Documents / FOIA release
This FBI file section collects July 1947 Bureau memoranda, teletypes, citizen letters and newspaper clippings about reported flying discs. They cover recovered objects at Twin Falls, Idaho, Shreveport, Louisiana, Black River Falls, Wisconsin, and Laurel, Maryland, many judged to be pranks, plus a Grafton, Wisconsin priest's circular saw blade the Milwaukee office called a hoax. A Dallas teletype reports a disc recovered near Roswell resembling a high altitude weather balloon with radar reflector. Kenneth Arnold's own account of his sighting is also included.
“Anderson”1 page
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# ayonnaise Jars' 1 by Rehoboth Pilot on Believes Mystery Discs, ed, May Have Caused Big crash on Memorial Day pilot, Forrest Wenyon of 123 Rehoboth Avenue, sed last night that in the past 10 months he has being loosely described as "flying saucers" but mayonnaise jars." ference between the mysterious objects of Mr. those which have now been observed in some 40 states in that the former, according to the pilot, held a true course until they disappeared from sight. This would indicate a guide or least an aimed missile while the course of the "saucers" has been described by observers as erratic. Mr. Wenyon said last night that he first saw what loosely resembled a "flying mayonnaise jar" one afternoon last September while flying at about 1,000 feet. It was late in the afternoon and the pilot was flying north. Suddenly, at an estimated distance of 2,000 feet in front of his plane and traveling from west to east, Mr. Wenyon saw the "jar." It was going at tremendous speed but the pilot was able to note several tnings. The most important of these observations, insofar as an explanation is possible, is that the "jar" appeared to have some sort of rocket combustion. Mr. Wenyon said that spurts of silver flame from the tail seemed to provide the propulsion. Carrying out the description of the "flying mayonnaise jar," Mr. Wenyon said that the tail appeared to be a lid which had been perforated and that from these perforations the flames escaped. In a matter of two, at the most three, seconds the object had disappeared over and past Fort Miles. The pilot did not see it land and doesn't know whether it did or not. Then on June 2 while flying at 1,400 feet in a Stinson four-passenger ship Mr. Wenyon, $ pilot of 30 # Mystery Discs Continued From First Page ranged from the theory that they were radio controlled flying missiles sent aloft by U. S. military scientists to the suggestion that they might be merely sun light reflected on wing tanks of jet-propelled planes. A. B. Cross of Chattanooga, Tenn. a 34-year-old watchmaker, announced he invented the "flying saucer" and submitted it to the War Department in 1943 but his idea was rejected as not practical "at the present time." Later, he said, he became convinced that the department elaborated on his plan. His model was powdered with a rubber band. Cross said, but he believed atomic power now is being used. A Spokane, Wash., woman insisted the objects she saw were of such size that together they would take up the space of a five-room house if they landed, but a Clearwater, Flat., woman said the disks she observed resembled "pie pans." At Rutland, Vt., a woman reported she and her husband witnessed a brilliant object in the night sky which she assumed to be a "flying saucer" although it was stationary. But at Cambridge, Mass.; a housewife said she saw "a group of white, flying saucers whirling around and going at a tremendous speed." The Massachusetts and Vermont reports brought to 40 the number of states in which the objects have been observed. With New England getting into the game, the Harvard University astronomical observatory took note of the reports but said it had had no luck so far in photographing one of the discs. The mysterious saucers first were reported June 25 in the State of Washington, but Charlie T. Han, let, superintendent of the Kingd port, Tenn., Times News composir room, said yesterday he had see the discs two years ago. They were "of a bright, aluminum color" and "were going at terrific speed," Hamlet said, explaining he kept quiet about them because of
FOIA release, from the fbi-vault collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 79 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.