Kenneth Arnold's sighting

The Real Lowdown! --

Fred in His Cups Sees Saucers

Some Made of Plain Old Mexican Pottery

By FREDERICK C. OTHMAN

WASHINGTON, July 8 -- I have spent this day in my observatory watching flying saucers and a few cups over the White House.

The darn things don't match. The saucers have flowers on 'em; the cups are banded in gold. Some of 'em are full of black coffee.

The phenomenon is an interesting one, but easily explained by scientists like myself.

There are hundreds of us, all over America, observing aerial saucers, some made of English bone china and some of plain old Mexican pottery, whizzing around fast enough to make a fellow's head ache. The Army is mum, the Navy is investigating, and the old fashioned, non-progressive astronomers here at the U.S. Naval Observatory claim they've never even seen a saucer in the stratosphere. Pie on 'em.

It is a good thing one of my numerous bosses recalled that I am, perhaps, the world's greatest sea monster expert. Who better than Othman, the man who found in the Potomac River a sea monster named Percival, he asked, could explain saucers in the sky?

He appealed to me and I immediately repaired in my laboratory on the 13th floor of the National Press Bldg., which has a panoramic view of the Washington Monument, the White House and even the Pentagon.

I might add in passing that the Pentagon saucers are not airborne; they're too thick and heavy, made that way on purpose for butterfinger colonels.

My saucer observatory has a sign on the door, Press Club Bar, to mislead the non-scientific. My

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NOT SPOTS BUT SAUCERS before his eyes is what Eddie Angus of New York, is seeing this day. He sees them whizzing along at speeds from 300 miles an hour up -- without motors. They fly north south, etc. It's getting worse than pink elephants!

Fred in His Cups Sees Saucers Fly

Some Made of Plain Old Mexican Pottery

(Continued from Page One)

assistant, the ever-helpful Oscar, wears the white jacket of the cup-and-saucer technician.

When told what I wanted to see some saucers, he frowned.

Produces Eye Medicine

"I do not know what these other scientists have been drinking to bring out the telescope in the human eye," Oscar said, "but I believe that I have some clues."

He labored among the bottles on his chemical shelf and produced, well-iced, a goblet of eye medicine which was the color of screen door paint. It tasted better than it looked. Oscar gave me a second and a third. He took a couple, himself. The next round he poured in saucers.

Flying Cups, Too

I said I wanted some flying cups. Easy, said Oscar. He dribbled a few drops of a green fluid in out seventh (or perhaps it was the 11th) dose of eye strengthener and immediately we were able to observe the mismatched cups.

He also said he'd been reading how one of my own cohort, John Corlett, the United Press writer in Boise, Ida., had been relaxing in his backyard after dinner with his wife and friends when he, too, saw a saucer far above: a silver-colored saucer.

That word, "relaxing," Oscar said, was the clue to John's view of the silver saucer. Oscar and I relaxed as much as we could, but we saw no sterling saucer. Gold saucers, yes, and saucers with nicks in 'em, but no silver ones. Oscar said we'd better relax some more. Soon he was snoring.

But I had work to do. I had to write a dispatch for a waiting world and that is why, as pointed out in the third paragraph of this report, that I have a headache. And saucers before my eyes.

'Flying Saucers' May Be Explained

But Sky Gazers Have Own Theories

BY UNITED PRESS

The mystery of the "flying saucers" whizzing through the nation's sky was as deep as ever tonight. But there were indications they might be explained soon.

The Army, in an effort to aid in solving the mystery, revealed it had a P-80 fighter plane standing by at Muroc Army Air Base, Cal. to give chase if one of the careening saucers appears here.

National Veteran of Foreign wars cmdr. Louis E. Starr said in a speech at Columbus, O., he was "expecting momentarily" a telegram from Washington explaining the puzzling discs.

Atom Link Doubted

An unidentified Manhattan Project scientist reportedly said the saucers were being used in connection with experiments in atomic energy. But an atomic bomb official said he knew nothing about it.

Meanwhile, a Pickaway County, O., farmer reported he had found an object resembling the discs scores of people claim they have seen. But an officer at Wilmington, O., Army base said it was only an Army Air Force weather reporting device.

As more persons from Maine to Oregon reported sighting the careening discs, the man who started all the sky-watching went out to find one of the saucers and take pictures of them.

Takes Along Camera

Kenneth Arnold, who said he saw rocketing saucers on June 24 while he was flying over the Pacific Northwest, set off on a disc expeditionary flight late today.

He was accompanied by Col. Paul H. Welland, Provo, Utah. He took along a new movie camera to photograph any saucers he might sight.

"I know a lot of people first thought I was cracked," he said. "But they'll have to change their tune now."

Hundreds of persons stared into the sky, hoping to sight one of the flying saucers, as debate was rife over whether the discs were careening through people's mind, or really were spinning objects in the sky.