The article below was published in the newspaper The Herald and News, Klamath Falls, Oregon, USA, on pages 1 and 2, on June 26, 1947.
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OKLAHOMA CITY, June 26 (AP) Don't sell those strange flying objects reported whizzing over western Washington short until the returns are all in - a flyer claimed today he saw one flash over Oklahoma City.
"It was about five or six weeks ago, as near as my wife and I can remember," said Byron Savage, 38, Oklahoma City businessman pilot.
"I was standing in my front yard at the time, about dusk, with a little sunlight in the sky, when a flat, disc-like object came across the city from just a little east of south and was gone in about four of five seconds.
"The machine, or whatever it was, was a very shiny, silvery color - very big - and was moving at a terrific rate of speed.
"The funny thing about it was that it made no noise. I don't think it had any kind of internal combustion engine."
Referring to a claim by Kenneth Arnold, flying Boise, Idaho, businessman that he saw nine objects in western Washington similar to the one Savage described, the Oklahoma City pilot declared:
"I know that boy up there (Arnold) really saw them."
Savage said he told his wife about the object at the time, but "she thought I must have seen lightning," and he also told some skeptical pilot friends.
"I kept quiet after that," he continued "until I read about that man seeig nine of the same things I saw and I thought it only fair to back him up."
Mrs Savage said today that she now was convinced her husband saw the object.
"He was very much worked up about it when he read about the man in Washington," she declared.
Savage said the object he saw was high in the air - "somewhere around 10,000 feet. I could'nt be sure, judging it from the ground where I was."
(See Arnold Story on Page 2)
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PENDLETON, Ore., June 26 (AP) -- A tale of nine mysteerious objects - big as airplanes - whizzing over Western Washington at 1200 miles an hour got skepticism today from the army and air experts.
The man who reported the objects, Kenneth Arnold, a flying Boise, Idaho, businessman, clung, however to his story of the shiny, flat objects, each big as a DC-4 passenger plane, racing over Washington's Cascade mountains with a peculiar weaving motion "like the tail of a kite."
An army spokesman in Washington, D. C., commented "As far as we know, nothing flies that fast except a V-2 rocket, which travels at about 3500 miles an hour - and that's too fast to be seen."
The spokesman added that the V-2 rockets would not resemble the objects reported by Arnold, and that no high-speed experimental tests were being made in the area where arnold said the objects were.
A civil aeronautics administration inspector in Portland, Ore., added, "I rather doubt that anything would be traveling that fast."
Arnold described the objects as "flat like a pie-pan," and so shiny that they reflected the sun like a mirror.
He said he was flying fast at 2:58 p.m. two days ago toward Mt. Rainier when they appeared directly in front of him 25-30 miles away at 10,000 feet altitude.
By his plane's clock he timed them at 1:42 minutes for the 47 miles from Mt. Rainier to Mt. Adams, Arnold said, adding that he later figured by triangulation that their speed was 1200 miles an hour.
"I could be wrong by 200 or 300 miles an hour" he admitted, "but I know I never saw anything so fast."
He said at first he thought they were geese, "but quickly saw they were too big - as big as a DC-4 that was about 20 miles away, he said. The DC-4 pilot reported nothing unusual sighted. Then Arnold said he thought of jet planes and started to clock them, "but their motion was wrong for jet jobs."
"I guess I don't know what they were - unless they were guided missiles," said Arnold, who continued here on a business trip.
"Everyone says I'm nuts," he added ruefully, "and I guess I'd say it too if someone else reported those things. But I saw them and watched them closely. It seems impossible, but there it is."
Arnold sayd he was 25-30 miles west of Mt. Rainer, en route from chelais to Yakima, when he sighted the objects. He explained he had decided to look for a marine corps plane, missing since last January, while he was in the area.
He told a reporter the planes remained visible by the bright, "almost blinding" flashes of reflectd sunshine as far as 50 miles away.
Arnold admitted the angle from which he viewed the objects would make difficult a precise estimation of their speed, but inisted any error would not be grave "for that speed."
The DC-4 was closer than the objects, but at 14,000 feet and somewhat north of him, he said, adding that he could estimate the distance of the objects better because an intervening peak once blocked his view of them. He found the peak was 25 miles away, Arnold related.
He also said they flew on the west sides of Rainier and Adams, adding that he believed this would make more difficult for them to be seen from the ground.
The Boise man said that at first he thought the window of his plane might be causing the reflections, but that he still saw the objects after rolling it down.
He also described the objects as "saucer-like" and their motion "like a fish flipping in the sun."
"Ten thousand feet is very low for anything going at that speed," he said.
Arnold was flying a three-passenger, single-engined plane at 9200 feet at the time, he said, adding that his own speed was about 105 miles an hour.
He landed here yesterday and said he would remain another day or two before returning to Boise.
To: Kenneth Arnold or Newspapers 1940-1949.
