The article below was published in the daily newspaper The Bozeman Courier, Bozeman, Montana, USA, on July 11, 1954.
See the case file.
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A hangar jest, rising from friendly competition in story telling, got out of bound Monday and literally had set the nation on fire about the flying saucers.
First report of the story to top all sky yo-yo yarns leaked out of the hangar Sunday night and was printed in Monday morning's daily newspaper reaching Bozeman from Butte.
Still not realizing the incendiary nature of their realistic account of the encounter with yo-yo's, and the account of one disc's disintegration in the prop wash, the fliers Monday morning gave a Courier reporter an account in full of the weird experience the pilot and his photographer had at over 30,000 feet elevation.
The Courier story was relayed to the United Press in Helena, and long-distances calls confirmed the fact that the yarn got three-inch headlines in Monday afternoon's Los Angeles newspapers.
The originators of the tallest tall disc story are employees of the Fairchild Photogrammetric Engineers, aerial mapping service. They had completed a photographic mission and while resting over a cold soft drink in a hangar at Gallatin field members of the Fairchild crew and local operators were trying to outdo one another on a yo-yo story.
The story gained in proportions and fantasy was passed from pilots and mechanics and back to pilots and mechanics and all of the participants were thoroughly aware that the conversation was merely "idle conversation" and that there was no adherence to the truth. Apparently part of this non-sensical conversation was overheard by other parties and was relayed thought swift communications to the nations.
Bantering at the hangar was wholly and unconsciously transmitted to another person or persons who wanted to believe the yarn, one of the fabricators said.
