The article below was published in the daily newspaper The Kitsap Sun, Washington, USA, page 1, on July 5, 1947.
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The strange "flying discs" reported over West Coast cities since June 26 were reportedly photographed yesterday and chased by a United Airlines passenger plane near Boise, Idaho, but their identity remained a mystery today.
Coast guardsman Frank Ryman, 27, had a picture today snapped from the front porch of his home in Seattle which authorities hoped would clear up the mystery of the flying saucers.
Ryman said an enlargement of the shot made yesterday afternoon at 5:30 o'clock showed a "white
WEDGEWOOD, England. -- Two saucers reported here today that they have seen men flying through the air at high speed.
saucer" that was neither an airplane, a cloud or a silver balloon.
The pilot and co-pilot of the airlines plane said they turned their aircraft off course and chased a "strange object" for 15 miles before it outdistanced them or disintegrated in the dusk.
Capt. R. J. Smith and Second Officer R. E. Stevens, both of Seattle, said, "We can definitely say that what we saw was not smoke, not a cloud, and not another airplane."
Two Portland, Ore., police scout cars three miles apart notified their headquarters by radio at 1:15 p.m. yesterday that they had sighted a group of strange objects weaving in a "playful manner" 10,000 feet above the ground over the southern suburbs of Portland.
The discs were reported seen over numerous other communities of the northwest and a man in Pin Bluff, Ark., said he saw a flying object "about the size and color of a wash tub."
The army said no attempt had been made to pickup the discs with radar equipment, explaining that radar facilities were only used for training purposes in this area at present.
At Decatur, Ill., several motorists said they parked alongside a highway Thursday night to watch "mysterious, round, flat objects" fly across the sky. Some said they appeared as large as airplanes.
For the first time, reports of "flying discs" came from the east. Something round was sighted at Philadelphia traveling at about the speed of the wind below a cloud layer.
Three groups of "flying discs" were seen by 60 picnickers at Twin Falls (Idaho) City Park within 20 minutes late yesterday, A. E. Mitchell, of Goose Creek, Texas, reported today.
Mitchell, visiting in Twin Falls, said that a formation of seven mysterious objects were seen about 2:50 p.m. by seven persons.
He said that 10 minutes later, 30 picnickers saw another group of nine or 10 discs whirling through the air. At 3:10 p.m. Mitchell said that a third "flight" of 18 "flying saucers" were seen by 60 persons who had been scanning the sky after the first two flights.
Mitchell said that the group of seven was in V-formation, but the other two groups were circling and diving in loose formation.
Irving C. Allen, Northwest CAA official, reported seeing one of the objects Friday morning east of Moscow, Idaho, as he was flying a plane between Coeur d'Alene and Lewiston, Idaho.
The bright, shiny craft, larger than an airplane, was flying at a high rate of speed and was "swaying" slightly, Allen said.
"There was no vapor trail or noise and with William Allen, my assistant, we were able to observe it for fully five minutes," Allen said.
U. S. naval observatory officials concluded unofficially today that the mysterious "flying saucers" are not, at least, astronomical phenomena.
An official said the observatory's unofficial decision was based on descriptions of the strange flying objects since none of their astronomers had seen them.
Meanwhile, both the army and navy confessed themselves unable to give an explanation for the reported objects. The army began an investigation Thursday.
Although there were some reports the saucers might have been a new-type navy plane, "The Flying Pancake," the navy said it had only one such plane and that was in Hartford, Conn.
LANGENDORF, Germany. -- A bakery, reported here today that six dozen pieplates are missing.
