PROJECT 1947 - UFO REPORTS: 1950

FLYING (Magazine) - July, 1950

THE FLYING SAUCERS --
FACT OR FICTION?

By CURTIS FULLER
Editor of FLYING

When observers as experienced as airline pilots say they've seen
strange objects in the sky, they deserve a respectful hearing.

THE night of March 31, 1950, was dark and clear. The Chicago and Southern Air Lines DC-3 had taken off a short while before from Memphis airport for a regularly scheduled flight to Little Rock, Ark. Off in the distance Capt. Jack Adams, 31, a veteran of 7,000 hours and seven years on the airline, could see the glow of lights that meant Little Rock, 40 miles away.

"There was only a small piece of moon showing," Adams said. "Our altitude was about 2,000 feet. Visibility and ceiling were unlimited. We could see 20 or 30 miles easily."

In the right hand seat was Co-Pilot G. W. Anderson, Jr., 30, a 6,000-hour veteran. Anderson and Adams knew the route perfectly, had flown it many times together

At exactly 9:29 p.m. Adams' attention was caught by a lighted, fast-moving object. "My God, what's that?" he asked.

Anderson looked up. "Oh no, not one of those things!" he said.

Unfortunately for his peace of mind it was "one of those things."

The editors of FLYING have followed and investigated reports of "those things" for just short of three years -- ever since Kenneth Arnold, a businessman-pilot and himself a contributor to FLYING, started the great modern flying saucer controversy on June 24, 1947.

Since then we have talked with men who believe they have seen flying saucers, with men who are equally sure they haven't, with Air Force investigators, with psychologists. For nearly three years no editor of FLYING has visited an Air Force base or talked with an Air Force officer without asking "What do you know about the flying saucers?"

The results, as you may suspect, have not been very fruitful. The answer has almost invariably been an unyielding:

"There isn't any such thing."

And yet in the minds of the editors there has always remained an unsatisfied, nagging doubt. If there isn't any such thing, what did Captain Jack Adams and First Officer G. W. Anderson, Jr., see?

Up to the time of issuing its first report about a year ago, the Air Force's Project Saucer had investigated 240 domestic and 30 foreign saucer incidents. FLYING has in its own records reports of more than 40 saucer sightings.

Most of the reports are from crackpots and come under what psychologists call "hallucinatory phenomena." But the crackpot reports do not detract from the validity of reports from qualified observers any more than the existence of medical quacks proves that trained doctors are also quacks.

We have in our files enough material to write a book on flying saucers -- a strange compilation, indeed, of "things that don't exist." Several of the accounts are more interesting and inexplicable than those described in this article, but we have confined this to only four reports.

All involve sightings by airliner crews -- in each case by both pilots and co-pilots. We have confined the descriptions of saucer sightings to these four accounts because we know that airline pilots are trained observers. They are used to watching and interpreting sky phenomena and would be less likely to err in their reports than any other group we could think of.

No editor of FLYING has ever seen a flying saucer. But we adopt the position of Dr. Frank K. Edmondson, director of the Goethe Link Observatory of Indiana University at Bloomington.

"I have never seen a flying saucer," said Dr. Edmondson, "but after you discount all these explainable reports, there is a residue left that I cannot explain."

The sightings by airline pilots are part of that residue, and the strange craft that Captain Adams and First Officer Anderson saw near Little Rock last March was one of those unexplainable phenomena.

"It was about 1,000 feet above us and about a half mile away," Anderson told intelligence officers. "It zoomed at terrific speed (perhaps as much as 700-1,000 m.p.h.) in an arc ahead and above us, moving from south to north . . .

"This object remained in full view for about 30 seconds and we got a good look. It had no navigation lights, but as it passed ahead of us in an arc we could plainly see other lights -- as though from eight or 10 lighted windows or ports -- on the lower side.

"The lights had a fluorescent quality. They were soft and fuzzy, unlike any we'd seen before. The object was circular, apparently, and the lights remained distinct all the time it was in our view. There was no reflection, no exhaust, and no vapor trail. That's definite."

Captain Adams added that "there was a bright white light flashing intermittently from the top of the thing. The speed attracted our attention first, that and the blinking light. It was the strongest blue white light we've ever seen.

As the object passed, its underside apparently was then exposed to the pilots because the blue-white light was obscured. The object then continued in a straight line and disappeared.

"I've been a skeptic all my life, but what can you do when you see something like that?" Adams said. "We both saw it and we were flabbergasted."

The night was so dark that neither Adams nor Anderson could detect any dark or solid outline to the object. They assume that it was circular only because the lighted "portholes" were arranged in a circle.

The two pilots told a Memphis Press-Scimitar staff writer:

"We tried not to be too fantastic in making our report. We sort of figured on the short side of everything. We never had been interested in these things before. In fact, frankly, we did not believe in them.

"The thing was not a shooting star or a comet. We know a comet, and we see shooting stars between Memphis and Houston all the time."

* * *

It was 2:45 early one July morning in 1948. An Eastern Airlines DC-3 piloted by Capt. Clarence Shipe Chiles and co-piloted by John B. Whitted, was tooling along at 5,000 feet about 20 miles south-west of Montgomery, Ala., en route from Houston to New York.

The moon was bright and there were scattered light clouds. Thunderstorms had been reported en route and Chiles and Whitted were watching faint flashes of lightning way up ahead.

"We had our eyes focused on the point from which the thing came," Chiles told Louis Blackburn, of the Houston Press. "From the right and slightly above us came a bright glow and the long rocket-like ship took form in the distance.

"It's a jet job," I said to Whitted.

"Then it grew larger and pulled up alongside. It appeared to be about 100 feet long with a huge fuselage three times as large as that of a B-29.

"It's too big for a jet, but what the devil is it?" said Whitted.

"There were two rows of windows and it appeared definitely to be a two-decker. The lights from the side were a ghastly white, like the glow of a gas light -- the whitest we'd ever seen.

"There was a long shaft on the ship's nose that looked like it might have been part of radar controls. The ship acted that way too, for just after it pulled alongside us it whipped quickly upward at a very sharp angle."

Both craft veered to their respective left. The mystery ship passed about 700 feet to the right and above the airliner. "Then, as if the pilot had seen us and wanted to avoid us, it pulled up with a tremendous burst of flame from the rear and zoomed into the clouds, its prop wash or jet wash rocking our DC-3."

The wingless craft gave the impression of having a pilot's cabin at the front of a cigar-shaped fuselage. The cabin was brightly lighted but the fuselage itself approximated the brilliance of a magnesium flare.

"We saw no occupants," Chiles said. "From the side of the craft came an intense fairly dark blue glow that ran the entire length of the fuselage like a blue fluorescent factory light. The exhaust was a red-orange flame, with a lighter color predominant around the outer edges."

Both Chiles and Whitted agreed that the exhaust flame extended 30 to 50 feet behind the object and became deeper in intensity as the craft pulled up into a cloud. They estimated its speed as being about 1/3 faster than ordinary jets -- that is 700 to 900 m.p.h.

Immediately after the ship disappeared, Chiles turned the controls over to Whitted and rushed into the cabin to find out if any passengers had seen the object. He found all the passengers asleep except C. L. McKelvie of Columbus, O.

"I remembered saying to myself 'That's the queerest lightning I've ever seen,' and I pressed myself closer to the window to see it," McKelvie said. "I was amazed at the brilliance of the flash of light."

McKelvie realized it was not lightning when the "light" flashed past in an unbroken line to disappear in a cloud. "It was much redder in color than lightning," McKelvie said. He did not, however, see any form of a ship.

The light from the object was so brilliant, indeed, that it caused "lightning blindness" to both pilots. They had to turn up their cockpit lights to read the instruments.

* * *

Nine circular disc-like objects were sighted by a United Air Lines plane west-bound from Boise, Ida., to Seattle Wash., on July 4, 1947 -- just a few days after Kenneth Arnold reported the first chain of "discs" over the state of Washington.

There had been many other reports of "flying saucers" in the northwest but most persons were skeptical. "I'll believe 'em when I see 'em," said Capt. E. J. Smith of United Air Lines Flight 105. The plane took off at 9:04 p.m. and was only eight minutes out of Boise when Smith and his co-pilot, First Officer Ralph Stevens, saw five disc-like objects in "loose formation."

At first they mistook the objects for aircraft and blinked their lights as a warning. It was a dimly twilighted sky and they could see the objects silhouetted clearly. The two pilots called Marty Morrow, stewardess, to the cockpit to certify that they were actually seeing the discs and she too saw them.

Then they caught sight of four more of the objects, three clustered together and a fourth flying "by itself, way off in the distance."

"The discs were flat and roundish," Smith and Stevens said. "They definitely were not aircraft. But they were bigger than aircraft."

* * *

The most recent "flying saucer" sighting by an airliner was on the night of April 27, 1950, when occupants of a Trans-World Airline plane en route to Chicago saw a "round glowing mass" in the air as they flew over South Bend, Ind.

Capt. Robert Adickes, the pilot, and First Officer Robert Manning had the object in sight for six or seven minutes as it overtook their plane at about 2,000 feet and cruised along a parallel course. Adickes has been flying for 13 years and has been a TWA captain for six years.

He is a cautious man and is reluctant to say that he saw a "flying saucer." To him it was an "object" or a "guided missile."

"I had just had my dinner and was wide awake," says Adickes, "when this object flew alongside. It was definitely round, with no irregular features at all, and about 10 to 20 per cent as thick as it was round. It was very smooth and streamlined, and glowed evenly with a bright red color as if it were heated stainless steel. It was so bright it gave off a light. It left no vapor, no flame. It appeared to fly on edge, like a wheel going down a highway.

"I went back to show the passengers. Most of them saw it but they couldn't see it as clearly as we [pilot and co-pilot] did because cabin lights were on and their eyes weren't adjusted to darkness.

"I called South Bend air traffic control and asked if they had any record of unusual craft in the vicinity. They didn't."

Adickes banked north in an effort to get a closer look. "It appeared to be controlled by repulse radar," he said. "As I'd turn toward it, it would veer away, keeping the same distance.

"When I turned directly toward it, it took off at a speed judged to be about 400 m.p.h., twice my speed. It went down to 1,500 feet and streaked out of sight northward over South Bend."

Adickes had talked with other pilots who claimed to have seen strange sky phenomena before he saw the object over South Bend. He is careful to say that he did not see anything that could not be explained by physics, radar, or known aerodynamic principles. He examined it as well as he could and even opened the cockpit window on the right side so that he wasn't looking through glass. Because there was nothing to compare it with he hesitates to estimate its size or distance, but compares it in size and color with an orange about 20 feet away.

"It looked something like a spinning exhaust, all aflame," said passenger Jacob Goelzer. Another passenger, C. W. Anderson, an International Harvester plant superintendent from Springfield, O., said "It looked like a big red light bulb, fading off fast. It was moving very fast. I didn't notice any details of the red ball."

* * *

There is a surprising correlation in all these four sightings. There is the feeling by several pilots that the objects are under a kind of repulse radar control. In the two seen closest there appear to be lighted openings or "portholes."

All the objects have been seen at night, except the United Air Lines group which was seen at twilight and showed no lights. Otherwise, all objects are associated with lights, two of them with exceptionally bright white or blue-white lights, and also with softer fluorescing lights.

Three of the objects were round and disc-shaped. The fourth, that of the Eastern Airlines pilots was cigar-shaped -- yet it is obvious that a disc seen on edge throughout its flight would also look cigar-shaped. None of the three disc-shaped objects showed any evidence of reaction propulsion. That of the cigar-shaped object did.

The attitude of scientists everywhere is in almost universal agreement -- there are no such things as flying saucers. It is a striking fact that astronomers and physicists universally discount their existence on the grounds that they are hallucinations, but that psychologists are inclined to credit them on the grounds that they cannot be hallucinations.

Dr. Harlow Shapley, director of Harvard Observatory, says: "No evidence that flying saucers are other than natural neurotic phenomena has been received at the Harvard Observatory."

Dr. I. S. Bowen, director of Mt. Palomar and Mt. Wilson observatories says: "We have not observed objects in the air that could not be explained as natural phenomena." And Dr. Robert H. Baker, professor of astronomy at the University of Illinois in Urbana declares: "I would say it's hysteria. I never saw a saucer, and know of no astronomer who has."

Among physicists, Dr. Arthur Jaffee an atomic scientist of the University of Chicago, suggested: "Maybe the people who see things have motes in their eyes." Dr. James Arnold, former Manhattan Project worker and a chemistry professor at the University of Chicago: "There's no evidence. People can see a lot of things -- some real and some caused by the power of suggestion."

And here's what Dr. Erwin Angres, a psychiatrist replied: "Pilots, who are trained observers, are not going to be fooled very often. There may be something to the stories."

There is a striking similarity between the attitude of scientists and newspapers toward flying saucers, and toward man's first attempts to fly.

People simply would not believe that the Wright Brothers had flown. The most important reason they would not believe it was that they had been told by scientists for years that heavier-than-air flight was impossible. Dr. Simon Newcomb, the distinguished astronomer and the first American since Benjamin Franklin to be made an associate of the Institute of France, declared just a few years before the Wrights flew that flight without gas bags would require the discovery of some new metal or a new unsuspected force in nature. Rear Adm. George W. Melville, then chief engineer for the U. S. Navy proved convincingly in the North American Review that the attempts to fly heavier-than-air craft were absurd.

During 1904 and 1905, the Wright Brothers conducted numerous experimental flights at Simms Station, eight miles from Dayton. They flew from Huffman Field, alongside the interurban line, and people who watched the flights from the interurban cars used to flock into the Dayton Daily News office and demand to know why there was nothing in the newspaper about them.

Dan Kumler, city editor, explained in 1940 why they didn't publish the stories. "We just didn't believe it. Of course you remember that the Wrights at that time were terribly secretive."

He was asked: "You mean that they were secretive about the fact that they were flying over an open field along the interurban line?"

Kumler hesitated and replied, "I guess the truth is that we were just plain dumb."

All the evidence suggests that orthodox scientists don't believe there can be such things as flying saucers because they don't behave in accordance with the conventional physics they know -- just as the Wright Brothers plane did not accord with the physics of Simon Newcomb and therefore couldn't exist either.

FLYING does not have any secret sources in the Government who are able to give us confidential reports on how the saucers are powered, and who is behind them, such as one national magazine has published.

We are convinced that they have nothing to do with the Chance Vought V-173 configuration pictured on the cover of FLYING, nor with the Chance Vought XF5U (Flying Pancake) as stated by another national magazine. Only one of each of these airplanes was ever built, and the XF5U never even flew. The V-173 did fly but had no performance comparable with that attributed to the mysterious objects described here.

We do not believe that the saucers are a Soviet development. If the Russians did have anything so revolutionary they would hardly risk their secret by conducting training flights over the United States.

Are they then a United States development?

Airline pilots and businessmen pilots who do a lot of flying, and who talk with pilots who have seen strange objects in the sky, generally believe that they are. But if so, note these contradictions:

1. If they are indeed a secret U. S. development, that secret has been better kept in peacetime than the atomic bomb was in wartime.

2. They seem to involve a revolutionary type of fuselage, of flight theory, and also perhaps even a revolutionary type of propulsion. This seems to be the reason the physicists questioned do not believe they exist. The editors of FLYING keep well abreast of late aviation developments and know of no airframes or power plants, atomic plants included, that perform as these objects are reported to perform.

3. Like the Russians, it hardly seems likely that U. S. researchers would be experimenting with the saucers at random spots all around the country where there would always be the danger of their secrets becoming known.

4. The Government itself does not just evade answers on flying saucers. In every case it denies they exist. While certain denials are to be expected, it seems to the FLYING staff that the type of denials are fairly conclusive.

Before Project Saucer was "officially" terminated it reported that "no definite conclusive evidence is yet available that would prove or disprove the possibility that a portion of the unidentified objects are real aircraft of unknown or unconventional configuration."

This, it seems to us, is an evasion. Even taking the four reports cited here, it is obvious that skilled pilots, trained observers of sky phenomena, saw something. If they saw it, it must exist. They are not all victims of hallucinations despite the ready explanations of the physicists.

But what the strange phenomena are, the editors of FLYING do not pretend to know.

We can only say what they are not. They are not anything the glib radio commentators and the sensational magazines say they are. They are a mystery and a contradiction, and we know little more about what they are than when we started our investigation. But it's been interesting, hasn't it?

AIRLINE PILOTS' OWN SKETCHES OF WHAT THEY SAW

CAPT. C. S. CHILES

This strange object seen by Eastern Airlines Capt. Chiles is the only one reported by airline pilots that had the traditional rocket shape and appeared to have jet exhaust.

CAPT. JACK ADAMS

C.&S's Pilot Adams would not swear that the ship he saw had circular shape indicated, but the circular arrangement of "portholes" seemed to indicate that it was a disc.

CAPT. ROBERT ADICKES

Imagine a disc, 10 to 20 per cent as thick as it was round and the size of an orange at 20 feet -- that describes the object observed by TWA's Adickes.

KENNETH ARNOLD

Idaho businessman-pilot attracted nationwide attention in 1947, with his reports of "flying discs" seen over the Cascades. All but one of discs Arnold saw were shaped like the drawings below.

CAPT. E.J. SMITH

United Air Lines captain saw nine strange objects in air near Emmett, Idaho. Sketch below by Kenneth Arnold is based on Smith's description of the objects. Note similarity of profile with that on the left.

Memphis, Tennessee Commercial Appeal - 12 July, 1950

Millington Men Report Seeing 'Flying Saucer’ And Tracing It

Veteran Pilots Sighted Odd Craft From Plane Near Osceola

— Radar Logged It For Eight Miles — They Say It Was

Speedy, Shaped Like World War I Helmet

By JAC COOPER

Two Millington Naval Air Station pilots have seen a flying saucer, or some type of strange aircraft, and traced its course by radar for eight miles.

This startling testimony on the factual side of the flying saucer argument was released by the Navy yesterday at Millington.

Each pilot was flying a crew on a routine training flight about 20 miles north-northeast of Osceola, Ark., at 3:28 Friday afternoon when the saucer came into view on the left about three miles away, crossed in front of their planes and vanished toward the southwest, they reported.

Lieut. (j.g.) J. W. Martin (16½ years in the Navy, 2500 hours logged as a pilot) said: “We were flying about 5000 feet and I think R. E. Moore (enlisted pilot) was the first to spot the thing.”

Thought It Was a Jet

“At first we thought it was a jet plane distorted by the glare off the aluminum body. It seemed round at first.

“The men in both ships saw it on our left, and as it traveled across in front of us and disappeared in the distance on our right.

“In the air you have nothing to judge by accurately, but I estimated its altitude at about 8000 feet and speed at 200 to 225 miles an hour.

“After it got closer the thing looked like a World War I helmet seen from the side, or a shiny shallow bowl turned upside down.

“I figured it to be about 25 to 45 feet across and about seven feet high.”

Moore’s Description

Pilot Moore's description tallied with that of Lieutenant Martin.

While the crews of both ships watched, G. D. Wehner, an electronics technician instructing in Moore’s ship, established radar contact with the saucer and followed it out of sight with the “scope.”

“At one time the saucer appeared to be only about a mile away,” said Lieutenant Martin.

“We wanted to follow it, but were flying training ships that can't make the speed the saucer, or whatever, was traveling, and also we’d have had to climb about 3000 feet in pursuit. It was a hopeless proposition,” he added.

Mr. Wehner reported: “I caught it in the scope. It was helmet-shaped. The outline of the edges was all right, but glare from the center of it prevented getting a better look.”

Contrasts With Navy Policy

The Navy’s release of the news came in sharp contrast to Air Force policy, which has been to discount the many and frequent reports of strange flying craft or make any other comment on the result of investigations.

Experienced airmen have previously reported seeing strange craft in flight.

On March 20 Capt. Jack Adams and his co-pilot, First Officer G. W. Anderson Jr., both Chicago & Southern Air Lines pilots here, reported seeing a “peculiar saucer-type craft in controlled flight” over Hazen, Ark. The two Memphians are veteran pilots, with thousands of hours in the air.

Similar instances have been reported in other parts of the Nation.

Henry Taylor, newspaper man and radio commentator, has told audiences in Memphis and on nationwide hookups that he believes the flying saucers are being developed as a weapon of the United States.

Capt. Jack Adams (right) and his co-pilot, First Officer G. W. Anderson Jr., both of Chicago & Southern Air Lines, discuss their March 20, 1950, sighting over Arkansas.

Great Falls, Montana TRIBUNE - 5 August, 1950
Mariana Reports Flying Discs

Could it be that even baseballs now come home to roost?

Nick Mariana, general manager of the Selectrics, was asking himself that question this morning. Two objects — for all the world like the “long gone” ball slugged out of the Twin Falls ball park last night by Lou Briganti and Joe Nally — sailed across the sky at Legion park this morning.

At least so the troubled Brewers general manager reported today — even while admitting he could have been seeing things. Only he hopes to have photographic proof for skeptics.

It all happened at 11:30 a. m. while Mariana was out taking a look around the reserved seat section at Legion park — and there sailing smoothly above the smelter stack at the ACM plant were two spherical silvery objects at a height he estimated at 5,000 feet. After a quick double take and a minute lost while he brushed the cobwebs from his eyes he called his secretary as a witness.

Very opportunely he remembered his movie camera and shot the movies he hopes will verify what he hopes isn’t failing eyesight.

No report is available on possible weather balloons floating in the atmosphere today — but it is feared that the high-flying baseball version may be more acceptable to Great Falls residents than “flying saucers.”

Medford, Oregon Mail-Tribune - 17 August, 1950
Lookouts Report Seeing 'Saucers'
North of Medford

Flying “discs” or “saucers,” made a new appearance in Jackson county last Saturday, according to Mr. and Mrs. Bud Oliver who man the state forestry lookout on Round Top mountain, about 28 miles north of Medford.

Oliver said that two of these mysterious objects were seen about 1:30 p.m. hovering over his lookout, before taking off at great speed toward the south.

Oblong and Round

One of the “saucers” was oblong in shape and the other was round, although the latter had two edges that seemed flat, giving it almost an oblong shape. Oliver said he couldn't tell whether the round one was spinning or not, but he thought the other turned end over end as it moved away.

The two objects first were seen by Oliver as he was walking along the catwalk outside the lookout’s enclosed room. He called to Mrs. Oliver and their daughter, Agnes, who also saw both “saucers" as they appeared near the tower.

Round Top, Oregon, Fire Lookout Tower Ca. 1950
View on Google Maps

Oliver said that the objects seemed to be about 100 feet apart and that as they moved away from the tower they picked up speed very fast. He said that by the time he walked from one side of the tower to the other, both “discs” had disappeared.

He described them as being of bronze or brown in color and said they did not reflect any sunlight.

The lookout said he could not estimate the altitude of the “saucers,” nor could he say how large they were. He said they appeared to be “floating” without much motion until they suddenly “took off to the south.”

Oliver described the oblong object as appearing like a stovepipe. He said both “discs” stayed near the lookout but a few seconds before disappearing.

He said he could see no flames or smoke from either object.

New York Herald-Tribune - 17 August, 1950

Flying Saucer Time: 2790 Miles an Hour
Canadian Estimates Its Diameter at 150 Feet

Nanaimo, B. C., Aug 16 (CP)–Harry Lowe, assistant manager of Cassidy Airport here, not only saw a flying saucer today, he timed it.

Mr. Lowe said he was making a routine weather observation when the object appeared from the north at 9:43 a.m. at a height of 30,000 feet.

He figured its speed at 2790 miles an hour, like this: The object was 5,000 feet above cirrus cloud at 25,000 feet. "It appeared at a 45-degree angle from horizontal and traveled through 90-degrees of arc in twelve seconds." Therefore, he said, 2790 miles an hour.

He estimated its diameter at 150 feet.

"It was definitely something I have never seen before," Mr. Lowe said. "It was not a balloon and not an aircraft, not a normal aircraft anyway."

Acting Base Director of Operations at Holloman's 2754th Experimental Wing regarding UFO incidents during secret missile testing. - 30 August 1950

For more details see the Holloman Air Force Base MTHT-150 Quarterly Report

HEADQUARTERS
2754TH EXPERIMENTAL WING
HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, NEW MEXICO


EHO 000.92/1		13 SEP 1950

SUBJECT:	Aerial Phenomena

TO:	Commanding General Air Materiel Command Attn: MCI Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Dayton, Ohio

1. Strange objects of an undisclosed nature were observed in the sky over Holloman Air Force Base on two successive days, 30 and 31 August 1950. A brief account of events of these two days will be given separately.

a. 30 August 1950: B-50 aircraft for mission of Missile XM-776, Bell Aircraft Corporation, was airborne and while employees of this company were scanning the sky for the aircraft, two unexplainable objects were sighted in vicinity of the aircraft. The objects appeared at approximately 1045 hours and were visible for approximately 30 minutes, and seemed to follow the aircraft on both the dry run and the hot run, prior to release of the missile. Observers' stories differed to a degree and some observers saw only one object. At least eight responsible civilians and one Master Sergeant observed the phenomena. The following points were noted by observers:

(1) Very fast rate of speed for short distances.
(2) Strong glare at all times that was not reflected from sun.
(3) Left no vapor trails, seemed to hover, make maneuvers and then accelerate rapidly.
(4) Made square abrupt turns, relative size changed sufficiently to determine ascent and descent, shape changed from round to elliptical.
(5) The two objects retained their relative position to one another.
(6) Appeared to be approximately ten times faster than B-50 aircraft and above aircraft.

No project or instrumentation personnel were notified on this date, therefore, no scientific data was obtained.

Great Falls, Montana TRIBUNE - 11 September, 1950
Flying Saucer Movies to Be Shown Here

Motion pictures of flying saucers taken by Nick Mariana several weeks ago at they passed over Legion park will be shown at the Central Round Table meeting tonight at 8 at the Booster clubrooms in the Park hotel. Mariana is general manager of the Great Falls Selectrics.

Tony Dalich will discuss football rules at the meeting and John Shulz, coach of the Central High Mustangs, will outline prospects for the Mustang grid season. Hugo Nelson will preside at the meeting.

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Berkshire Eagle - 12 September, 1950
Flying saucer film taken over by AF

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) - Nick Mariana says that the Air Force has taken his color movie of two silver disks that buzzed over a baseball park here Aug. 15. He said he turned the color film over to the air technical command here at the request of a special investigator of the command.

Mariana, manager of the Great Falls team in the Pioneer Baseball League, said, when he saw the disks over the ball park he focused his camera and photographed them.

They appear on the film for seconds he said he was advised by the investigating officials not to release any further information concerning the film.

Baltimore, Maryland Sunday Morning Sun - 1 October, 1950

Saucers Do Get Around

High-Speed Disk Heads West Over Seoul, Marines Report

Newspaper for schools tells pupils flying saucers
are real and belong to the Air Force..........Page3

By Richard K.Tucker (Sunpapers War Correspondent)

With the United States Marines in Seoul, Sept 30—It was sure to happen sooner or later. The first flying saucer was reported over the battle-torn South Korean capital shortly before 1 P.M. today.

The disk was reported by a cold-sober Marine division M.P. officer and at least a half dozen of his men.

It was considered official enough to be put on the record of the 5th Marine Regiment's intelligence officer, who said he was planning to forward information to division officers.

The officer who said he saw the saucer flying high from the east to the west over Seoul at 12:37 P.M. was Lieut. E. J. Ambrosia of Monterey, Cal.

Faster Than Any Plane

"It looked to be about as high as bombers I've seen cruising around here," he said. "From that distance it looked about 4 feet in diameter. It seemed to be silvery (in) color and was going two or three times faster than any plane I've seen over here."

Staff Sergeant Robert J. Bowden supported the Lieutenant's statement.

"We all saw it," he said. "There were about a half dozen of us with the lieutenant when we went over to check a report by natives that there were four dead Marines on a hill.

"We saw a bunch of Korean kids looking up and we looked up too. It looked more yellow than silver to me, but it was round and really travelling fast."

"Sure Did" Look Like a Saucer

Another man who vouched for the saucer report was Staff Sergeant Franklin Ryerson of Eagle Rock, Cal.

"Are you sure it looked like a saucer?" he was asked.

"It sure did," he replied.

The position of the lieutenant and his men when the alleged saucer was seen [was] near an old Japanese prison on the northwest edge of Seoul. They said it was visible for about two or three minutes in bright sunlight.

They reported it to Major William Esterline, S-2 officer the 5th Marine Regiment. Major Esterline smiled over it, but then decided he better pass the information on to the division. How far beyond that it got is not known.

Lieutenant More Serious

But Lieutenant Ambrosia was a bit more serious about the whole thing.

"You know," he said, I've heard a lot about those things. I never thought I'd be one of the people who saw one, I have really believed they existed for some time. Too many people like airline pilots have seen 'em–people who know what they are talking about."

"Where was it going?" someone asked.

"Well," he said, "it was going west from here so it wasn't incoming from Russia."

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Berkshire Eagle - 12 October, 1950
Photos of Saucers?
Spoiled, Says AF

DAYTON, Ohio (AP)—No one will ever know if those airborne objects photographed by a Great Falls, Mont., baseball manager were “flying saucers.”

The Air Force, which Manager Nick Mariana said confiscated pictures he took, reported the color film was “too dark to distinguish any recognizable objects.”

The film was viewed yesterday at near-by Wright-Patterson Air Force base.

Mariana said that last Aug. 15 he photographed two objects which flew over the Great Falls ball park. Later, he said, an Air Force Intelligence officer took the film and told him not to talk about it.

On the Question of Tampering with the 1950
Great Falls Film

At between 1125 and 1130 AM M.S.T. on August 15, 1950, two witnesses, Nicholas Mariana, the general manager of the Great Falls minor league baseball team, the "Selectrics," and his secretary, Virginia Raunig, observed an unusual sight. While standing in the grandstand of the local ballpark, Mariana saw two peculiar, roundish objects moving swiftly out of the northwest and moving southward. When both objects stopped abruptly, Mariana recalled having a l6mm movie camera in his car. He ran down a stairway in the park to his car about 60 feet away and shouted for his secretary in a nearby office. After she ran out, he asked her if she could see anything in the sky. She said yes, two silvery spheres.

Frame showing the UFOs from the Montana Film

When Mariana retrieved the camera, he immediately turned the telephoto lens into position, set the f-stop at 22 and began filming the objects, which had begun moving again. He described what he saw as two discs spinning like a top, about 50 feet across and 50 yards apart. He could see no appendages, wings, fuselage or exhaust, but he thought he heard a "whooshing" sound when he first noticed the objects.

The UFOs moved southeast behind a General Mills grain building and a water tower south of the ballpark and disappeared into the distance.

Almost immediately after taking the film, Mariana said that two Air Force jets had flown across the sky east of him and headed in a southerly direction. These were later identified as two F-94s arriving at Great Falls Air Force Base from the 449th Fighter Squadron at Ladd Air Force Base, Alaska. The jets, #2502 and #2503, landed at 1130 and 1133 AM respectively (Air Force Case Files).

The objects were estimated to be three-quarters of a mile away. Angle of elevation: 35 degrees at an altitude of 10,000 feet. Duration of sighting: 45-50 seconds.

Mariana showed the film to a number of audiences in the local Great Falls area before allowing the Air Force to take the film for analysis on October 4, 1950. The film was retrieved by Captain John Brynildsen, commander of the Great Falls section of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and sent to the District Commander of the 5th District OSI at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio (October 6, 1950, Air Force memo).

After informing the press that the film was received (Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, Ma., 10-6-50), the Air Force issued an inexplicable press release (Berkshire Eagle, 10-12-50), saying that the film was "too dark to distinguish any recognizable objects."

In fact the film was, and is, very clear in showing two bright objects traversing the sky. On October 18th the film was returned to Mariana.

When he received his film back from the Air Force, Mariana was surprised to find that the earliest, best portion of the film, that showing what he said were the two objects with a notch or band at the outer edge and an obvious spinning movement, was missing. He estimated that about 35 frames were gone.

The film stayed with Mariana until 1952 when the Air Force's new head of Project Blue Book, Captain Edward Ruppelt, decided to reopen the Great Falls file. Mariana was asked to send the film to the Air Force again. The reason being that the Air Force lost their copy of the film! He did on October 29, 1952, with the provision that the film not be tampered with again.

In a letter dated November 14, 1952, Colonel William Adams, chief of the Topical Division, Deputy Director for Estimates, of the Directorate for Intelligence, wrote Mariana, updating the status of the film's analysis. He alluded to the fact that at some point the film had become "torn" and that instead of splicing the footage together, resulting in lost frames, the film was repaired with cellulose tape. Mariana was advised not to run the film with the repair until a more permanent splice could be done.

Later the abbreviated film would be used in a documentary film, "UFO" (1956). Throughout the entire investigation the Air Force denied ever having tampered with the film.

Was the film altered, or was Mariana making an unfounded charge? There are a number of matters to consider.

I have a copy of the l6mm Air Force color print, ordered from the National Archives almost 25 years ago. The print has 243 frames and there is repaired tear damage evident on frames 5, 6, 10, 11, 160 and 161. The film lasts about 15 seconds. It begins abruptly with the objects larger and clearer than in the rest of the sequence. The images under the microscope reveal slightly elliptical objects with no apparent projections.

The first frame of the sequence has a linear diagonal cut through it, spoiling part of the frame. There is evidence of an earlier frame to the first one showing the UFO images. How do we know this? In several of the earliest frames, one can see two dark lines in the upper right of each frame, probably electrical wires. The diagonal cut that runs partly through frame one left a tiny portion of a previous frame, frame "0", as I will call it. One can see the two wires in this fragment of frame 0, positive proof that at least one earlier image existed.

Why is this diagonal cut there? Normal commercial film doesn't begin with a crudely appearance as this. Someone had to do it after the film was exposed. Who are the likely candidates?

1) Mariana: Let us say that the missing film shows images that are identifiable as jets. There would be every motivation for Mariana to splice away this portion of the film before giving it to the Air Force if he were trying to put one over on them. However, it would be very difficult to explain the crude slice as it appears and it should have raised immediate suspicion on the part of any Air Force investigator that he may have been hiding something. Mariana certainly wouldn't have received the glowing character assessment that he did from the Air Force officer who picked up the film ("He enjoys an excellent reputation in the local community and is regarded as a reliable, trustworthy and honest individual" Air Force memo, l0-6-50). And what would be the point of giving the film to the Air Force in the first place if he knew they were jets? Some might suggest that Mariana intended to capitalize on the footage. But if the film showed jets, and Mariana knew it, the last place to send the footage for analysis would be the Air Force. They would be the one source most likely to identity the true nature of the objects as jets and disrupt any attempt to falsely pass off the film as showing anomalous objects. There is zero evidence, even from the Air Force itself; that Mariana could have been involved in a deception. He showed the film to local audiences for little or nothing. If the images did show an anomalous object, why would Mariana cut it out the alleged best part and debased the value of his own film?

2) The Air Force: Mariana sent his film to the Air Force in October 1950, and upon receiving it later in the month, noticed part of it missing, according to his testimony. If the film showed the images to be identifiable as jets, as was later claimed by the Air Force, it would have been pointless for the Air Force to remove anything. The case would have been closer if the missing film showed anomalous objects, it would be no great stretch to think that, given Air Force policy on UFOs at the time, i.e. that there was nothing to the phenomena. They might have deleted what could have been regarded as sensitive material - unknown, exotic objects overflying U.S. airspace. Could the Air Force have inadvertently lost the footage through incompetence and claim that it didn't exist in the first place? Yes, although it would have been risky had Mariana made a duplicate of the film before handing it over. And it would make no sense for a photo analyst to separate the original film in the midst of a sequence. At the same time though, if the lost footage merely showed jets, then the later attention given to the film in 1952 by the Air Force, and by the CIA's Robertson Panel in 1953 would have been a waste of their time. The Air Force's behavior was such that any missing footage did not contribute to a mundane explanation of the objects. Did Captain Byrnildsen innocently separate the footage from other, unrelated exposed footage from Mariana's camera before sending it to Wright-Patterson AFB? Mariana stated in 1967 that there were family scenes prior to the UFO footage. But there is no testimony to this effect. And it wouldn't have spoken highly of an investigative officer to so crudely edit a film about to be analyzed by leaving important early footage behind, as evidenced by the hacking of frame 0.

F-94 Starfire Jet, similar to aircraft Blue Book Identified as being the filmed UFOs

The evidence for missing footage goes even further. During the Condon Committee investigations in 1967, the Great Falls case was re-reopened, despite the Air Force having already listed the film as "Identified" (the two F-94s) in Project Blue Book. Investigator Roy Craig located a number of participants in the case who remembered the film before it was clipped. First was John Wuertner, Mariana's attorney. In May 1951, Mariana sued "Cosmopolitan" magazine for a story published in the January 1951 issue called "The Disgraceful Flying Saucer Hoax!" by Bob Considine. Mariana perceived the negative tone of the article as demeaning his character (the magazine published the opinion that Mariana's UFOs were the two jets). When interviewed about the film and the later lawsuit, Wuertner said that the Air Force kept the film for a long period and with the looming lawsuit, his client wanted the film back to use in the case. "...I know doggone well that that tape when it was returned, was little or nothing to it." Wuertner said that he recalled better views of the film in the original cut. "...when I saw it compared to what came back, it wasn't complete." "The main part that I recall that didn't come back was when it was right overhead. Now it started in the east and as it arose on the horizon then there was a part cut out and all we have left was the part disappearing over the west." He added that there was the appearance of spinning."...if it were uniform, you'd get the same reflection on the same spot. But as it turned, you could get the definite reaction of spinning." Moreover, he continued, "If I had to make an estimate of what I thought had been cut off, I would say that it was, oh gosh, maybe one-fourth to one-fifth - it would be hard to say. But it would seem that they cut off the most obvious part. In other words, the part to me that seemed to bear out his contentions more than anything else."

Another testament came from E. P. Furlong, managing editor of the Great Falls Tribune. He saw the film originally, then later on TV, feeling that the TV version was considerably shorter. He was likely referring to a broadcast of the film "UFO" (1956) which included the entire film available after Mariana received his edited copy.

Tony Dalick [Dalich] ran a sporting goods store where the film had been run before being sent to the Air Force. He testified that there was "a lot missing, perhaps 2-3 feet." He remembered two objects, definitely spinning, shaped like a wafer of Peppermint candy. The objects were closer and clearer on the unreturned part of the film.

Craig interviewed Nicholas Mariana 17 years after the event. He clarified some aspect of sighting detail. On the alleged spinning motion: "You could see the spinning action of the center portion in the middle of the film."

On the "notch" allegedly seen as a reference point for the spinning motion: "...there was a little break between the actual rest of the body of the machine and this portion of it. You could see there was action. You couldn't see it with your eye but you could see it after I got the telephoto film back."

On the diagonal cut at the beginning of the film: "The reason I know it was cut, too, was that they came back with the original and they had spliced it diagonally. Well, I never used the diagonal splice. I use horizontal splice..."

Let's look more at the film strip itself. As mentioned earlier, I had obtained a l6mm print of the Air Force's copy years ago from the National Archives. The Archives no longer makes film prints of UFO footage available, as everything has been placed onto videotape for sale. The length of the actual Great Falls footage is 6 feet, 3/4 inch, with a 42 inch blank lead and a 52 inch blank end. The total length of the filmstrip is about 14 feet. There is no telling when the blanks were added on but they were not part of the original film and they were certainly added by the Air Force.

According to Captain Byrnildsen's transmittal letter of October 6, 1950, approximately 15 feet of film was sent to Wright-Patterson AFB. But in a clipping cited in Jerome Clark's "The UFO Encyclopedia" (2nd Ed. 1998) from the Great Falls Tribune (October 6, 1950), Byrnildsen is said to have told the reporter that he picked up 8 feet of film from Mariana. Unless someone made errors in quoting the footage, it seems like Byrnildsen picked up eight feet of film from Mariana, added on the blank footage and sent the finished product to Wright-Patterson. My copy of the film, with blank filler, is 14 feet, in close agreement with what was sent to Wright-Patterson.

If you've been reading carefully, you can see a problem. The supposedly complete copy of the edited Air Force print, that which Mariana received after having had his film "reduced," is nearly two feet shorter than the lowest estimate of what the Air Force had said they had received at Wright-Patterson in 1950! Since on a viewing of the existing print there are no major jump cuts in the sequence, which flows rather smoothly, and since the film ends about where the witness has testified (the objects moving into the distance and disappearing), one must conclude that about two feet of film is missing from the beginning of the sequence.

This is exactly what Mariana claims. It is also in good agreement with the testimony of Tony Dalick, the sporting goods store owner who had seen the footage before and after the claimed editing by the Air Force, saying that he felt "two to three feet" were missing from the beginning.

In 1956, Dr. Robert M. L. Baker produced an analysis of the Montana film, a treatment that was later updated and printed in "The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences" for January-February 1968, under the title "Observational Evidence of Anomalistic Phenomena." He concluded that nearby jet aircraft should have been resolvable on the film, but at greater distances the brightness and speed of the images were too great to have been aircraft. In other words, the objects were unidentified. Of relevance to this article are remarks in Baker's article about the filmstrip itself. He said that his analysis focused upon just 225 frames of the film because of the presence of foreground objects, by which precise measurements could have been made. 65 frames at the beginning of the film were not used except for brightness measurements. This gives us 290 frames total that Baker had available of the UFOs (290 frames? Ed.). The film was given to Baker for study by Greene-Rouse Productions, the makers of the documentary "UFO" mentioned earlier. The clip was the end product supplied to Mariana after the 1952 Air Force analysis, and supplied to Greene-Rouse Productions when a deal was struck to use the footage in the documentary. Greene-Rouse arranged an independent analysis, presumably to be sure that the film showed truly anomalous images.

Now the problem with this is that my copy of the Air Force Montana print is only 243 frames long. 47 more frames had disappeared between 1952 and the time I had obtained the film from the National Archives! Could it have been that the Air Force clipped the footage again, knowing that the film was to be released publicly sometime after the mid-1970s upon the transfer of Blue Book records to the National Archives? We might want to title the remaining sequence of the Montana footage "The Incredible Shrinking Film!"

The Air Force had already decided that the film had shown two F-94s (see Project Blue Book's conclusion). This was in spite of the 1952 reinvestigation by the then head of the Air Force's Project Blue Book, Captain Edward Ruppelt, at the direction of the Pentagon. Ruppelt had said that in 1950 there was no interest on the part of the Air Force in UFOs. Their pre-Blue Book program, Project Grudge, had written off the Montana film as jets after a quick viewing (see "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects," page 287). Upon examining the data anew, the new study narrowed down the possible explanations to the F-94s in the area. But as Ruppelt explained, "First we studied the flight paths of the two F-94s. We knew the landing pattern being used on the day of the sighting, and we knew when the two F-94s landed. The two jets just weren't anywhere close to where the two UFOs had been. Next we studied each individual light and both appeared to be too steady to be reflections. We drew a blank on the Montana movie - it was an unknown."

If the head of Project Blue Book decided that the UFOs were unexplained after a lengthy investigation in 1952, who decided that the conclusion in the Blue Book files should remain "aircraft?" There were no further investigations of the Montana film. Perhaps it was the same decision making process that performed the film alterations?

Probably the greatest debunking of UFOs came in the form of the Condon Committee, which functioned from 1966 to the publication of its report "The Scientific Study of Unidentified flying Objects". The project was created ostensibly to relieve the Air Force of having anything further to do with UFO investigations. UFOs had become a nuisance problem for the Air Force, stuck in a no-win situation of chasing down mostly ordinary reports, 90% of which were identifiable as mundane stimuli. The Condon Report dismissed any notion that UFOs were worthy of scientific attention, or that they posed a threat to national security.

Yet their discussion of the Montana film is curiously less critical than one had become used to in dealing with the typical Air Force public relations machine at the time.

The Committee's investigator of the Montana film, Dr. William Hartmann, said in the report, "Both individuals (Mariana and Raunig) have recently affirmed the observation, and there is little reason to question its validity. The case remains unexplained. Analysis indicates that the images on the film are difficult to reconcile with aircraft or other known phenomena, although aircraft cannot entirely be ruled out."

After summarizing the case, Hartmann, attempting to explain a discrepancy in the witnesses' estimates of the duration of the sighting, said the discrepancy "probably refers to the fact that Witness 1 (Mariana) made about 20 seconds of film." That's 5 seconds, or 80 frames of film, more than the current Air Force print; or 2 seconds, or 32 frames, more than the Baker copy obtained from Greene-Rouse Productions. The 2-second difference is in close agreement with Mariana's claim that at least an estimated 35 frames were shaved from the original.

Hartmann concludes by summarizing arguments for and against aircraft reflections being responsible for the images. He states, "While such a hypothesis (the F-94 explanation) is tenable, it conflicts with some of the soft data. It is judged reasonable only to regard this object as unidentified."

CONCLUSIONS:

A few more things are now more certain about the Great Falls UFO footage than they were before:

1. In spite of the Air Force's claims to the contrary, there is strong evidence that the film sequence was clipped after it had been sent to the Air Force in 1950. Witness statements and Air Force documents allude to a longer sequence than currently exists.

2. The film was clipped again between 1952 and 1976, based upon measurements made by the author on his own copy from the National Archives and compared to earlier analyses.

3. The Air Force had behaved poorly in their public handling of the story above the local level. The press release of October 12, 1950 was nothing less than a lie about the film's quality. After an analysis in 1952, the Project Blue Book record was not changed to reflect new conclusions determined by the head of the project.

Great Falls, Montana, 1950 UFO Footage

Oak Ridge, Tennessee Oak Ridger - 12 October, 1950 - Page 8

Allen Says —

AEC Wants Info On

Flying Saucers Seen Near A-Plants

BY ROBERT S. ALLEN

Flying saucers — If you see a flying saucer, or know of anyone who has, the Atomic Energy Commission wants to be informed about it. Especially, if the incident occurred near one of the commission's plants.

The AEC Security Service has prepared a questionnaire that is being sent to all who report one of the mysterious discs. The form contains 26 questions, the most curious of which is, "Did the object have an odor, and if so, what was it like?" Other questions are "luminosity of the object, apparent means of support, and propulsion."

This is the first time the AEC has publicly evinced interest in flying discs.

Project 1947 Comment: Allen's syndicated column carried in a number of newspapers nation wide sometimes dealt with aviation matters. Allen seemed to have had contacts within the AEC.

Wire Service copy

(SAUCER)

DENVER--A CONSTRUCTION WORKER AT LOS ALAMOS, N.M., HAS REPORTED THAT A STRANGE "BLINKING OBJECT" SOARED OVER A HIGHLY RESTRICTED AREA OF THE BIG ATOMIC ENERGY CENTER.

LEE ROBINSON OF THE ARMEX CONSTRUCTION COMPANY SENT THE DENVER POST A COPY OF A MIMEOGRAPHED FORM WHICH HE USED TO REPORT THE OBJECT TO THE AEC.

THE FORMS ARE PREPARED BY THE AEC FOR "REPORTS OF UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL OBJECTS AT LOS ALAMOS."

THE ORIGINAL THREE-PAGE REPRT, ROBINSON SAID, WAS SUBMITTED TO THE ATOMIC ENERGY SECURITY SERVICE SEPT. 12., THE DAY ROBINSON AND EIGHT OTHER EMPLOYEES OF THE ARMEX COMPANY SAY THEY SAW THE OBJECT.

ROBINSON SAID HE AND THE OTHERS WERE EATING LUNCH WHEN THE UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT PASSED OVER. HE SAID IT "WAS NOT A BALLOON OR A CONVENTIONAL TYPE OF AIRCRAFT."

ROBINSON SAID THE OBJECT APPEARED TO BE AT AN ALTITUDE OF ABOUT 20,000 FEET. IT ALTERNATELY FLASHED BRIGHT AND BLACK AT INTERVALS OF TWO SECONDS, HE SAID, AND WAS VISIBLE FOR THREE MINUTES AND 40 SECONDS.

THE SPECIALLY MIMEOGRAPHED FORMS INDICATED THE AEC IS HIGHLY CONCERNED WITH UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL OBJECT OVER THE PROJECT. THE FORMS CONTAIN SPACES FOR INFORMANTS TO REPORT ON LUMINOSITY OF OBJECT, APPARENT MEANS OF SUPPORT AND PROPULSION AND "ODOR" OF THE OBJECT.

10-7[?]--E100SA

		RGC/WEP/bla
	THE INSPECTOR GENERAL USAF 19TH DISTRICT OFFICE OF SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, NEW MEXICO
File No: 24-8-0		29 July 1950
SPOT INTELLIGENCE REPORT

SUBJECT: UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA

TO: Director of Special Investigations Headquarters, United States Air Force Washington 25, D.C.

UFO REPORTS - 1950