The article below was published in the daily newspaper Idaho Daily Tribune, Lewiston, Idaho, USA, July 7, 1947.
See the case file.
By DAVE JOHNSON
(Idaho Statesman Aviation Editor)
Boise. July 6--AP--Flew instruments this afternoon for a couple of hours with the Idaho national guard. A lieutenant colonel sat up in front and watched for discs while I struggled with the gauges and the radio beam.
We got back into Gowen field's pattern, and the control tower called to report some people in Ontaria, Ore., had told the CAA they saw some saucers wheeling through the sky.
Now, there's one thing about these saucers. I've never seen one, so on the way home I dropped into the Statesman office with an idea. That was to take the Early-Bird No. 3, our airplane, and be up tonight and prowl around the airways, just looking.
I broached that to the city editor and blew the foam off of it, and a you-know-what look spread over his face, just like somebody had tossed a brick into a mud puddle.
He talked for a few minutes and I listened. The upshot of it was that I walked out of the office with expense dough in my pocket and a date with Kenneth Arnold, the Boise man who two weeks ago saw the discs come roaring around Mt. Rainier in Washington.
I have one of those things called a general assignment. I'm going disc hunting with Arnold in the Statesman plane.
The city editor had said:
"Dave, I was just about to give you a call and discuss this damn saucer business with you. The thing started here in Boise with Arnold and it is getting out of hand. The wire services are moving more copy on it than any single story in years except the war, and no one knows any more about it now than when they were doubting this fellow Arnold who first reported seeing whatever it is that is being looked at, real or imaginary.
"As I said before. this business started in Boise and it is up to us if we can do it to help get it brought down to earth. I hope you can lasso one of the damn things and bring it in for display, but on the other hand, it might be a good idea to be ready to duck if you see something skipping along."
I might interject here that the boss doesn't fly.
"Crank up your airplane," he said, "and go up around the Hanford atom plant area in Washington and stay there until you either find something or give it up. See if this fellow Arnold wants to go along (he jumped at the chance) and take the best camera equipment you can find and stay as long as you want to."
Such an assignment -- stay as long as you want to -- is not to be accepted lightly.
"Fly around that area," said the city editor, "because my hunch is that if these things can come from any place they are coming from some project like Hanford. The army has denied this possibility but the army has been making denials a major business for years. In one case an Army man said there's nothing to get excited about, "if there were anything to the saucers the army would have notified us."
"If you see anything that answers the description -- or the hundreds of descriptions -- grab a picture and high-tail for Boise."
"Oh yes," he added. "Good luck to you."
They take the insurance out of my check.
I phoned Arnold. We are taking off bright and early in the morning. Arnold has a new movie camera with a telephoto lens and we're fortified for pictures.
From somewhere up in eastern Washington tomorrow night you'll hear from us, providing, or course, we don't run into something that proves these reports to be the McCoy and it runs over us.
The city desk says he'll stand behind us.
