A collection of newspaper reports and expert commentary regarding the wave of flying saucer sightings in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, including witness accounts and official denials from military and scientific figures.
Priest Finds In Yard and Holds [ILLEGIBLE]
said the Army Airways Communications Service had reported late yesterday that so far its radar scopes throughout the country have been unable to pick up any strange objects in flight.
And in the Pacific Northwest—where most of the fly-happy platters have been reported—the Army has radar equipment which can pierce fog and darkness and pick up objects in the sky 200 miles away.
Even so, Brown acknowledged that the Air Forces had decided "there's something to this" and had been checking it for 10 days.
"And we still haven't the slightest idea what they could be," he added.
And a new wrinkle—the reported landing of a fleet of eight skimming platters—was reported from Idaho in full view of 10 persons. A. Dishman, Idaho housewife, said she and others in her party had seen the saucers land on a mountainside near St. Maries, Idaho.
She said they came into view at an extreme speed, suddenly slowed, and then "fluttered like leaves to the ground."
"The mysterious part was that we couldn't see them after they landed," she said. "We could see them flutter down into the timber yet we couldn't see that they did anything to the trees."
She said she hoped to hike into the timber tomorrow and search for the objects which she said were saucer-shaped but resembled washtubs more than disks and were "about the size of a five-room house."
Locally, Hazen Kennedy of 2615 4th st. ne. reported he had seen one passing over the Northeast section of the city at about 8:40 p. m
This would be the first one reported over the District, although others have been reported over nearby Maryland.
Kennedy, who has 125 hours flying time as a student pilot in the Army Air Forces to his credit, said he believed the saucer he had seen was traveling at "well over" 1000 miles an hour at an altitude of between 1200 and 1500 feet.
"The best way I can describe it," said Kennedy, "was that it looked like an orange lamp bulb without the socket. It was going faster than any jet plane I've ever seen."
In Hagerstown, Md., Mrs. Madelyn Ganoe, 30, said she had seen five of the discs, racing in 2-1-2 formation at "terrific speed," from her backporch. "They sounded like a faraway train," she said.
In the wake of these new eyewitness accounts came a new series of comments, and explanations, but most of them were tinged with a slight tendency to laugh off the whole thing.
Dr. Winfred Overholser, nationally known psychiatrist and superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital, here, said it "has some of the earmarks of being national hysteria."
"Everytime someone comes up with a sea-serpent story," said Dr. Overholser, "others with vivid imaginations are sure they have seen the same thing.
"The critical faculty in man, the last one he received, is still not very well developed. Scratch the surface and you find the same mass hysteria which predominated during the witchcraft scare. Some persons are quite ready to see things and follow beliefs."
Dr. Overholser said that when he made his rounds of the mental patients yesterday at St. Elizabeths not a one commented on the flying saucers story.
"I think they may be a little skeptical," he added.
However, Dr. Overholser said he wasn't trying to dismiss the matter as a joke "because there are so many strange things going on today that one can't be sure."
Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky, noted aircraft designer, told The Post by telephone from New York that until he sees a flying saucer he "wouldn't like to pass judgment."
He agreed with Dr. Overholser that much if not all of the story may be because of hysteria.
"After all," he said, "we are more or less an hysterical Nation."
Major de Seversky said it was possible that the persons who claim to have seen the aerial discs have instead glimpsed the exhaust of jet-propelled planes.
He conceded, too, that they might be guided missiles let loose as part of an experiment, but added:
"I don't think the Government would fire them so promiscuously. They would test them in one spot, in an isolated area, like they did the atomic bomb."
Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, who as Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Research and Development would know if the saucers involved experiments with guided missiles, commented:
"Whatever these people have seen it hasn't been anything resulting from experiments by the Army Air Forces. As for I'm concerned there's nothing to it at all. The whole thing is unfortunate."
Howard W. Blakeslee, Associated Press science editor, said the whole business may be an optical illusion.
"At any distance which is close to the limit of how far a person can see," he wrote, "all objects appear round or nearly so. This law of sight covers both small things seen nearby and large ones at great distances.
"The one outstanding fact about virtually all the saucers is that they had no structure—they seemed merely round and flat. That description fits exactly with the tricks that eyes play. This trickiness varies with differences in weather and lighting."
However, Nova Hart, St. Louis mechanic who was trained during service in the war to spot all types of aircraft, yesterday offered a minute description of one of the flying patterns which he claimed he saw flying at an altitude of about 300 feet.
Reporter Sees One
He described it as circular with a ribbed framework and silver gray in color. He said it appeared to have a motor with a propeller attached in the center and that it kept turning like an airplane doing a slow roll.
Although many explanations have been offered, none has been convincing. A Los Angeles newspaper quoted an unnamed nuclear physicist as saying the silvery discs resulted from experiments in the "transmutation of atomic energy."
This report was rapidly herded into the hoax column by David Lilienthal, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and several prominent atomic scientists.
Starr Expects Word
Louis E. Starr, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, announced Saturday at Columbus, Ohio, that he was expecting "momentarily" information from Washington which would explain the dashing discs. But the message never arrived.
The Air Forces said that Gen. Carl Spaatz, Air Forces chief, was in the Pacific Northwest where most of the saucers have been reported, but added that his trip there was planned two months ago, long before the saucers scare. General Spaatz is expected back in Washington late tomorrow.
Muroc Army Field in California had a P-80 jet fighter standing by, and the National Guard in Oregon had prepared six regular fighters to give chase should saucers be reported nearby.
