Kenneth Arnold's sighting

Discs Disappear From Northwestern Skies

By Roger Johnson

PORTLAND, Ore., July 11. (U.P.) -- A two-week torrent of "flying saucer" reports dropped off to a dribble today in the Pacific Northwest and psychologists guessed that a disillusioned public now was taking a second and longer look at sky specks.

The so-called "flying saucer" was first reported in skies over the Pacific Northwest. Oregon, Washington and Idaho witnesses of strange "things" in the stratosphere outnumbered those in any other area.

But now, almost as quickly as they seem to appear, they seemed to have disappeared. The disappearance coincided with the fiasco at Roswell army air base where the army discovered that the object which it had announced as a "flying discs" was the remains of a target.

The Oregon Journal's switchboard had received numerous calls from saucer "witnesses" until Tuesday. Then the number began to fall off Rapidly Wednesday and dwindled to two on Thursday.

At Seattle, there were only three reports of a disc within 24 hours. Police Capt. Richard F. Mahoney questioned a man about a cut in his head.

"I was hit by a flying disc," he answered.

Kenneth Arnold, the man who first saw the "things" and unwittingly gave them their name by describing them as "saucer-like" clung to his original story.

I saw what I saw", he said.

Dave Johnson, aviation editor at the Idaho Statesman, Boise, said that he had completed his saucer-hunting mission over the northwest. Johnson and Arnold flew together for three days in a search for the "things."

Johnson said he saw "something" that looked like a dollar while he was flying at 14.000 feet. He took a picture of it, he said, but when the film was developped, nothing showed.

"What I saw looked like this: Take a dollar and hold the full side toward you at arm's length. Move it up and down, then turn it on its rim and move it in a semi-circle.

"I saw it, and I hadn't hypnotized myself. My mission is completed."