The article below was published in the daily newspaper The Chicago Daily News, Chicago, Illinois, USA, pages 1 and 3, July 5, 1947.
The nation's perplexity over disks reported spinning through the skies deepened today in the wake of Fourth of July reports from virtually all parts of the country.
No convincing explanation was offered to fit the observations, which spanned the nation from the Pacific to the Atlantic and down to the Gulf of Mexico.
The reports came from at least 17 states and Prince Edward Island, Canada.
In the Midwest, the disks were reported seen in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.
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TWO HUNDRED persons in one group and 60 in another saw them in Idaho. Others reported them in Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, and Utah in the West.
For the first time, Eastern states had reports, too. They came from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maine.
On the list in the South were Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina and Kentucky.
That the end was not yet became apparent today when Donald Dwiggins, a salesman of Glendale, Calif., said he saw four -- "changing shape as they flew" -- over the southern California city.
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CLAUDE PRICE of Springfield, Ill., concession superintendent of the Illinois State Fair, said several autoists parked along Route 36 near Decatur Thursday night to watch "mysterious round, flat objects" fly across the sky.
He said the objects looked about as big as airplanes.
The most detailed report came from the entire crew of a Boise-to-Seattle United Air Lines plane who said they saw nine of the disks over Emmett, Idaho.
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CAPT. E. J. SMITH said his co-pilot, Ralph Stevens, blinked the transport's landing lights in the belief the disks were other aircraft. Smith and Stevens said there was no response from the mysterious objects.
Blinking landing lights during a night flight is a pilot's signal of warning to other aircraft that a plane is flying in the same area.
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SMITH SAID he and Stevens saw the disks eight minutes after takeoff from Boise, flying in what appeared to be a "loose formation."
They called Marty Morrow, stewardess, to the cockpit to verify that they were actually seeing the disks. She agreed they weren't seeing a mirage.
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A LOS ANGELES pilot and his companion said they were "scared silly" when they saw what they thought was one of the flying saucers moving swiftly north by northeast at 7,000 feet, some 2,000 feet above their plane.
At Astoria, Ore,., Irving C. Allen, Pacific Northwest Civil Aeronautics Administration official, reported seeing a disk Friday morning East of Moscow, Idaho, as he was flying a light plane be-
tween Coeur d'Alene and Lewiston, Idaho. Thirteen persons viewed two of them at noon above Clifton, Colo., yesterday, Mrs. Cora Burks reported there.
In Seattle, Frank Ryman, a coastguardman, said he took pictures of "flying disks" early last evening after excited neighbors told him they were in the sky.
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THE PICTURES showed a tiny light spot, about the size of a pinhead, against the dark background of the sky. The mysterious objects also were reported over Utah last evening for the second time in two weeks.
Several residents southwest of Port Huron, Mich., reported seeing a number of the "flying disks" criss-crossing the sky last night and moving northward.
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TWO MEN in Akron, Ohio, and two in Delaware, Ohio, also reported seeing the saucers.
At Akron, Dr. Forrest Shaver said the thing he saw "looked like a balloon with a light inside" while Harry E. Hoertz called it a "light with a propelling device."
Dan Kelly, program director for Radio Station WRDO at Augusta, Me., said he and a friend saw about a dozen grayish round disks "flying in a straight line very high above the city."
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A NEW ORLEANS saleswoman, Miss Lillian Lawless, reported seeing one of the disks over Lake Pontchartrain last night.
