The article below was published in the newspaper The Miami News, Miami, Florida, USA, on page 1, on July 6, 1947.
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-- AP Wirephoto
[Photo caption:] RESEMBLES FLYING DISC -- Washington, July 5. Navy officials have said that the V-173 (above) a wingless plane called the "flying pancake" is the only craft they operate which would answer the descriptions of "flying discs" reportedly seen in western states. Official added that the only plane of this type has never left Bridgeport, Conn.
Hundreds Peer Into Skies Over U. S. Hoping For Glimpse Of Speeding Objects
NEW YORK, July 5. -- (UP) -- Hundreds of persons stared into the sky today, hoping to sight one of the "flying saucers" which have been reported whooshing through the air at rocket speed over nearly every section of the country.
As reports of saucers flights poured in, debate was rife over whether the discs were careening through people's minds, or really were spinning objects in the sky.
Dr John G. Lynn, Valhalla, N. Y., an expert on human behavior, said it was just a "wave of saucer hysteria." He blamed it on recent predictions that an atomic war would break out, laying waste the United states.
An astronomer said he believed "some eprsons were seeing spots before their eyes."
A San Diego editor of an occult magazine said the discs wer space ships from Mars.
But individuals from coast to coast insisted that they had seen the saucers. The discs ranged from silver to gold in color. According to "eyewitness" descriptions, and their speed ranged up to 1,000 miles an hour.
The latest saucer reports came from two widely separated localities. Sixty picknickers at Twin Falls, Ido., said they saw three groups of discs flying over a park. Some of the saucers were described as flying in V-formations, while others circles and dives in loose formation. [All probably birds.]
At Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada, two farmers claimed they saw flying saucers last night, traveling southwards and leaving a trail of vapor. [Probably planes.]
U. S. naval observatory officials at Washington concluded unofficially meanwhile, that the mysterious saucers could not be astronomical phenomena.
Both the army and navy confessed they were at loss for an explanation of the reported objects.
TAMPA, July 5. -- (AP) -- The first report from Florida of flying discs similar to those seen in western skies in recent day turned up today.
Mrs. J. E. Harp of nearby Luta said that March 30, as she was driving between Ocala and Orlando, she saw several silvery discs keep appearing and disappearing. It was about 11 a. m. on a clear day.
Her seven-year-old daughter, Sandra, and her mother, Mrs. W. H. Brown of Bradenton also saw the mysterious objects, Mrs. Harp said.
At that time they speculated on what the discs could be, then forgot the matter until accounts of the "flying saucers" appeared in the press recently.
Today Mrs. Harp could not estimate the height, the speed or exact number of the objects, but said there "was a bunch of them, way up in the sky."
To: Kenneth Arnold or Newspapers 1940-1949.
