Reports Come in From All Over Nation Telling of Sighting Mysterious Discs
The Oregonian, July 6, 1947
Reports of the unexplained "flying discs" came from all points of the continent Saturday. Here are typical dispatches.
PHILADELPHIA, July 5 (AP) -- An astral phenomenon was being investigated here Saturday to determine whether Philadelphians had seen mysterious "flying discs" in the sky.
Dr. M. K. Leisy, a junior intern at the Pennsylvania hospital for mental diseases, and other persons in the western section of the city reported seeing strange craft in the skies Friday night.
It was something round with a luminous halo about it, Dr. Leisy declared. It was not shiny itself, but dark in color and seemed to be propelled by whirling wings.
Contrary to previous reports from other parts of the country on the high speed of the flying discs, Dr. Leisy said the object he saw was moving at approximately the speed of the wind, below the clouds. It eventually vanished in the clouds, he added.
AKRON, O., July 5 (AP) -- "Flying saucers" made their appearance here Friday night.
Dr. Forrest Shaver said the silvery disc he saw "looked like a balloon with a light inside."
Harry E. Hoertz described it as "a light with a propelling device." Both men said they saw the "saucers" about 8:30 P.M. while driving near Akron.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill., July 5 (INS) -- A group of motorists reported Saturday they had glimpsed the mysterious "flying saucers" which had been puzzling army officials and meteorologists.
One of them, Claude Price, superintendent of concessions at the Illinois state fair, said the group stopped their cars on a road two miles west of Decatur and watched the discs shoot across the sky.
LOS ANGELES, July 5 (AP) -- Pilot Dan J. Whelan and a flying companion, Duncan Underhill, reported they were "scared silly" when they saw what they believed was a "living saucer" about 25 miles south of here Friday.
"The saucer was above us, traveling at what we'd estimate was 450 to 500 miles an hour," said Whelan. "It was at 7000 feet, about 2000 feet above me. It was not spinning, but looked exactly like a skeet (a disc used in target practice).
"We checked its direction -- north by northwest -- and we'd say it was 40 to 50 feet in diameter."
AUGUSTA, ME., July 5 (AP) -- The civil aeronautics administration office said it had received a report that a dozen of the mysterious sky discs had been seen over this city.
The CAA said Dr. Kelly, program director at radio station WRDO here, advised that he saw about 12 objects believed to be discs.
Kelly said the objects were traveling northerly "very fast."
ROGERS, ARK. July 5 (AP) -- J. P. Crumpler, a Rogers real estate dealer, said Saturday he saw one of the "flying saucers" Monday night during a windstorm. He was watching the approach of a storm cloud from the porch of his home when the disc appeared out of the northwest and vanished rapidly into the southwest, he said.
SAN JOSE, CAL., July 5 (AP) -- Sgt. Charles R. Sigala of the army air forces said he and three others saw a silvery, flying disc over his home at near-by Mountain View Saturday at 11 A. M.
Sigala, who is on leave from Hamilton Field, said the object was clearly visible to him, his wife, mother-in-law, and a neighbor. It circled around over the mountain at about 5000 feet, dipped several times and then headed toward the sea, he said.
He estimated the object was as big as an automobile.
SUMMERSIDE, Canada, July 5 (AP) -- Farmers in this Prince Edward Island region claim to have seen more of the mysterious disc-like missiles reported flying through northern skies earlier this week.
James Harris, farmer at Sherbrooke, one mile north of here, and his hired man, Herman Linkletter, said they saw one of the objects last night traveling from the northwest toward the southeast.
At about the same time Brenton Clark at Augustine Cove, about 18 miles from Sherbrooke, said he saw a bright object traveling north to south at medium height.
NEW ORLEANS, July 5 (INS) -- The "flying disc" mystery spread to the deep South Saturday.
Miss Lillian Lawless of New Orleans said she saw a saucer-like "pure silver" object hurtling over Lake Pontchartrain at New Orleans. The disc, she said, was flying in a northeasterly direction "with terrific speed."
AUGUSTA, Ga., July 5 (INS) -- An Augusta physician said he was certain Saturday that he saw the "flying saucers."
Dr. Colden R. Battey claims he spotted the peculiar soaring discs six weeks ago in the middle of the day while fishing in St. Helena sound near Beaufort, S. C. This was four weeks before the first published reports of the discs.
He said that when he saw the four discs at 11 A. M., they were traveling at an altitude of more than 20,000 feet and at a high rate of speed.
He described them as silver.
PORT HURON, Mich., July 5 (INS) -- The mysterious "flying saucers" which have been sighted in several states across the country Saturday were reported over Port Huron, Mich.
Mrs. John R. Warner, a 34-year-old housewife, told International News Service that she and several neighbors witnessed the fast-moving objects criss-crossing across the sky last night.
WALTER, Okla., July 5 (AP) -- Two "flying saucers" which "were flying in the air -- passing each other and going back and forth" were reported Saturday by C. E. Holman, 67-year-old Walter gardener.
Holman said he saw the discs about 10 P.M. the night of June 25, and that after watching them "flying around each other" for about 30 minutes he went to bed.
"I thought about waking up some of my neighbors but decided if it meant the end of the world they would be just about as happy sleeping when the world ended," he said.
SEATTLE, July 5 (INS) -- Another flying disc was reported seen over Seattle Saturday by a woman and her four-year-old son.
Mrs. Florence Frye, a librarian at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said her son, Carl, first spotted the object and pointed it out to her. She described it as:
"Brilliant -- so brilliant in fact that it hurt my eyes to watch and I had to blink and turn away."
Viva Anderson, Portland attorney reported she and a friend, Betty MacManneman, also an attorney, saw a group of objects from in front of her home at Melcrest Court apartments, 711 S.E. 11th Ave.
"They looked like half-inflated footballs and appeared to be faceted on top like rough cut diamonds," Miss Anderson said. She said that the main group of objects flashed like tinfoil, but that one which dropped much lower than the rest appeared to be "slightly brown."
States where the discs have been reported: Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Michigan, Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, Maine, Florida, Utah, Maryland, Iowa, Kansas and the District of Columbia. |