The article below was published in the daily newspaper The Lewiston Morning Tribune, Lewiston, Idaho, USA, on July 10, 1947.
See the case file.
By DAVE JOHNSON
(Idaho Statesman Aviation Editor)
BOISE, Idaho, (AP) -- Three days of aerial search on an assignment to find a flying disc paid off Wednesday when for 45 seconds I watched a circular object dart about in front of a cloud bank.
The object was round. It appeared black, although as it maneuvered in front of the clouds I saw the sun flash from it once.
I was flying at 14,000 feet west of Boise, near the end of my third mission in search of the flying discs which have been reported over the Northwest and elsewhere.
Frankly, I had given up hope of ever seeing one of the objects. I turned the airplane toward Boise, to begin a circular let-down over Gowen field and over the nose of the aircraft saw the object.
I saw it clearly and distinctly. I turned the airplane broadside to it and pulled back the plexiglass canopy so there would be no distortion. The object was still there.
It was rising sharply and jerkily toward the top of the towering bank of alto cumulus and alto stratus clouds. At that moment, it was so round in shape that I thought it was a balloon.
Not A Weather Balloon
I opened my radio and called Boise CAA communications station. The logs shows the call was made at 12:17 p.m. I asked if the weather bureau had just released a balloon.
The answer was no, that a balloon had not been released for several hours. With that I snatched my camera out of the map case and began firing. I held the button down for about 10 seconds, and then looked again.
The object was turning so that it presented its edge to me. It then appeared as a straight black line. Then, with its edge still toward me, it shot straight up, rolled over the top of this maneuver, and I lost sight of it.
I asked the CAA and the Gowen field control tower if there were any aircraft in the vicinity. There was a P-51 fighter plane in the area, but it was behind me. There was a Fairchild C-82 packet flying over Boise, but I watched it pass beneath me.
Distance Unknown
I saw the circular object east of the city, toward the Anderson Ranch dam. I do not know how far away it was. It had the relative size of a quarter.
The clouds against which I saw the object were forming in the Camas prairie region, about 50 miles east of Boise. I had flown around them about an hour before.
The base of the clouds was at 13,000 feet. Their tops must have extended to 18,000 or 20,000 feet.
The object could have been 10 miles away, or 40. I do not know. If it was a great distance from me, its speed was incredible. The greater distance an object is from the watcher, the slower its speed should appear. This circular thing was maneuvering very swiftly.
The P-51 that was in the area was instructed to scout the region, and its pilot went there. He landed shortly after I did to report he had not seen anything.
P-51s Join Search
Patrols of P-51s were ordered into the area to keep searching until darkness. I had the airplane fueled and took off again for two more hours of flying in the same area, and then went over Owyhee reservoir, where discs had been reported earlier in the day, but did not see anything more.
I do not know if the pictures will turn out. They have been flown to San Francisco for processing at the Eastman plant there, since they are in color and require special handling.
Now, about myself. I have flown 18 hours in the past three days looking for discs. I have chased and discarded as nothing several flashes I believed I saw in the sky. Much of my flight today was above 12,500 feet and I may have been tired from lack of oxygen. It appeared black against the clouds. The sun flashed from it once. It turned its edge toward me and vanished.
He Saw Something
I do not believe I was self-hypnotized into seeing anything actually not there. I'm in the same spot as Kenneth Arnold, the man who first reported discs, and Capt. E.J. Smith of United Airlines, whose entire crew watched circular objects near a twin-engined transport one evening at dusk.
What I saw was no airplane. It was moving fast, but I don't know how fast. I don't know how big it was. If it was scores of miles distant it was very large.
Now for the kicker.
When I landed from today's second mission, three men of the Idaho National guard were waiting for me in the operations room. They said that they had seen an object performing similar maneuvers, round and black in appearance, against the clouds, and that it disappeared "very fast". It was in the same area where I saw the object.
Their names are Warren Noe and Bob Ayres, crew chiefs, and Fern Sabala, National Guard photographer.
While I am writing this, in comes William W. Hunt of Blackfoot, Idaho, who was driving 14 miles east of Boise when he saw an object from his automobile. He just wanted to tell me about it.
I thanked him.
