The article below was published in the newspaper The Press-Gazette, Hillsboro, Ohio, USA, page 1, on July 15, 1947.
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Some of the "flying saucers" reported by Highland Countians are merely aerial radar targets, used in connection with the Thunderstorm project, a weather testing unit with stations throughout the three-county area of Brown, Highland and Clinton, it was determined here today.
Sheriff F. F. Gustin said he was called to nearby Boston the other day when residents there noted something strange in a field and refused to go near it.
The officer found a box-kite-lie gadget, covered with a silver foil and having six points.
L. M. Dye, official in charge of the field operation center of the Weather Bureau phase of the Thunderstorm Project, reported at Wilmington that 130 to 140 of these targets had been released by the five SCR-584 radar stations set up by the Weather Bureau in this area for the study of thunderstorms.
These targets are made of helium-inflated balloons with an aluminum foil "kite" suspended beneath the balloon, Dye said. Radar impulses are reflected by the "kite" and by tracking this target, the SCR-584 station operators can tell the speed and direction of the wind in thunderstorms.
After they fall, they are of no value to the Weather Bureau, Dye said.
One of these gadgets was brought to the Publishing Company office recently and W. K. Barker and his brother, James, of Lynchburg, discovered one of the kites near the Clyde Briggs farm home on Route 135 near Lynchburg recently.
Other radar stations in the Weather Bureau network send up balloons with radiosonde transmitters swung beneath them to transmit weather information. When these balloons burst after reaching a high altitude, a parachute is opened to drop the transmitter to the ground.
Several Highland County residents have also found these transmitters.
Dye said there is a card on these transmitters requesting the finders to return them to the Weather Bureau as they are repaired and used again. He reported that 150 of these balloons and transmitters have been released since the study of thunderstorms began in this area.
