The article below was published in the daily newspaper The Boise Statesman, Boise, USA, page 8, on August 20, 1947.
See the case file.
|
A third instance of commercial air line crews encountering disc-like objects in flight near Boise was reported in The Statesman Tuesday.
Both the captain and co-pilot of United Air Lines flight 147, a Salt Lake City to Spokane trip, told UAL personnel here that they saw two silver-colored round objects pass beneath their transport as the plane was near Mountain Home army air base.
The captain of the flight, UAL personnel here said, related his story only on one condition, that neither his name nor that of his co-pilot be made public.
The air liner, beginning a let down in the vicinity of Mountain Home for the approach to Boise, was flying at an altitude of 8000 feet, the captain said.
The pilot said that he saw the two objects pass beneath the plane. He estimated they were 2000 feet below him. He said they were traveling almost due south.
Maneuvering his transport in an effort to keep the objects in sight, the captain said, he obtained a view which indicated to him the discs were "approximately five feet in diameter."
"That is the way they appeared to me at their distance from us," he said.
The co-pilot clocked the flight of the objects for 15 seconds, the captain told United Air Lines people here, and estimated that in the quarter-minute they had gone four miles.
If the calculation is correct, that would have made the speed of the objects 960 miles per hour.
The captain said the objects appeared to him to be the shape of "skeet targets". The observation was made at approximately noon.
The flight characteristics of the objects were described by the captain as "effortless."
The Statesman informant said the captain was "sisibly impressed" by what he had seen.
Previous observances of disc-like objects near air liners were made by Capt. Charles F. Gibian on trip 105 near Mountain Home just before sunset on July 20, and by Capt. E. J. Smith, also on trip 105, near Emmett just after dark on July 4.
The most recent observance, according to United Air Lines personnel, was made approximately two weeks after Gibian reported seeing an object.
The third report, estimating the distance of the discs from the plane at 2000 feet, is the first one in which air line pilots claimed a definite estimate of distance and speed.
