt River valley north of Phoenix at 3:30 o'clock yesterday afternoon -- and were watched for 25 to 30 seconds by a score or more person in the upper floors of the Heard Building.
All the witnesses were agreed on the main points:
FIRST ONE "ball was sighted, then the other. At first glance the objects were thought to be balloons -- until the extremely high speed of west-east flight was noticed.
Both objects appeared to be identical in size, were estimated to be at 5,000 feet altitude, and to be "about twice as large as an airplane."
THE OBJECTS were flying on two levels until near the end of the valley passage when the lower "ball" climbed sharply to the level of the upper.
The estimated distance traversed while they were under observation, and the endurance of the flight, indicated a speed well over 1,000 miles an hour.
SEVERAL OBSERVERS noted that at the time of the flight the air was so still that smoke columns rose straight to high altitudes and flags hung limp against their staffs. There was no noticeable air movement for an hour, when a rain storm began to approach the city from the northeast.
Nevada:
Source: Nevada State Journal, Nevada - 8 Jul 47
An Eyewitness Account of a Flying Disk
Tiny Speck Whizzes Across Sky Here at Unbelievable Rate of Speed; Many Reno Persons See Small Object
By JOHN BRACKET
Journal City Editor
Whizzing silently through the sky at a high altitude and at almost unbelievable speed, a flying disc or saucer -- or whatever those things are that have been seen during the past two weeks -- was seen for the first time in Reno yesterday.
I was one of the few people in Reno who saw the object streak across the blue sky yesterday morning, leaving intermittent trails of bluish-white vapor behind it.
Crosses Sky Twice
I watched it for less than two minutes. During that time, it crossed the sky twice from horizon to horizon. Then, gleaming like a mirror reflecting the sun, it turned into the sun and disappeared.
My wife, Wilma, who was hanging the washing, spotted the thin string of vapor first. I was mowing the lawn nearby. She called my attention to it, and I told her it probably was a skywriting airplane. There was the noise of an airplane motor at the time, but then I noticed that sound was coming from a commercial airliner lower down in the sky.
Then we spotted the disc, moving from east to west high above us to the north. It looked like a tiny dark grey speck, and it was round. As we watched it, it emitted another stream of blue vapor that turned white as the object pulled away from it.
"It's a Disc!"
"It's a disc!" Wilma shouted. She has been reading every news story published about them, and Sunday evening spent a couple of hours in our back yard trying to spot one.
The two small children of Mr. and Mrs. John Solaro, who live a few houses from us on Mann St., were with us and watched. They are Philip, 5, and Mary, 3.
Within the space of seconds, it had reached the western horizon and we could see it begin to turn. It made no sound, and I can't estimate the height. It was well above the few clouds in the sky.
Suddenly I thought of my camera and ran into the house to get it. I obtained it within seconds, but by the time I returned outside, the mysterious object was traveling away from us to the east, into the sun, and I couldn't take a picture of it.
As it neared the eastern horizon -- just about over the mouth of the Truckee River canyon east of Sparks -- it dipped downward and turned to the south. For a moment it glistened and disappeared.
See Vapor Streams
We checked the time at 9:55 a.m. About two minutes later, I looked at the sky again and noticed two separate vapor streams running north and south, but I could see no disc. It appeared to me that the disc might have completed its southward swing and then disappeared to the north.
We watched the sky practically continuously until late afternoon, but saw no more of them.
At least eight other persons in Reno saw the same thing we did. I'm glad of that, because the kidding one takes is terrific. I personally don't think these hundreds of tales going around about them are so funny anymore.
I've been accused of having mistaken the discs for two army P-80 jet planes that were over Reno at about the same time, but I've seen many jet planes in action, and I've never seen anything travel as fast as the object I saw yesterday. Only the speed of a shooting star at night could equal that.
I roughly figured the ground distance the object traveled during the time we watched it, and I estimate it was traveling better than 1,000 miles per hour.
Jet Planes Here
The civil aeronautics authority here said that two P-80's from March Field were over Reno yesterday. The first checked in to the control tower here at 10:11 a.m. -- a good 16 minutes after we saw the disc. It remained in the area for five minutes at an altitude of 35,000 feet -- so high it couldn't be seen except when its wings glistened in the sun -- then reported its mission completed and left.
At 10:16 a.m., another P-80 arrived over Reno, it remained for five minutes, then departed. Both said they were on army missions.
We didn't see the jet planes. The CAA observers said they saw them only when their wings glistened in the sun.
The CAA said it had received "all kinds of calls" from people in Reno who reported they saw something similar to what we saw.
At least ten Sierra Pacific Power Co. employes, working in the open at Verdi, saw the same thing we saw. They clocked it at 9:55 a.m., and said they saw another at 10:22 a.m.
Harvey Rose, 450 Cheney St., said the first object, on its west-to-east sweep before it disappeared, took 40 seconds to cross the sky. That jibes with my estimation that we watched it for a minute and one-half.
Seen by Others
Three other youths with Rose at the time were George Morrison, 802 Gordon Ave., Kenneth York, 588 W. Taylor St., Carnia Hall, 452 Washington St. The names of the other workers I couldn't get.
Four members of a survey gang working on W. Seventh St., in the Peavine foothill area, saw the discs -- they said they saw three of them -- at about 10:20 a.m.
Pete Guisti, who formerly was with the city engineer's staff, said the discs whipped by so fast they couldn't see what they were. One was traveling in the sky to west, another was going south from the north, and the third was traveling south to west.
The men, who included Ben Sheahan, Dick Miller and Tony Mango, tried to get their surveyor's transit, which has a powerful telescope, on the objects, but they disappeared too fast.
A man came into the Journal office last night, and said he saw one of the contraptions speeding across the sky Sunday. He said he saw it pile into the mountains to the east, near the Sparks "S." He said it sent up a cloud of dust when it hit.
He didn't want his name used, and he said he wasn't going looking for it.
Washington:
Source: Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, Wash. - 8 Jul 47
Discs Reported
Martin's Flying field reported that some of the "flying discs" were visible about 1 p.m. Tuesday. They could be seen by looking in the vicinity of the sun, the report said.
California:
Source: Nevada State Journal, Nevada - 8 Jul 47
Man at Tahoe Sees Whirling Disc
TAHOE CITY, July 7. (UP) -- A man who never had heard of the flying discs tonight reported he saw what resembled a flying dishpan traveling swiftly in a whirling motion toward the western mountains near Meeks Bay.
The man was Jay Hall, 21, of Oakland. He saw the disc at Homewood. It traveled directly over him, he said, and it appeared to have a copper colored bottom which glistened as it turned in the air. He was alone in his car.
He said he never heard about the discs until he told a neighbor about it, and was told about the commotion they have caused throughout the nation.
Source: Oakland Tribune, Calif. - 8 Jul 47
When You See 'Em Call Police! They Can't Do Anything Either
With eyes as big as -------, many an Oaklander and constituent swore up and down today that he did too, (repeat "I did too" with emphasis ten times and then phone the newspapers) see The Phenomena.
Among the first to qualify for today's prize -- a trip to Mars -- was Ervin Grimm Jr. 14, of 4891 MacArthur Boulevard, whose story was substantiated by his sister, Elsie May, 20, and cousin, Walter Kovaks, 12.
"At 10:20 a.m. we saw these things which looked like metal (metal, not mental) -- like silver dollars flying through the air, way high up, going slow towards Albany. They disappeared in about two minutes, Grimm said.
They Play Tag
Mel Freitas, 21, of 3319 David Street, a former Air Force gunner, also saw the saucers flying over Lake Chabot at 9:30 p.m. He said they appeared "to be playing tag" with a blimp that was carrying an illuminated advertising sign. Senion Parker, 20, of 2645 School Street, who was with Freitas, verified the vision.
A. Robb of 3706 West Street, was walking on MacArthur Boulevard at 9:37 p.m. when he reported seeing the saucers. To him they appeared to be flying at 2000 or 3000 feet, were spinning and the center of each was aglow.
Another who swore she saw the saucers was Miss Barbara Richardson, of 347 Marlow Drive. They appeared to her at 7:16 p.m.
C.L. Bruse, of 3621 Rhoda Avenue, said he was in his backyard exercising his pigeons when he noticed two of the flying discs above his birds. They looked to him to be about the size of silver dollars, he said, but disappeared quickly. (Just like dollars.)
She Saw 'Things'
The saucers did not limit their scope of operations, though, as Mrs. Betty Turley, of 524 Kains Avenue, Albany, wife of Albany Police officer Robert L. Turley, said she was hanging out her wash when she saw a squadron of the "things" flying beyond Albany Hill, toward Richmond. Two more groups were flying formation to the right, Mrs. Turley said.
Emily Grant, 14, a schoolgirl who lives at 1065 Monroe Avenue, Albany, was standing on Albany hill at 1:30 p.m., when a group of objects passed her at eye level, headed (like Mrs. Turley's) for Richmond, and moving at low speed.
"There were about 20 of them," Emily said. "They had long skinny bodies, big tails and lots of feathers."
Asked if they might have been birds, Emily was insistent.
"No," she declared. "I know they weren't birds. I know birds and those funny-looking things were not birds."
Source: Long Beach Independent, Calif. - 8 Jul 47
------------
SACRAMENTO, July 7 (INS) -- The name of a reputable California scientist was added today to the list of persons who claimed to have seen the "flying discs" currently puzzling the nation.
He is Dr. A.K. Carr of Sacramento, chief of the division of animal industry of the state department of agriculture, widely known and respected as an expert in his field.
Dr. Carr reported he and his wife saw two of the strange objects Saturday morning about 8 o'clock over their home. He said both were followed by a whitish vapor, described as "about the same size as the disc itself."
Source: Billings Gazette, Montana - 8 Jul 47
'Whizzing Saucers' Now Fly Around In Family Groups
Palmdale, Cal., July 7. (UP) -- Mrs. Amy Herdliska reported a new twist on the nation's mysterious "flying saucers" Monday.
She told the sheriff's office she saw a "parent disc" leading five smaller discs over the mountains. The smaller ones, she said, seemed to fly away from the larger disc then return and seemed to be absorbed by it, like baby chickens hiding under a mother hen's wings.
Reports, Features and Commentaries:
Source: Spokane Daily Chronicle, Wash. - 8 Jul 47
LOOKOUT ARNOLD Kenneth Arnold (above), Boise business man flyer, who first sighted the mysterious "flying disks" while flying over the Cascade mountains in central Washington on June 26, watches for further displays. Arnold said the flying disks were in a group headed in a northerly direction from the Mount Adams area.(AP photo.)
Source: Racine Journal Times, Wisc. - 8 Jul 47
Einstein Silent
PRINCETON, N.J. (UP) -- Prof. Albert Einstein, famed mathematician and physicist, said he had "absolutely no comment" on the "flying saucers" reported seen in various parts of the United States.
Source: Lewiston Morning Tribune, Idaho - 8 Jul 47
First Day Of Find Saucers Assignment Proves 'Dud' For Newspaperman-Pilot
By DAVE JOHNSON
(Idaho Statesman Aviation Editor)
Boise, Ida., July 7 (AP) -- If anyone wishes to report that he hasn't seen a flying disc, I will confirm it for him.
I have just come back from flying seven and one-half hours over a 1,100 mile route in search of some trace of the discs, but I was not among the blessed.
I didn't see any, and neither did Kenneth Arnold of Boise, who rode with me in the Statesman's plane. We both packed cameras with telescope lenses and were ready to open fire with the film if we saw one of the objects which have been keeping the nation in an uproar for more than two weeks.
Companion Unhappy
Arnold, unhappy man, gritted his teeth and moaned most of the way home. He's the one who can be said to have started the disc stuff, with his report of nine of the objects wheeling around Mt. Rainier and disappearing in the vicinity of Mt. Adams in Washington.
The Statesman's "Early Bird" droned to within good sight of the Canadian Rockies, around the atom plant at Hanford and over the rough country between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams.
We followed Capt. E.J. Smith's airline route from Boise to Pendleton hoping to see some of the objects he, his co-pilot and a United Airlines stewardess reported the other night.
On the way up to Pendleton, Arnold broke into a laugh and said, "Just think of all the folks who must be walking along the streets looking up for discs."
I asked him what the hell he thought we were doing.
Heard It Was Hoax
At Yakima. where we ate lunch at the central aircraft hangar, we nearly had convulsions when we heard that a fellow in a P-38 up in Montana reported meeting a disc at 32,000 and sending it spinning. We heard it was supposed to have had a plexiglass blister on top.
Later we heard it was all a hoax.
We told people at Pendleton, Yakima and Kennewick what we were after. I am proud to be an American when I say that nowhere did we get the whirling finger at the temple stuff.
Will Keep Up Search
Now about this assignment. The city editor was very explicit when he said he wanted me to hunt until I found a disc, or had to give up. I am a Swede from a long line of Swedes, and I am convinced a Swede discovered America and that a Swede was the first president of the United States.
I will keep it up. I still have some of that expense dough in my sweat-soaked pocketbook and unless the city editor takes it away from me the search will go on. There is one drawback I can't overcome. Without supercharging, the Early Bird No. 3 is good up to about 14,000 feet. If these things are from another planet, I'm sunk.
The Early Bird ran very well today, the engine sounding like molasses being poured on flapjacks, until Kenneth Arnold began talking about forced landings. He chose for that discussion the time we were covering the ridge between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams, a most difficult piece of terrain.
City Editor Grumbling
At that moment the engine began to sound as if it were coming apart. That's a peculiarity of airplane engines, or maybe of airplane pilots. The city editor, who doesn't fly, was not along.
I am off into the blue stuff yonder tomorrow. This time I'm going alone, for Arnold, who sells fire fighting apparatus, says this is his best season and he's taking his own plane to Pendleton. He'll also take his camera.
Arnold and I are not alone in this disc hunt. Some very solid citizens, including pilots on the major airlines, are carrying field glasses and cameras with them in the same endeavour.
I hope to be able to report better luck tomorrow. I'm going first up around St. Maries where discs were reported to have hit a mountain.
Then around the mountain, ad infinitum.
Source: Massillon Evening Independent, Ohio - 8 Jul 47
A BUSINESSMAN-PILOT, Kenneth Arnold (right), of Boise, Idaho, first person to report seeing the "flying discs," looks at a picture of one of the strange objects with airlines Capt. E.J. Smith, in Seattle, Wash. On the flight from Boise, Arnold pointed out a group of nine of the "saucers," which have now been seen over many states.(International)
Source: Toledo Blade, Ohio - 8 Jul 47
Vet Airline Pilots Say It Isn't So
ATLANTA, Ga., July 8 (UP) -- Veteran airline pilots here today poured cold water on the report of flying discs, asserting that they had seen nothing in the sky during thousands of miles of travel but "airplanes and clouds."
Perry Hudson, Eastern Airlines captain, turned thumbs down on the persistent reports of airborne saucers.
"I've seen many beautiful and strange cloud formations in the air, especially in Alaska, but nothing ever looked like a saucer."
T.P. Ball, chief pilot for Delta Airlines, attributed it all to "imagination -- unless I get a better explanation or see one myself. It certainly doesn't seem to be the first wave of an invasion from Mars."
Another Delta pilot, J.H. Williamson, a former army flier with Gen. Claire Chennault, observed that "a lot of folks must have had too much to drink."
Other airline pilots concurred, pointing out that they have spent thousands of hours in the air all over the world, under every possible atmospheric condition, without seeing anything more unusual than "some freak cloud formation."
Source: Toledo Blade, Ohio - 8 Jul 47
Science Explains Airmen's Illusion
By Science Service
WASHINGTON, July 8 -- Aviators reporting "flying saucers" may have been fooled by images of the dials on the instrument panels of their own planes. There are two ways in which this could happen.
Sometimes the sloping windshield of a plane reflects the dials as in a mirror, though less clearly. An imaginative pilot, especially if he is a little tired, might easily interpret these reflections as flying discs out ahead.
The other kind of self-deception might occur when a pilot finds it necessary to look fixedly at a dial, even for a brief period. This produces an after-image on the retina of his eye, which will seem to be projected on the sky when he looks up again. He could easily mistake a dial for a disc.
Source: Toledo Blade, Ohio - 8 Jul 47
Scientific 'Saucer' Theories Doubted By Eye Specialists
Eye specialists in Toledo expressed doubt today that there was any scientific optical explanation for the myriad "flying saucers" reported in many different parts of the country.
They showed no inclination to accept the theory that the bright discs allegedly whizzing through American skies these days are the after-images of bright reflections on the retina, or that persons actually are seeing corpuscles or capillaries in their own eyeballs.
"I think somebody started a gag, and the rest is 'imaginitis,'" said Dr. Henry R. Lesser. "With the power of suggestion, people can see almost anything, including that Loch Ness monster in Scotland. I don't think it has any foundation in fact at all."
Another specialist pointed out that on those rare occasions when persons do see capillaries in their own eyeballs, they move slowly across the field of vision, and not at the great speed of the "flying saucers."
Asked if there might be some optical reason for the phenomenon, Dr. James H. Cooper said: "I've been pondering that question, but frankly I don't know."
Source: Wisconsin State Journal, Wisc. - 8 Jul 47
Those Things in Sky Seen 150 Years Ago
EDITOR'S NOTE: R. Dewitt Miller, one of the world's foremost authorities on psychic phenomena and author of "Forgotten Mysteries" has spent 15 years accumulating authenticated case histories of inexplicable happenings. In the following dispatch, Miller shows that the mysterious appearance of objects in the sky dates back 150 years.
By R. DEWITT MILLER
(Written for the United Press)
LOS ANGELES -- There have been thousands of reliable reports during the last 150 years of strange things seen in the sky. There are at least 100 cases in which the queer objects were said to have a "disc-like" form.
Never have reports of strange sky phenomena been so widespread and so uniform as the "Flying Saucers."
Saw 'Em in 1870
On Mar. 22, 1870, a flat, light-colored disc was observed by the ship, "Lady of the Lake," then in mid-Atlantic between South America and Africa. The disc appeared to be of large size and seemed intelligently controlled.
A report of it was made in the Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society and a sketch included. The sketch is strikingly similar to sketches made by observers of the flying saucers.
Other discs were seen in north Wales Aug. 26, 1894, in India in 1839, and in Norway Nov. 3, 1886.
It seems to me the three most likely explanations -- and at this point only guesses -- are:
ONE. The army and navy are experimenting with a new weapon. Although they have denied it, there is much in favor of this explanation.
TWO. The discs actually are from Mars or somewhere outside the earth. The fact that similar objects were seen before the invention of aircraft strengthens this explanation. There has been increasing evidence of life on some other planets. If they are Martians, I would like to meet one.
THREE. They are things out of other dimensions of time and space. Certain thinkers in abstract science long have held that some other dimensional being conceivably could enter our world.
Something Very Queer
Although many reports of the saucers are undoubtedly untrue or distorted, there is plenty of evidence that something very queer is going on.
This is not the first time strange things have occurred. But the previous ones have been "forgotten." Many weird things have crossed the skies of this earth.
Source: Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico - 8 Jul 47
Rare Book Tells Of Freak Discs In Sky Long Ago
CHICAGO, July 7 (AP) -- Current reports of flying discs had similar counterparts in the past, according to a rare book in Chicago's Newberry library.
In the "Book of the Damned," a collection of "data that science has excluded," the late Charles Fort published a purported account by M. Acharius, of a visitation on a town near Skeninge, Sweden, on the afternoon of May 16, 1808.
"The sun turned brick red," Fort wrote, "at the same time there appeared on the western horizon a number of round objects, dark brown in color and seemingly the size of a hat crown. They passed overhead and disappeared on the eastern horizon."
Fort noted also the reported appearance over County Wicklow, Eire, Oct. 27, 1898, about six o'clock in the evening "an object that looked like the moon in its three-quarter aspect" which "moved slowly, and in about five minutes, disappeared behind a mountain."
Other strange reports included those of "a luminous cloud moving at high velocity" over Florence, Italy, Dec. 9, 1731; "globes of light seen in the air" at Swabia, May 22, 1732, and even an "octagonal star" sighted from Slavange, Norway, April 15, 1752.
Source: Valparaiso Vidette-Messenger, Indiana - 8 Jul 47
Sky Mystery Nothing New, Public Told
By CLAIRE COX
United Press Staff Correspondent)
CHICAGO, July 7 (UP) -- R.L. Farnsworth said today the "flying
saucers" reportedly racing through U.S. skies aren't anything to get up in the air about.
"People have been seeing things in the sky for years," he said. Farnsworth said he could speak as somewhat of an authority on the spots people are seeing before their eyes in skies from coast to coast.
He's a member of the Fortean Society, a club for experts on the unusual things -- on land and in the air -- people have seen and thought they have seen through the centuries. The club was founded in honor of Charles Fort, a diligent man who devoted his life to collecting four volumes of odd happenings.
Not First Time
"This isn't the first time people have seen legitimate spots in the sky," Farnsworth said. "It happened at least three times in the last century, and plenty of other times. Nobody ever found out what any of the objects were.
He said the Rev. W. Read, an amateur astronomer, saw a "host of self-luminous bodies" pass through the field of his telescope in England at 9:30 a.m., Sept. 4, 1851.
Read created quite a stir with his report on the 1851 version of today's saucers in the monthly notice of the Royal Astronomical Society of Great Britain. He claimed he saw bodies moving both fast and slow in every direction for six hours.
Still a Mystery
Then, in 1863, Farnsworth said, Henry Waldner, a Swiss, informed an astronomer at an observatory at Zurich, Switzerland, that he'd been seeing a lot of small, shining bodies whooshing through the skies.
The astronomer wrote back that he'd been seeing the some things -- and so had star gazer Sig Capocci at a Naples, Italy, observatory. They agreed that the "things" were an insoluble mystery.
Nothing much worth noticing in the way of discs appeared in the sky again, Farnsworth said, until March 22, 1880. Just a half-hour before sunrise, residents of Katenau, Germany, said they saw an enormous number of luminous bodies rise from the horizon and careen across the sky.
These and other unusual occurrences have been well documented, but not one ever has been explained," Farnsworth said. "Scientists agree that they weren't astronomical bodies."
Farnsworth said he wouldn't be surprised at anything the alleged saucers turned out to be. He's president of the U.S. Rocket Society and planning a trip to the moon some day.
"Nothing surprises me," he said. "I wouldn't even be surprised if the flying saucers were remote-control electronic eyes from Mars."
Source: Toledo Blade, Ohio - 8 Jul 47
Sky Wraiths Old Story
None Ever Has Been Nailed Down
Saucers Fit Into Pattern
By GEORGE F. JENKS
Blade Staff Writer
THOSE "flying saucers" reported seen scooting through the skies since early June aren't the first aerial wraiths to awe the credulous and to bring sneers from the skeptics.
Stories about strange and wonderful objects passing through the air have been cropping up at intervals for centuries. Very few of these objects ever have been photographed or brought down, stuffed and installed in museums, but doubters always have been squelched with the "I saw it with my eyes" testimony.
This "flying saucer" epidemic fits neatly into the pattern of other such outbreaks except that in this age of rocket bombs and jet propulsion, the incidental details have been streamlined and given glossy touches such as the report from the far west that nine chromium plated discs were observed flying in tight formation.
Marvels Always Marvels
Our ancestors rarely enjoyed such technical touches in the stories about the sky wanderers of their days but marvels always have been marvels.
Probably the world's greatest authority on eerie phenomena, or at least on the eyewitness story about eerie phenomena was the late Charles Fort, an indefatigable collector of the freakish.
Mr. Fort's published works contain numerous documented accounts of flying apparitions, some of which sound like crude, experimental models of the shiny skimmers reportedly being seen every hour on the hour in the United States today.
No Pilots Reported
No one yet has reported seeing any pilots in the "flying saucers" but according to Mr. Fort in his book of marvels "Lo," on May 18, 1909 in the Caephilly Mountains of Wales a man named Lithbridge saw a strange tube-shaped projectile parked along a highway. In it were two men wearing heavy fur overcoats and conversing in a foreign tongue. As Lithbridge watched, the machine flew away toward Russia (this was before Lenin and Stalin).
Naturally the British press raced to confirm the story and sure enough they found the grass trampled at the place.
Mr. Fort wrote that two decades ago the people of the Brown Mountains in North Carolina kept reporting brilliant globular forms floating leisurely through the skies.
The stories drew an investigator from the U.S. Geological Survey in 1922. He must have been a painstaking although skeptical man because he reported to Washington he saw lights, investigated and found 47 percent were automobile headlights; 33 percent locomotive headlights; 10 percent, houses, and 10 percent brush fires.
Strange Sight At 2 A.M.
Another Fort account is two icemen of Crawfordsville, Ind., who for some reason or other were about at 2 a.m., Sept. 5, 1891, and saw a strange monster, 20 feet long and 8 feet wide, moving through the sky propelled by fin-like attachments. Mr. Fort also quotes a New York Times account in 1886 of a huge serpent flying over Darlington County, S.C. Students of jet propulsion will be glad to learn the reptile had no visible means of propulsion, but that a hissing sound was detected by the awestruck observers.
Mr. Fort also found a story in the Bonham, Tex., Enterprise in 1873 about a farmer who reported that he had been somewhat taken aback on looking up and seeing an enormous serpent gliding malevolently above him.
To go back still further, the Chilean press, according to Mr. Fort, reported in 1868 that a noisy aerial visitor had appeared there looking like "a gigantic bird, eyes wide open and shining like burning coals; covered with immense scales which clashed together with a metallic sound."
Through The Night Skies
Without the slightest wish to cast aspersions on the eyesight or veracity of those who have told about the "flying saucers," it must be reported that some aerial wonders have been found to be phonies.
The Britons of North Norfolk, England, in the winter of 1907-1908, Mr. Fort reported, were terrified by a pair of shining things soaring through the night skies. The excitement died down, however, after a gamekeeper brought down an owl said to have been phosphorescent from decayed wood in its nesting place.
Eyewitnesses being what they are, however, North Norfolkians went on seeing luminous objects for some time and the taxidermist who stuffed the owl told his friends he didn't see anything phosphorescent about the bird.
They Skip Toledo
There have been innumerable other instances of strange objects in the air, reported from the corners of the earth but records do not indicate that Toledo and northwestern Ohio ever have been honored by such visitations.
No "flying saucers" were reported from Toledo or even from the whole State of Ohio until long after stories from the Far West aroused the suspicion that the mysterious discs were swarming like bees out that way.
This region's main claim to a place in the supernatural sun is the Lake Erie serpent, a rival of Scotland's Loch Ness monster.
Our serpent ranges from Sandusky to the mouth of the Toussaint River near Camp Perry. He has been seen from time to time although his last appearance was over two years ago and his friends fear that he may have met an untimely death during the practice shelling from the Erie Ordnance Depot during the war.
It is true the army posted the firing area but as far as anyone knows, the serpent never learned to read.
Source: Troy Times Record, New York - 8 Jul 47
Flying Disk Not New In Theory, Magazine Shows
An independent inquiry conducted by The Record Newspapers last night revealed that scientists recognized the practical possibility of a "flying disk" as early as 1930.
The Record investigation, conducted as a rising tide of skepticism surrounded continued sightings of mysterious flying saucers, further indicated that early experiments with saucer-like aircraft were at least partially successful.
On the advice of Charles B. Gardner, Rensselaerwyck, a physics major at R.P.I., a Record reporter examined a short article in the September, 1930, issue of the magazine Popular Mechanics. The magazine, which bears on its cover a highly imaginative drawing of an airliner with a disk-like wing, states that "promising results" were obtained by two flying models designed by Guido Fallei.
Built Model
Fallei, an inventor who was involved in torpedo research during World War I, built one model which had a rotating disk, powered by compressed air, for a wing and smaller horizontal and vertical disks as control surfaces. In the full-sized craft all were designed to rotate. The inventor believed that the craft would require less power for lift than conventional planes.
In descent the disk was to act as a parachute, and since the Fallei craft was also equipped with a conventional propeller, the magazine states that the flying machine incorporates "features of an amphibian, a dirigible, a gyrocopter and an ordinary-airplane."
Mr. Gardner, who believes that most of the repeated disk sightings appear to be summer hallucinations, is interested in the idea because he experimented with similar projects himself.
He points out that a whirling slightly concave saucer is an excellent airfoil, as can he easily shown by skimming a sea shell or bottle top, and he adds that with the knowledge of jet propulsion developed recently, it is entirely possible that a high-powered disk has been produced.
Explains Principle
With the assistance of a Rensselaerwyck neighbor, Herman Bass, also an R.P.I. student who is an ex-Army flyer, Mr. Gardner explained to the Record reporter that the principle of the flying disk is dependent on stream flow laws first established by Daniel Bernoulli, a Swiss physicist who lived from 1700-1782.
Bernoulli's theorems which are of basic importance to all aerodynamic study, have a special application as applied to a flying disk since the rotation involved helps the craft to produce its own lift
Mr. Gardner and Mr. Bass were agreed that IF such a disk has been developed, and IF it has been ingeniously designed so that a jet power unit is carried in the conical section, the possibilities would be tremendous since there would then he virtually no load factor and the craft would be, in effect, "nothing but productive airfoil."
Source: Oxnard Press Courier, Calif. - 8 Jul 47
Mugu Engineer Scoffs --
Saucer Theory Discounted
Ralph Hiett, the Point Mugu engineer to whom Oxnard's Wendell White gave plans for a flying saucer three months ago, said today White's ideas were "simply outlandish."
"I've had some experience with supersonic speeds with Northrop aircraft," Hiett said, "and I told him a few days after he gave them to me that the shape was wrong and the efficiency was very low. What he's trying to is lift himself by his bootstraps."
Molecular Vacuum
White's ideas, developed when he was a student at Cal Aero Engineering School last year, were for an aircraft to be propelled by a "molecular vacuum" produced by rapidly spinning vanes mounted on a disk.
"We put several engineers to work with their slide rules," said Hiett, a Cal Tech man himself, "and they figured out in exact mathematics why it was all wrong. I'd forgotten all about it until Saturday's story in The Press-Courier."
None At Mugu
Hiett said there was not work on anything like a flying saucer being done by the Navy at Mugu.
White today was still convinced his idea would work if it were developed. He said he had talked with Hiett yesterday afternoon and had been told that the whirling vanes would leave behind a dead air space instead of vacuum, but he thought the proper type of vanes would produce vacuum.
"I think that it would work interspacially," White said, "due to time space elements that show up in relativity theory."
Source: Olean Times Herald, N.Y. - 8 Jul 47
Saucers May Be "Foo Fighters," Flier Suggests
A suggestion that the "flying saucers" reported in some sections of the country may be "foo fighters" was advanced today by Captain Dewey E. Ballard, Olean Army recruiter, a flier in the European Theater during World War II.
Captain Ballard was asked to comment on reports of the flying discs. He said, "Assuming that they are not some hoax or hallucination, I think when we get done with it, they will turn out to be foo fighters."
A "foo fighter," reported by bomber pilots on combat missions, is described as a ball of fire, perhaps two or three feet in diameter, which was seen at the wing tips of planes and which followed the planes no matter how they turned. Captain Ballard did not see any such balls of fire himself, but he has known pilots who said they did see them.
The fireballs, the Captain said, might be compared with St. Elmo's Fire, a type of electrical brush discharge sometimes seen during storms on ships, or on the top of trees or steeples. St Elmos Fire glows reddish when the discharge is positive and bluish when negative.
The fireballs were used by the Germans, Captain Ballard said, as a psychological weapon, and the discs could be a similar type of weapon, designed to keep a populace stirred up or excited.
A former Olean Army officer said today he had heard of "foo fighters" when he was stationed in northern France He suggested that the discs or saucers were being developed by the Army as the American type of "foo fighter."
No saucers have been reported to Olean police as yet.
Source: Wisconsin State Journal, Wisc. - 8 Jul 47
Flying Discs Remind AAF Veteran Of Pacific Area 'Fireball' Reports
By WARREN R. JOLLYMORE
(State Journal Staff Writer)
Reports from many parts of the nation of "flying discs" bring to the minds of many army air force veterans memoirs of similar reports by crew members of Super-Forts of "fireballs" which supposedly attacked the big planes on their missions over the Japanese islands in May and June of 1945.
One such veteran, Gerry Dumphy, of 25 Anzinger ct., a journalism student at the University of Wisconsin, remembers well the many and varied reports that would be heard by interrogation officers following each mission after the first "fireball was reported on a night raid against Tokyo on May 23, 1945.
Dumphy was a bombardier with the 52nd squadron of the 29th bomb group stationed on Guam in the Marianas. He flew 29 missions in B-29s against the then doomed empire of Japan and recalls how the "fireballs" would "approach the planes and follow them out to sea as they turned 'homeward' after dropping their bombs on the target."
Round Balls of Fire
Like the "flying discs," they were described in various ways -- as "round, speedy balls of fire, as fast as a B-29, but not as maneuverable," as "burning warheads suspended from parachutes," or as "moulten chunks of steel, filled with explosives, and launched from airplanes."
Often times. Dumphy relates, excited crew members would report tracer bullets fired from the pursuing "fireballs" or how the flying missiles would attack, miss their target, and crash into the sea."
Word of the eerie "fireballs" spread through the Marianas to every B-29 base on the islands and as more missions were flown, more "fireballs" were reported. As time wore on. Dumphy says, "they became more maneuverable and followed the returning superforts farther out to sea." None was ever reported seen during the daylight hours.
Fireball Spotted
On one mission, the ex-bombardier recalls, the left gunner called in over the interphone that he had spotted a "fireball" approaching the plane from 9 o'clock (directions were called out from the points of the clock) just as the huge plane was leaving the coast of Japan. The pilot, always cautious although he had never seen a "fireball," nosed the B-29 down, pushed the throttles forward, and flew into a cloud.
Emerging later, the gunner was asked if he could still spot the pursuing missile.
"It's still following at 9 o'clock," came the answer, "I saw it as we came out of the cloud."
About 15 minutes later, according to Dumphy, the plane reached a clear spot in the sky. There were no clouds around. The gunner was asked by the pilot to report the position of the "fireball" once more.
"Still at 9 o'clock," was the quick reply.
Skies Searched
The eyes of all crew members excitedly searched the skies at 9 o'clock and soon the navigator saw the "fireball" in the sky, at the spot reported by the gunner. It was the star, Venus, shining brightly, slightly above the horizon. The navigator was a little indignant, says Dumphy, that his old friend. Venus, who had guided the crew back safely to Guam more than once, should be mistaken for a hostile body, but the entire crew was relieved to know that they were in no danger of an explosive attack from one of the fabulous "fireballs."
Other reports had the mysterious missiles plummeting to fiery death in the sea, but invariably, the interrogation would reveal that a crippled superfort was forced to salvo a load of armed bombs in about the same spot and at about the same time that the "fireball" was reported to have crashed in the sea.
Became Legend
"Fireballs" soon became legend throughout the islands, Dumphy went on, and as hundreds of B-29s made the nightly 8-hour trip to Japan to drop their bombs, expectant crew members had a lot of time to think of the various ways the "fireballs" might appear to plague them in their attempt to hit the target.
In numerous cases, they did appear, or reputedly so, in exactly the same way as the reporting crew members had imagined they would. More than once the dependable Venus was accused and on several occasions the salvoing of a load of bombs brought new and more fantastic reports on the ever increasing "fireballs."
Whether or not the troublesome missiles really ever existed is not known, according to Dumphy. The war department reported no proof that the Japanese had such a weapon and the remains of any that crashed were never reported found.
GOOD STORY
Still, many crewmen the nation over relate to their friends yet today how they encountered the mystery missiles during the Pacific war, and it makes interesting conversation. But the fact remains that of all the "fireballs" reported during those two months in 1945, none have ever been heard of or from since.
It may be a military secret -- or perhaps the fabulous "flying discs" of today are descendents of the wartime "fireballs" -- but Gerry Dumphy, who flew among them but never saw one, prefers to believe that the legend of the Japanese "fireballs" is a wartime fairy tale.
Source: Berkshire Evening Eagle, Mass - 8 Jul 47
All God's Chillun Got Flying Saucers
Right now, we don't really care whether those flying saucers are Martian, Russian or fiction. Come July and the brain, a laggard at best, moves sleepily if at all; it takes a story like the saucers to nudge us out of our summer somnolence.
We have followed the spreading Saga of the Saucers with a feeling of gay adventure. Here, at last, is Superman come to life. Faster than a speeding bullet! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! What's that? It's a bird! It's a plane! NO! It's Superman in his Supersaucer!
Starting in the Northwest, where they also breed people with a fine eye for excitement, the story has crossed the nation with the burning speed of a head cold in a large family. Day by day the perimeter grows: Oregon-Idaho-Illinois-New York and points north and south. It was inevitable -- sad indeed had we none among us equipped with The Eye -- that the Berkshires should make their contribution. Several observers of the Fourth of July parade looked up long enough from O.B. Joyful Tyler to spy some saucers in the sky. At this point, less imaginative souls who watched the parade declare, with a sneer we consider uncalled for, certain small children were seen to let go of the string on their gas balloons (some of them were silver, they report), which took off into the wild blue yonder. More coincidence, we say, and align ourselves firmly with the saucer people.
What is life without its legend? A dull existence, surely, and one tending toward atrophy of the creative spirit. What if somebody did go exploring in Wisconsin and find that a supposed flying saucer really was a circular saw from Sears-Roebuck? They can't shatter our dreams that way. Poof, we say to these heavy-footed disciples of the mundane.
Keep those saucers flying!
Source: Oakland Tribune, Calif. - 8 Jul 47
When the World Is So Full of a Number Of Things, Along Come Sailing Saucers
By this time most Americans who are not straining expectant eyes on the heavens are convinced that one of two things is true: Either the news has been taken over by the liars and the deluded, or our skies are entertaining strange visitors.
The latter theory has the advantage of being charitable and decidedly more interesting. We have strange visitors; men of good repute have seen them, and amazing stories spring up and grow in their wake.
For the moment, we leave it to the scientists to disagree as to the origin, complexion and purposes of these platters which are variously described as being as large as a "five room" house and as small as the family washtub. We are content, not for the first time in our lives, to depend upon the learned to add to our confusion.
Common sense, which may have no place in the discussions, would suggest there cannot be so many persons who have their feet so far from the ground that they must encounter phantom pancakes or ethereal tea trays. It is incredible, we may say, that military experimenters, in this country or elsewhere, would send the peregrinating platters over so wide a range or over heavily populated areas. If such men are responsible, we might add, it is difficult to believe that after having caused all the fuss, they would be so niggardly with explanations and so efficient in guarding a secret. In summation, on any count, the whole display of dashing dishware is cock-eyed, unbelievable and widely substantiated.
Those who are Forteans -- followers of the late Charles Fort -- remain undisturbed. They know, and can cite the page upon which Fort set it down, that upon occasions it has rained goldfish and frogs; that great swarms of butterflies incapable of crossing oceans have come from nowhere to visit England; that there are persons who catch on fire by spontaneous combustion; that stones have come out of the air to bombard cities, and that there are animals who go about attacking people on revival nights. Fort, who spent a lifetime gleaning from the welter of life thousands of startling and inexplicable incidents, would be the man to handle this disk mystery and he could do it without a twinge of conscience. For he was one who doubted scientists and reveled in all that baffled them. He just reported and left it there.
The darting doughnuts, it is evident, must be classed with the goldfish showers, the werewolves and the bobbing lights, or returned to the ivory towers where our recognized authorities are issuing bulletins which baffle no less than do the things some of us are seeing. Pending the moment of release from mystification, a rediscovery of the obvious, each American has the inalienable right to derive as much fun as possible from the show of saucers and thank, if he wishes, whoever or whatever it is that is distracting attention from the sorry plight of our Oaks and international politics.
Notes:
1. The original quote by Kenneth Arnold stating "It seemed impossible..." changed in all later news reports to "It seems impossible...".
2. As the purpose of this series is to recreate the experience of reading about the phenomenon as it occurred, inconsistencies and inaccuracies are being left un-noted, but will be revisited in a new multi-part series coming in early 2012.
3. As this series continues, each part becomes progressively longer.
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