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Portland Oregonian - July 6, 1947
Starr to Reveal Data on Saucers
COLUMBUS, O., July 6 (AP) -- Louis E. Starr, national
commander-in-chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, told the VFW
Ohio encampment Saturday that he was expecting information from
Washington about "the fleets of flying saucers."
He indicated the information would help
explain the discs, reported to have been sighted in various parts
of the country.
A telegram containing the information, Starr
added, was due here at 3 P.M. (EST), but did not arrive. He
promised to read the contents to the convention.
The VFW commander whose home is Portland,
Or., did not indicate the source of the anticipated information.
After making the announcement, he
remarked:
"Too little is being told to the people
of this country."
Portland Oregonian - July 6, 1947
Radar Gadgets Join Disc Puzzle
CIRCLEVILLE, O., July 5 (AP)--
Folks in Pickway county, who have been following the "flying
saucer" mystery, became excited Saturday when Sherman
Campbell found a strange object on his farm.
It was in the form of a six pointed star, 30
inches high and 48 inches wide, covered with tinfoil. It weighed
about two pounds. Attached to the top were the remains of a
balloon with a rock 5 inches in circumference.
The Fort Columbus airfield weather station at
Columbus said the description tallied with an object used by the
army air forces to measure wind velocity at high altitudes by the
use of radar.
Some of the flying discs reported seen in
various parts of the country were much larger and flying at
terrific speed.
Portland Oregonian - July 7, 1947
Eight "Flying Saucers" Reported Down on Idaho
Air Search Scheduled For Region
Flights Continue To Be Observed Over Wide Area
While national guard aircraft Sunday hunted the skies over Pacific
Northwest states for sight of the mysterious "flying
saucers," eight of the flying gadgets were reported to have
made a landing on a mountainside near St. Maries, Idaho, in full
view of ten persons.
Mrs. Walter Johnson of Dishman, Wash., a
suburb of Spokane, said she saw the saucers come down in timber
near St. Maries Thursday, but the incident had not been reported
until she returned to her home Sunday.
Col. G. R. Dodson, whose 123rd fighter
squadron of the Oregon national guard scoured Oregon and
Washington skies Sunday searching for the elusive missiles, said a
flight of four P-51s would be sent early Monday morning to check
the area. "So far we haven't found saucer, disc or
anything," Colonel Dodson commented.
He described the operation Sunday as
"routine," but said the pilots carried instructions to
watch for flying discs.
Extreme Speed Reported
Mrs. Johnson said the saucers were seen to
fall near Butler's bay on the St. Joe river six miles west of St.
Maries, where she was visiting her parents.
She said they came into view at an extreme
speed, traveling from the south to the north. Suddenly they
slowed, she said, and then "fluttered like leaves to the
ground."
"The mysterious part was that we
couldn't see them after they landed," said Mrs. Johnson.
"We could see them flutter down into the timber yet we
couldn't see that they did anything to the trees."
She said the objects were saucer-shaped, but
thicker than she had expected, resembling wash tubs more than
discs. She described them as "about the size of a
five-room house."
Officers See Discs
Mrs. Johnson said the objects were seen by
her relatives as well as the neighbors who viewed them
independently. She said the incident had not been reported
earlier because she didn't know whom to contact.
Meanwhile, the man who first started this
business of "flying saucers," Kenneth Arnold, Boise,
Idaho, flying businessman, reported he had invested $150 in a
movie camera to get photographic proof of the discs he said
flipped through the blue yonder "like fish skimming through
water."
Spiking rumors of Army Air Force
connection with the flying discs, Gen. Carl Spaatz, commandant of
the army air forces, denied in Seattle knowing anything about the
flying saucers or of plans to use army air force planes to look
for them. Then he continued on to Medford on a fishing trip.
Utah Group Observed
Discs continued to be sighted at various
locations throughout the day Sunday. They were said to have
been seen at Chicago over Lake Michigan, in Southwestern Ontario,
in Wisconsin, Minnesota and in Maryland.
In Utah, ex-state treasurer Oliver G.
Ellis and his son saw a group of discs high in the sky west of
Salt Lake City. He said the "luminous discs behaved like
radio-controlled objects, hovering in a group for a moment, then
suddenly formed a swiftly whirling horizontal circular
pattern." He said two discs broke loose from the group
"as if snapped from the end of a giant whip."
Later the flight was continued in a V-formation and moved
south-westward until it disappeared, Ellis said.
In Portland, reports on the flying objects
did not come in before noon. At 12:42 P.M. police were
called by a man who said he saw what he thought was a flying disc
headed south and traveling very fast. A woman reported
that she saw a reddish object "round as a dollar" about
5 P.M. that zoomed out of sight so fast neighbors she summoned to
look at it failed to glimpse it. Another man standing on the
corner of N. W. 6th avenue and Glisan street, told The
Oregonian he saw four flying discs heading south at a
"good rate of speed."
2000 MPH Reported
Reports continued to come in during the
daylight hours with one taxi cab driver reporting the platter-like
objects traveling high and nearly 2000 miles an hour. Another
report came in of seven of the discs traveling in a
"geeselike formation."
The 123d fighter squadron at Portland Army
Air base will have airplanes and pilots ready to take off Monday
if anyone sees any discs, flying around, according to Colonel
Dodson. The stable of 23 fast P-51 fighter planes, equipped with
gun-sight movie cameras, was lined up on the concrete apron Sunday
ready to comb the skies for any aerial marauders citizens might
report.
Portland Oregonian - July 7, 1947
Guard Posts 'Disc Watch'
Airplanes Alerted With Gun Cameras
P-51 fighter planes of the Oregon national guard's 123rd
squadron, equipped with gun cameras and telescopic cameras,
will be on the alert to run down and photograph any
mysterious "flying discs" reported hereafter in Northwest
skies, according to an announcement Saturday by Col. Al
Dutton, commanding officer.
A flight of six planes will be ready to take
off on an instant's notice every week-day afternoon and evening,
he said. On week ends the squadron will maintain a
condition of readiness from dawn to dusk.
Colonel Dutton asked persons sighting the
objects to notify The Oregonian or squadron
headquarters so that location and direction of flight of the
"discs" can be plotted.
Lewiston, Idaho Daily Tribune - 7 July, 1947
Idaho Newsman-Pilot Given 'Dream Assignment;'
'Get Picture of Saucers Or Bring One Back Alive'
By DAVE JOHNSON
(Idaho Statesman Aviation Editor)
Boise. July 6--AP--Flew instruments this
afternoon for a couple of hours with the Idaho national guard.
A lieutenant colonel sat up in front and watched for discs while I struggled
with the gauges and the radio beam.
We got back into Gowen field's pattern, and the
control tower called to report some people in Ontaria, Ore., had told
the CAA they saw some saucers wheeling through the sky.
Now, there's one thing about these saucers.
I've never seen one, so on the way home I dropped into the Statesman
office with an idea. That was to take the Early-Bird No. 3, our
airplane, and be up tonight and prowl around the airways, just looking.
Gets Expense Dough
I broached that to the city editor and blew the foam
off of it, and a you-know-what look spread over his face, just like somebody
had tossed a brick into a mud puddle.
He talked for a few minutes and I listened.
The upshot of it was that I walked out of the office with expense dough
in my pocket and a date with Kenneth Arnold, the Boise man who two weeks
ago saw the discs come roaring around Mt. Rainier in Washington.
I have one of those things called a general assignment.
I'm going disc hunting with Arnold in the Statesman plane.
Started In Idaho
The city editor had said:
"Dave, I was just about to give you a call and
discuss this damn saucer business with you. The thing started here
in Boise with Arnold and it is getting out of hand. The wire services
are moving more copy on it than any single story in years except the war,
and no one knows any more about it now than when they were doubting
this fellow Arnold who first reported seeing whatever it is that is being
looked at, real or imaginary.
"As I said before. this business started in Boise
and it is up to us if we can do it to help get it brought down to earth.
I hope you can lasso one of the damn things and bring it in for display, but on
the other hand, it might be a good idea to be ready to duck if you see
something skipping along."
Dream Assignment
I might interject here that the boss doesn't fly.
"Crank up your airplane," he said,
"and go up around the Hanford atom plant area in Washington
and stay there until you either find something or give it up.
See if this fellow Arnold wants to go along (he jumped at the chance)
and take the best camera equipment you can find and stay as long
as you want to."
Such an assignment -- stay as long as you want
to -- is not to be accepted lightly.
"Fly around that area," said the city
editor, "because my hunch is that if these things can come from any
place they are coming from some project like Hanford. The army has
denied this possibility but the army has been making denials a major
business for years. In one case an Army man said there's nothing
to get excited about, "if there were anything to the saucers the army
would have notified us."
Also . . . Good Luck!
"If you see anything that answers the description
-- or the hundreds of descriptions -- grab a picture and high-tail for
Boise."
"Oh yes," he added. "Good
luck to you."
They take the insurance out of my check.
I phoned Arnold. We are taking off bright
and early in the morning. Arnold has a new movie camera with
a telephoto lens and we're fortified for pictures.
From somewhere up in eastern Washington
tomorrow night you'll hear from us, providing, or course, we don't
run into something that proves these reports to be the McCoy and
it runs over us.
The city desk says he'll stand behind us.
United Press Wire Story - July 7, 1947
ARMY PILOTS READY TO PURSUE SAUCERS
(UP) -- Army pilots were ready today for another air search for
the mysterious "flying saucers" now reported seen in
31 states and parts of Canada as practical jokesters added to the
confusion.
Equipped with telescopic cameras, 11 Army
planes searched the Pacific northwest Sunday without finding any
trace of the flying discs which had been reported over scores of
communities the preceding two days. At Sioux Falls, South
Dakota, a Coast Guard plane already in the air was ordered to
investigate a silvery disc with a short tail which Gregory Zimmer
said he saw shoot across the heavens. The pilot found
nothing but empty sky.
The Army "camera patrol" over the
Cascade Mountains Sunday included eight P-51 pursuit ships and
three A-26 bombers. There was growing belief that the
concentrated aerial search would show the saucers to be optical
illusions or the work of practical jokesters magnified by aroused
imagination.
The Rev. Joseph Brasky, a Catholic priest of
Grafton, Wisconsin reported that a metal disc 18 inches in
diameter with "gadgets and wires" around the hole in the
center crashed into his yard with a mild explosion. He
announced that he was holding it for the FBI, but after close
examination found the lettering "...steel, high carbon 100 per
cent steel," and decided that it was a circular saw blade.
A number of "discs" whirled over
rooftops in East St. Louis, Illinois, Sunday. J.T.
Hartley, locomotive engineer, gathered some of them up and found
they were made of pressed white paper, 11 inches in diameter and
with a two-inch hole in the center. Railroad workers said
they looked like locomotive packing washers.
A radio announcement that discs were flying
over Lewiston, Idaho sent hundreds into their yards for a look.
Weatherman Louis Krezak said the objects were moving
eastward with the prevailing wind and probably were weed
seeds. Three air transport pilots agreed.
A Birmingham radio station was deluged with
more than 400 calls in one hour by persons who said they saw
fluorescent balls circling over the city and clearly outlined
against nearby mountains. A carnival at Alabaster, Alabama
was playing searchlights on cloud wisps.
An argument raged at Lodi, California, over
the cause of a spectacular glow in the sky and a roar shortly
before the electrical power went off. Mrs. W.C. Smith said
she heard a noise "like a four motored bomber" just
before the lights went off at dawn. Erving Newcomb of the
Pacific Gas and Electric Co., offered the explanation that a
low-flying crop-dusting plane probably struck a powerline and
burned out a transformer. However, no planes were reported
damaged and no one could explain what a crop-dusting plane was
doing in the air at dawn on Sunday. It was the first time
any noise had been attributed to flying saucers.
J.U. Watts, Darlington, South Carolina,
attorney, said he saw an Army pursuit plane chasing a V-formation
of flying saucers at 250 miles an hour 3,000 feet high.
However, no pilot reported such a chase.
Meantime authorities were plagued with
reports that bordered on the fantastic.
An excited Chicago woman reported that she
had seen a flying saucer with legs. "I was standing on
my porch and I thought for sure it was coming right down and slap
me in the face," she said.
George Kugel of Denver said he saw a flying
disc with an American flag on it.
Francis Howell, Tempe, Arizona, claimed he
saw a saucer two feet in diameter disappear behind a row of trees
near his home. When he rushed with his wife and another
couple to inspect it, he said, the flat, thin, aluminum-like disc,
took off at a "high rate of speed" toward Phoenix, nine miles
away.
Bartlesville, Oklahoma, DAILY ENTERPRISE - July 7, 1947
John Phillips, Jr., of Phillips Petroleum aviation department and
Henry Barbarick, company pilot, were flying at 10,000 to 12,000
feet. "Phillips who was piloting the plane saw the first 'flying
saucer.' He yelled to Barbarick who was reading maps, but Barbarick
said the 'saucer' went by so fast that he was unable to see it.
A few minutes later Phillips saw another one of the strange flying
objects which he said looked like a large 'hangar door' on the
horizon but again Barbarick was unable to catch sight of it.
A moment later another appeared in front of the plane and then shot
up and over the plane, and this time Barbarick caught sight of the
object.
Phillips said that at least nine of the "saucers" [appeared] in a
space of 15 minutes. Both men said the discs were flying at such a
tremendous rate of speed that they were unable to get a good look
at them. They tried unsuccessfully to clock them once when one
flashed by. Phillips turned the plane to get a better look at it,
but it had disappeared by the time the plane came around.
Phillips said the discs varied in size of a small plane up to a
large transport. He said they looked saucer shaped with the front
tilted up. He said they were definitely made of metal, since they
glistened like silver in the sun. They appeared to be revolving, he
said.
Barbarick said that it gave you a feeling "like someone was
shooting flak at you."
Sacramento, California, Sacramento BEE - July 7, 1947
Albert Williams of Route 7, Box 5245, a special deputy sheriff and
watchman at Bohemian Village reported to the sheriff’s office he
saw two groups of objects; one group had three objects and there
were six in the second and all were flying fast and high.
St. Petersburg, Florida Tampa Bay Times - July 8, 1947
Those miraculously speedy “flying saucers” which have baffled
the nation since their first appearance in March, now have the
power to bow heavy trees in their path, according to Pinellas
county’s first reported observer of the atmospheric phenomenon.
In Clearwater yesterday, Mrs. Imogene Richard, 609 Highland avenue,
reported seeing the mysterious disks from her yard about three
o'clock in the afternoon.
Upon feeling and hearing a strong gust of wind and looking outside
for a storm, Mrs. Richard allegedly spotted the objects, which,
according to her description, resembled "pie pans, turning over and
over and traveling very high in the air at a very fast rate of
speed."
The disks came from the west and traveled toward the south-east,
Mrs. Richards said, bending the trees in their path as before a
heavy windstorm.
Hollywood Citizen-News - July 8, 1947
AUSSIES SEE THEM
Sydney, Australia, July 8 (AP)-- Strange tales of
"flying saucers" were told in Sydney today, and the
Daily Telegraph headlined the story "It Had To Happen
Here."
Several Sydney persons told of seeing disc-shaped
objects across the sky last night and early today (7/7 and 7/8).
"The night was so clear and bright we were
able to get a good look at them," he (sic) said.
"They traveled very fast in a north and westerly direction."
These manifestations came several hours after 22
Sydney University students reported glimpsing objects after an experiment
organized by Professor Frank S. Cotton who said what they actually saw was
the "effect of red corpuscles of the blood passing before the retina
of the eye,"
(22 out of 450 students saw the alleged
"spots.")
Lewiston, Idaho Daily Tribune - 8 July, 1947
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 miles 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 camera with telephoto 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 in 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 airport
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 oversome. 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 vey 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 wild blue 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.
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