Kenneth Arnold's sighting

Skygazers Still Insist They Saw 'Flying Saucers;' Army Skeptical

White Sands Proving Grounds, N.M. (UP) -- An army rocket expert ventured the opinion today that Kenneth Arnold's flying saucers were merely jet planes but almost a dozen persons sprang up about the country to say they had seen the mysterious shiny discs also.

Arnold, a flying fire extinguisher salesman from Boise, Ida., said he saw nine of the weird ships breezing along at a speed of 1,200 miles an hour. Arnold was positive of the speed. He clocked them across a know distance between two mountains.

Lt. Col. Harold R. Turner, commanding officer of the army's rocket proving grounds here, said today that the discs must have been jet airplanes.

Son Saw Three

But Mrs. E.G. Peterson of Seattle said no - she had seen the things too. Not only that, her son also saw them. In fact, he called her attention to them.

"My son saw three of them," Mrs. Peterson said. "But by the time I got out there I could only see two. They didn't look like jet ships or anything else I ever saw before.

"They were shiny, and seemed to be fluttering in the wind. We must have watched them for five minutes before they disappeared, going east."

Several other residents reported seeing them in the area.

The eyewitness statements were music to the ears of Arnold, who has been the butt of no little ribbing ever since he told of seeing the circular gadgets whipping along at 10,000 feet near Mt. Rainer [sic, Rainier] in southern Washington.

Engineer Saw 'Em Too

If he and others actually saw the saucers, they must really have been covering ground.

Arnold said he saw them "about 3 p.m., Pacific Standard time," on Tuesday.

Charles Kastl, 60-year-old railroad engineer of Joliet, Ill., said he spotted "about nine" of the things as walked along a high way at 1:50 p.m. Central Standard time on Tuesday.

That means they must have covered the distance from Seattle to Chicago - about 2,000 miles - in about 50 minutes.

Kastl said he saw a string of flat circular objects going "faster than any plane I ever saw" about 10 to 12 miles east of Joliet. They were flying about 4,000 feet high and going from north to south.

"I could see no connecting link between them, but they acted as though the leading disk had a motor in it to power the others because when it flipped, the others would too. When it would right itself, the others would right themselves."

Were Really Traveling

Kastl said he "didn't think about" the incident, except to tell his wife, until Arnold reported seeing the planes.

If the discs really made the flight from Seattle eastward on Tuesday they must have headed back west the next day. W. I. Davenport, a Kansas City carpenter, said he saw nine of them flying a westerly course while he was working on a roof about noon Wednesday.

He said they were going so fast he barely had time to count them.

And they must have made previous flights - provided they flew at all.

Byron Savage of Oklahoma City said he saw a similar type of craft five or six weeks ago.

Astronomers at Seattle and Joliet said there was no natural explanations for the reports.

Meanwhile, Turner came up with an explanation for "falling bodies" reported in at least two places in the southwest today. He said they were meteors, and he dispatched a search party by plane to Tularosa, N.M., and another by automobile to Engle, N.M., to bring back proof.