The article below was published in the newspaper The Albany Democrat-Herald, Albany, Oregon, USA, on page 6, on August 4, 1947.
|
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 4. (U.P.) -- A man who was reportd to have given the army pieces of a "flying disc" said today it was only rocks he hadd found on a beach.
Army officers, meanwhile, said that the mystery surrounding a bomber which crashed near Kelso, Wash., while reportdely carrying "disc fragments," would be cleared up "by midweek."
Major George Sanders, public relations officer at McChord field, Wash., the departure point for the ill-fated plane, said "testimony of one more person" was all that was needed before the army could make a complete public report. He denied that the plane was carrying saucer fragments.
The mystery began Saturday when the United Press at Tacoma received a telephone call which reported that Capt. William L. Davidson of San Francisco and First Lt. Frank M. Brown of Vallejo, Cal., were en route back to Hamilton field with pieces of a "flying saucer" when their plane crashed, killing them both.
Brig. Gen. Ned Schramm, fourth air force chief of staff, admitted that the two pilots were intelligence officers investigating flying saucer stories, but said he had no knowledge of any saucer fragments.
They had gone to Tacoma to interview Kenneth Arnold, the man who first saw a "saucer", and United Airlines Capt. E. J. Smith, the transport pilot who said he followed nine discs on July 4, Schramm said.
At Boise, Ida., a newspaper quoted Smith as saying that he gave the officer six pieces of metal or lava which may have been part of a flying disc. He was reported to have said the fragments wwere obtained from Harold Dahl and Fred L. Chrisman of Tacoma, who reported the pieces had struck their boat.
But Dahl went to the United Press bureau at Tacoma and denied that he had given Arnold, Smith, or the army officers any part of a flying disc.
To: Kenneth Arnold or Newspapers 1940-1949.
