The article below was published in the newspaper The Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina, USA, on page 1, on July 6, 1947.
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By the ASSOCIATED PRESS
The nation's perplexity over discs reported spinning through the skies deepened today in the wake of July 4 reports from virtually all parts of the country.
There was no scientific explanation offered to fit the observations which spanned the nation from the PAcific to the Gulf, to the Atlantic.
A mass of evidence piled up swiftly as holiday throngs and flyers joined in telling of seeing bright, pancake-like objects skimming through the air at varying estimates of altitude and speed.
Former skeptics joined the ranks of the believers as the flashing objects glittered before their eyes. Reliable observers, such as Capt. E. J. Smith of United Air lines, his co-pilot Ralph Stevens and his stewardess, Marty Morrow, told of seeing the round flat objects for 12 minutes while flying west from Boise, Ida., on Independence Day evening [July 4]. Ex-airmen, picknickers, motorists and housewives swelled the number of witnesses to the strange phenomenon.
An Army Air forces spokesman in Washington on July 3 said there was not enough facts to "warrant further investigation," but the Air Material command at Wright Field, Dayton, O., said it was making a study. Saturday at Washington an Army researcher admitted "We're mystified" and the Navy said it had no theory.
The first public report of "Flying Saucers" came from Kenneth Arnold, Boise, Ida., business man pilot, who reported at Pendleton, Ore., on June 25 that he had seen nine flying at 1200 miles an hour in formation, shifting position "like the tail of a kite," over Washington state's Cascade mountains.
Before scoffers had more than begun to offer explanations such as "reflections", "persistent vision" and "snow blindness," an Oklahoma city private flyer, Byron Savage, said he had seen a similarly shaped objects some weeks earlier but fear of ridicule kept him quiet.
Then the reports began to filter in, mostly from individuals. The discs were seen in Texas, in New Mexico, in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Missouri, Colorado, California, Arizona, Nebraska. The number varied from one to a dozen, seen by one of two people mostly.
The July 4 deluge hit. Two hundred persons in one group and 60 in another saw them in Idaho, hundreds saw them in Oregon, Washington and other states, throughout the west.
And, for the first time, the east Mississippi river, came in with reports from Michigan, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, and Canada's Atlantic seaboard.
Near unanimity was recorded on some of the discs's characteristics - terrific speed, bright reflections, round or oval in shape, flat, and flying with a peculiar undulating motion. Size was moot and expressed by Capt. Smith of United Air lines as "hard to judge" without knowing the distance from the observer to the objects.
Meanwhile Kenneth Arnold, the man who first reported them, could recall his insistence that "I don't believe it either - But I saw it."
ern states had their reports. Observers, earlier all from west of the
Jeremy Wilson of 16 central avenue, night manager for Western Union, thought he too was seeing the much talked-off flying saucers. Outside his window he saw a "saucer" sailing past.
When he dashed outside, he discovered it really was a saucer - a used picnic plate a neighbor was tossing away.
DETROIT, July 5 -- (INS) -- A Detroit meteorologist theorized today that the mysterious flying discs may be signals from Mars.
"It's not too far-fetched," he insisted. "For a long time people have speculated on life on Mars, so why shouldn't it be as logical for Mars to try to contact Earth as for Earth to try to contact Mars?"
To: Kenneth Arnold or Newspapers 1940-1949.
