The article below was published in the newspaper The Bakersfield Californian, Bakersfield, California, USA, on pages 1 and 10, on July 7, 1947.
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[Photo caption:] DESCRIBE MYSTERIOUS "SAUCERS" -- Kenneth Arnold (left), Captain E. J. Smith and First Officer Ralph Stephens (right) compare notes on "flying discs". Arnold, a private pilot, was first person to report the objects, and clocked them at about 1200 miles per hour. Smith and Stephens said they turned their United Airlines passenger plane off its course over Boise, Idaho, and chased a "strange object" for 15 miles before it outdistanced them.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 7 (AP) -- From one end of the country to the other, new reports of disc-like "flying saucers" skimming through the skies today added to the mystery which has baffled the nation since June 25.
There was no satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. The saucers first were reported seen in the state of Washington June 25. Then persons in other western states said they had seen them. The peak came over the July 4 holiday when they were first reported seen east of Mississippi.
The latest tabulation showed the mystery objects had been reported seen in 30 states, the District of Columbia and in Canada.
Sunday they were reported seen in more than a dozen states and in southwestern Ontario.
An aerial patrol by the Oregon National Guard failed to sight one of the objects. The guards planned to send a plane today to a spot near St. Maries, Idaho, where one woman said 10 persons saw 8 of the discs disappear in timber July 3.
Kenneth Arnold, busnessman pilot of Boise, Idaho, first reported seeing the discs. He said he saw
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Bakersfield preoccupation with the "flying saucers" phenomenon was []lected today in three reports of strange objects in the sky over the week end. A local matron reported that she and her husband saw a huge diamond-shaped "kite" about 1500 feet in span flying along the horizon about 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
The witness, who asked that her name not be used, said the object looked as though it might be coming from the northwest. She watched the blue-gray object until it soared out of sight, and as its elevation increased it assumed a silvery metallic color and looked more like a star. At its lower elevation it seemed to be tumbling over and over. [The description matches a Rawin weather balloon radar target.]
She conjectured that the object might have come from another planet. From her home near the Horace Mann School, the observer said the object looked as though it was coming from the direction of the Kern County Airport.
A. T. Jacobs and Eb Pilling, 612 Woodrow street, Oilsdale, also reported three "flying saucers" that resembled fluttering objects glittering in the sky at about 700 feet and 200 feet elevation. They saw the objects go up and disappear.
Mrs. C. W. Parks, 1801 La Franz, reported that from her home in Rose Garden that she saw "flying saucers" June 1 in a group of 20 flying in a southeasterly direction.
Cecil Meadows, Kern County Airport superintendent, said that no reports had come in from that area that such an object had been seen Sunday afternoon as described by the couple living near Horace Mann School.
"It is possible that some other
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9 flying in formation at 1200 miles an hour over the Cascade mountains. Other observers have given the objects varying speeds and in at least one case said they appeared to be suspended in the air.
Most observers usually agreed that the objects were round or oval. Guesses as to their size have ranged from that of a five-room house or a large airplane to one description of "a silver ball, 6 inches in diameter."
The army, the navy and the atomic energy commission all disclaimed any connection with the mystery. An army spokesman in Washington said the A. A. F. had been checking into the reports "and we still haven't the slightest idea what they could be."
A Hagerstown, Md., woman, said she saw five go eastward at "terrific speed" and that they roared with a sound like a faraway train."
Mrs. Walter Johnson of Spokane, who reported she was one of a group which saw the objects fall near St. Maries, said she and her companions could not find either the disks or anything to indicate where they might have fallen. She described them as "about the size of a five-room house" and said they resembled washtubs, more than disks.
The coast guard [Fred Ryman] at Seattle said there was nothing to indicate that the objects might have come from foreign vessels near shore.
Howard W. Blakeslee, Associated Press science editor, said today:
"Much of what has been described about the flying saucers reported from nearly all parts of the country may be explained be certain laws of eyesight.
"All the objects appear round or nearly so at any distance which is close to the limit of how far a person can see.
"Descriptions of virtually all the saucers as round and flat fit exactly with the tricks that eyes play.
"This writer has seen flying saucers over Long island Sound near his home, not only this year but in previous years.
"They were round, bright and moving fast. But they were no mystery because they were light reflected from the bodies of airplanes that soon identified themselves by changing course and coming near enough to be seen distinctly."
Lester Barlow, internationally known explosives inventor and holder of numerous patents, many dealing with military affairs, advanced the theory the flying saucers were probably radio controlled flying missiles being experimented by the military.
The Peninsula Airport at Newport news, Va., was taking no chances with the saucers. Pilots reporting Sunday to take out planes found this notice on the bulletin board:
"Two thousand feet vertical and horizontal clearance required between aircraft operating from this field and any 'flying saucers'."
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people in the universe might be more on the ball than we are in establishing interplanetary travel, but it seems if they are, why should they be afraid to land," the aviation experts observed. The airport superintendent said that he would assume the job of "flying saucer" watcher today.
Vernon Baird, former Bakersfield commercial pilot, not with the Fairchild Photographic Engineers company, told of a first-hand air encounter with a "flying saucer" today in an interview at Bozemann, Mont., according to a United Press story. Later, however, Baird admitted the story was a hoax.
To: Kenneth Arnold or Newspapers 1940-1949.
