A newspaper article from the Washington Star dated July 6, 1947, reporting on the widespread sightings of 'flying saucers' across 31 states, including specific accounts from pilots and civilians.
Mr. Olson
Mr. E. A. Tamm
Mr. Clegg
Mr. Glavin
Mr. Ladd
Mr. Nichols
Mr. Rosen
Mr. Tracy
Mr. Carson
Mr. Egan
Mr. Gurnea
Mr. Harbo
Mr. Hendon
Mr. Jones
Mr. Pennington
Mr. Quinn Tamm
Mr. Nease
Miss Gandy
Hundreds in 31 States Report Seeing Weird 'Flying Saucers'
By the Associated Press
The Nation was baffled today by "flying saucers" reported seen in 31 States by hundreds of persons, and conjectures came from scores of named and unnamed sources throughout the country.
Official Government sources took a "Let's see one" stand on the phenomenon, and no scientist offered a detailed explanation.
Two Chicago astronomers said the [ILLEGIBLE] are probably "man-made." "undulating, flashing objects [ILLEGIBLE] wouldn't be meteors," said Dr. Girard Kieuper, director of the University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory at Williams Bay, Wis.
"We realize," said Dr. Oliver Lee, director of Northwestern University's Dearborn Observatory, "that the Army and Navy are working on all sorts of things we know nothing about."
Dr. Lee said the discs might represent the same sort of thing as sending radar signals to the moon, "one of the greatest technological achievements of the war and accomplished in absolute secrecy."
David Lilienthal, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, told the Denver Post in a brief telephone interview that the flying saucers were in no way connected with experiments in atomic energy, the transmutation of metals, or similar research.
Col. F. J. Clark, commanding officer of the Hanford Engineering Works in the Pacific Northwest where the largest saucer influx has been reported, said the saucers were not coming from the atomic plant there.
Credence in the saucers—widely laughed off at their first reported appearance June 25—grew as hundreds of observers, many of them trained flyers, reported seeing them.
A crowd of 200 observed a disc at (See DISCS, Page A-9.)
of Charleston, S. C.—one of them a newspaper reporter—said a flying saucer passed over Charleston heading east at 7:20 p.m. Saturday at about the same time two men in Albany, Oreg., saw a single disc wash southward, halt, and retrace its course before vanishing into a cloud.
An Army Air Forces spokesman in Washington on July 3 said there was not enough fact to "warrant further investigation," but the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, said it was making a study. Saturday at Washington an Army researcher admitted "we're mystified" and the Navy said it had no theories.
First Reported June 25.
The first published report of "flying saucers" came from Kenneth Arnold, Boise, Idaho, businessman pilot, who reported at Pendleton, Oreg., on June 25 that he had seen nine of them flying at 1,200 miles an hour in the formation, shifting position "like the tail of a kite," over Washington State's Cascade Mountains.
Before scoffers had more than begun to offer explanations such as "reflections," "persistent vision" and "snow blindness," an Oklahoma City private flyer, Byron Savage, said he had seen a similarly shaped object some weeks earlier but fear of ridicule kept him quiet.
Then the reports began to filter in, mostly from individuals. The discs were seen in Texas, in New Mexico, in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Missouri, Colorado, California, Arizona and Nebraska. The number varied from one to a dozen, seen mostly by one or two people.
Seen by Group of 200.
Then the July 4 deluge hit. Two hundred persons in one group and 60 in another saw them in Idaho; hundreds saw them in Oregon, Washington and other States throughout the West. In Augusta, Me., the Civil Aeronautics Administration reported a report that a dozen of the discs had been seen there.
And, for the first time, the Eastern States had their reports. Observers came in with reports from Michigan, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina and Canada's Atlantic seaboard.
Near unanimity was recorded on some of the discs' characteristics—terrific speed, bright reflections, round or oval in shape, flat and flying with a peculiar undulating motion. Size was moot and expressed by Capt. Smith of United Air Lines as "hard to judge" without knowing the distance from the observer to the objects.
Discs
(Continued From First Page.)
Hauser Lake, Idaho, on the Fourth of July. A group of 60 picnickers saw them at Twin Falls, Idaho, And in Portland, Oreg., so many residents witnessed them on the Fourth that the police department sent out an all-cars, broadcast.
A United Air Lines pilot of 14 years experience walked up the ramp to his plane at Boise, joking that "I'll believe in these discs when I see them." Ten minutes later he radioed, shaken, that he had spotted five of them from his plane. He was Capt. A. J. Smith. His co-pilot, Ralph Stevens, and his stewardess, Miss Marty Monro, told the same story.
Witnesses in two points of California and Spokane—one of them an Army Air Forces sergeant—reported seeing the discs Saturday.
Two persons in different sections
2 D. C. Area Residents Say They Saw 'Flying Saucers'
Two Washington area residents today were on record as having observed the mysterious "flying saucers" hereabouts.
A Bethesda (Md.) man was reported to have seen three or four of these objects at midnight Friday, while in the vicinity of Friendship Heights, Md. They were described as being rapid, bluish and bright, traveling northward.
Mrs. Martin Kole, 3202 Valley drive, Alexandria housewife, said early Friday she saw a large round object floating in the southwest sky. She declared a light shining in her face awakened her about 4 a.m. She went to the window and saw something round and large with a reddish tinge. It seemed to be standing still. After looking at it a few minutes, Mrs. Kole said she returned to bed.
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