The 1947 flying disc craze was a rash of
unidentified flying object
An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...
reports in the United States that were publicized in the summer of 1947.
The craze began on June 24, when media nationwide reported civilian pilot
Kenneth Arnold's story of witnessing disc-shaped objects which headline writers dubbed "
Flying Saucers
A flying saucer (also referred to as "a flying disc") is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has g ...
".
Such reports quickly spread throughout the United States; historians would later chronicle at least 800 "copycat" reports in subsequent weeks, while other sources estimate the reports may have numbered in the thousands.
Reports peaked on July 7.
After numerous hoaxes and mistaken identifications, the disc reports largely subsided by July 10.
Mainstream sources speculated that the disc reports were caused by novel technology, mistaken identifications, or
mass hysteria
Mass psychogenic illness (MPI), also called mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic disorder, epidemic hysteria, or mass hysteria, involves the spread of illness symptoms through a population where there is no infectious agent responsible for c ...
.
In contrast, fringe speculation held that the discs might come from other planets or other dimensions; still others suggested the discs were occult or might signify the end of the world.
The 1947 craze has been extensively studied within the frameworks of both
folklore studies
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
and
religious studies, where scholars regard it as the "birth of a modern
myth
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...
".
Overview
In late June 1947, press in the United States began covering reports of flying discs.
[Bloecher p.21] Reports increased, with a sharp rise on July 4; over the course of the next five days, there were widespread reports throughout the entirety of the United States. Reports crested on July 7, gradually diminishing over the subsequent week, amid numerous hoaxes, pranks, and mistaken identifications.
The "flying saucer 'craze' of 1947 was thoroughly and widely covered" in media nationwide, with some contemporary observers interpreting the disc sightings as 'modern folklore'.
On July 3, midway through the craze, the Denver Post opined: "Even before Plato, scholars were perplexed by what is real and what isn't...Finally Descartes came along with the theory that 'whatever I apprehend clearly and distinctly is true' and on the basis of such authority it seems unimportant whether people actually saw the discs or only thought they did...If people saw chimaeras back in the days when Greek mythology was being born, it should not be wondered at that people are seeing supersonic discs in this Flash Gordon era."
In 2020, Religious Studies professor David J. Halpern similarly argued "UFOs are a myth but myths are real."
Another scholar opined: "The 'flying saucers' may have been a hoax, imagination, illusion, mirages, phantoms of preposterous eyesight, et al, yet they caused a phenomenon reverberations of which were heard around the world."
The 1947 craze has long been of interest to scholars of
folklore studies
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
.
Halpern argues that "The power and fascination of the UFO has nothing to do with space travel or life on other planets. It's about us, our longings and terrors".
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...
, a 'founding father' of cultural studies, recalled "The mystery of flying saucers was at first entirely terrestrial: we suspected that the saucers came from the Soviet netherworld, from this world as devoid of clear intentions as another planet." Folklorist Gordon Arnold similarly writes: "Many aspects of the great flying saucer wave raise questions about human behavior and America's social, cultural, and political inclinations".
Ted Bloecher argued that the 1947 craze is "the most fascinating of any to examine because of its unique position at the very beginning" of
flying saucer
A flying saucer (also referred to as "a flying disc") is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has g ...
saucer folklore. Writes Bloecher: "There were no 'attitudes' about UFOs in June 1947. There were no preconceptions, no misconceptions, no 'policies' by either press or public, or by any official agencies".
Folklorist
Howard Henry Peckham
Howard Henry Peckham, (July 13, 1910 – July 6, 1995) was a professor and historian and an authority on colonial and early American history who published a number of works on those subjects. His academic career encompassed a wide variety of invo ...
similarly argued that "students of folklore have had a rare opportunity to witness the birth and development of a modern myth -- the 'flying saucers'".
Events of Summer 1947
![Flying disc craze of 1947 - no labels - animated](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Flying_disc_craze_of_1947_-_no_labels_-_animated.gif)
1947 was marked by renewed tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States.
On March 13, American president
Harry Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
pledged to contain the communist uprisings
in Greece and
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
. More generally, the
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that pledged American "support for democracies against authoritarian threats." The doctrine originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was ...
implied American support for other nations thought to be threatened by
Soviet communism
The ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was Bolshevist Marxism–Leninism, an ideology of a centralised command economy with a vanguardist one-party state to realise the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet Union's ...
.
On April 16, statesman
Bernard Baruch
Bernard Mannes Baruch (August 19, 1870 – June 20, 1965) was an American financier and statesman.
After amassing a fortune on the New York Stock Exchange, he impressed President Woodrow Wilson by managing the nation's economic mobilization in ...
coined the term "Cold War" to describe relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Having lost 27 million people in the war, the Soviet Union pushed for returning Germany to a pastoral state without heavy industry. Despite Soviet objections, on June 5, Secretary of State
George Marshall
George Catlett Marshall Jr. (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the US Army under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry ...
announced a
comprehensive program of American assistance to reindustrialize European nations.
[Marshall, George C, '' The Marshal Plan Speech'', June 5, 1947]
The summer of 1947 featured widespread publications about atomic energy and war. On June 27, retired Supreme Court Justice
Owen Roberts
Owen Josephus Roberts (May 2, 1875 – May 17, 1955) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1930 to 1945. He also led two Roberts Commissions, the first of which investigated the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the seco ...
warned the US was headed "down the old familiar road of appeasement" towards "An all-out shooting
World war III
World War III or the Third World War, often abbreviated as WWIII or WW3, are names given to a hypothetical World war, worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II. The term has been in use ...
". On June 30,
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
and fellow scientists warned of a possible atomic war within a decade. A three-week conference about radioactive chemicals in medicine began at the University of California in San Francisco. On July 1, Representative
John Dingell
John David Dingell Jr. (July 8, 1926 – February 7, 2019) was an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1955 until 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he holds the record for longest ...
criticized hosting of German atomic scientists in places like El Paso.
Initial reports
On June 24, 1947, private pilot
Kenneth Arnold
Kenneth Albert Arnold (March 29, 1915 – January 16, 1984) was an American aviator, businessman, and politician.
He is best known for making what is generally considered the first widely reported modern unidentified flying object sighting in ...
claimed that he saw a string of nine, shiny
unidentified flying objects
An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...
flying past
Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier (), indigenously known as Tahoma, Tacoma, Tacobet, or təqʷubəʔ, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With a s ...
at speeds that Arnold estimated at a minimum of 1,200 miles an hour (1,932 km/hr). This was the first post-
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
sighting in the United States that garnered nationwide news coverage and is credited with being the first of the modern era of
UFO sightings
This is a partial list by date of sightings of alleged unidentified flying objects (UFOs), including reports of close encounters and alien abductions.
Second millennium BCE
Classical antiquity
8th century
16th–17th centuries
19th ce ...
, including numerous reported sightings over the next two to three weeks. Arnold's description of the objects also led to the press quickly coining the terms ''
flying saucer
A flying saucer (also referred to as "a flying disc") is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has g ...
'' and ''flying disc'' as popular descriptive terms for UFOs.
[Peebles p. 7-12]
When Arnold landed in Yakima, he described what he had seen to a number of pilot friends, who suggested that maybe he had seen guided missiles or a new airplane being secretly developed by the United States Army.
After refueling, he continued on his way to an air show in
Pendleton, Oregon
Pendleton is a city and the county seat of Umatilla County, Oregon. The population was 17,107 at the time of the 2020 census, which includes approximately 1,600 people who are incarcerated at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution.
Pendleton ...
. He was first interviewed by reporters the next day (June 25), when he went to the office of the ''
East Oregonian
The ''East Oregonian'' (''EO'') is a daily newspaper published in Pendleton, Oregon, United States and covering Umatilla and Morrow counties. The ''EO'' was the first-place winner of the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association General Excellence ...
'' in Pendleton. Any skepticism the reporters might have harbored evaporated when they interviewed Arnold at length, as historian
Mike Dash
Mike Dash is a Welsh writer, historian, and researcher. He has written books and articles about dramatic episodes in history.
Biography
Dash was born in London. He attended Peterhouse, a college at the University of Cambridge particularly noted ...
records:
:Arnold had the makings of a reliable witness. He was a respected businessman and experienced pilot...and seemed to be neither exaggerating what he had seen, nor adding sensational details to his report. He also gave the impression of being a careful observer...These details impressed the newspapermen who interviewed him and lent credibility to his report.
The following day, Arnold was interviewed on the radio about his sighting and his story was published in afternoon and evening editions of regional papers.
By June 26, Arnold's story was being widely reported throughout the United States.
Additional reports
Arnold's report was the first of many. On June 26, press reported that Byron Savage of Oklahoma City had seen a flying disc about six weeks prior.
That same day, press reported that a Kansas City carpenter named W. I. Davenport recalled having seen nine discs while working on a roof the prior Wednesday.
[G. Arnold, Ch. 4] Also on June 26, photographer E.H. Sprinkle of Eugene, Oregon reported having attempted to take a photograph of a formation of nine bright objects in the prior weeks.
Pacific Northwest reports amid jet speculation
June 27 saw reports of past sightings from a housewife in Bremerton, a home-builder in Bellingham, a motorist and his family from Wenatachee, a couple from Salem, and a woman from Yakima.
On June 28, press nationwide reported the opinion of Army rocket expert Lt. Col. Harold R. Turner, who speculated the "discs" were jet airplanes; Turner explained that "the jet planes' circular exhaust glows brightly when heated and might easily appear to be discs at a distance.
[Arnold,G. p.30]
Also on June 28, original disc witness Kenneth Arnold publicly criticized the lack of any official investigation into his sighting. Said Arnold: "If I was running the country and someone reported something unusual, I'd certainly want to know more about it."
Reports throughout the West
On June 28, the Denver Post reported on a crew of seven railway workers in Colorado Springs who claimed to have seen a disc the prior May.
Also on June 28, press covered reports from a mother and son in Seattle, three airport employees in
Cedar City
Cedar City is the largest city in Iron County, Utah, United States. It is located south of Salt Lake City, and north of Las Vegas on Interstate 15. It is the home of Southern Utah University, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Utah Summer Gam ...
, a family near Boise, an optometrist in El Paso, a dentist in
Silver City and a railroad engineer in Joliet; all claimed to have seen discs.
Potential explanations offered
Lt. Col. Harold R. Turner of the
White Sands Proving Ground
White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area and firing range located in the US state of New Mexico. The range was originally established as the White Sands Proving Ground on 9July 1945. White Sands National Pa ...
publicly initially speculated the discs "must have been" jet airplanes but later told press that the New Mexico flying disc reports were the result of meteorites.
On June 28, Washington-based ironworks operator Ray Taro speculated that the "flying discs" were caused by his foundry, which had been melting bottlecaps, expelling little aluminum discs" which were blown out of the foundry smoke stacks.
[Spartanburg Herald, South Carolina - 28 Jun 47] On June 28, Oklahoma sightings were revealed as handbills released from an airplane.
![COL Harold Turner](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/COL_Harold_Turner.jpg)
By June 29, one source reported that "These discs, some people suggest, may presage an invasion from Mars."
Others suggested the discs were Russian weapons, akin to the
incendiary balloons released by the Japanese to cross the Pacific and explode in the US.
Speculation suggested that the Navy's experimental
Flying Flapjack
The Vought XF5U "Flying Flapjack" was an experimental United States Navy, U.S. Navy fighter aircraft designed by Charles H. Zimmerman for Vought during World War II. This unorthodox design consisted of a flat, somewhat disc-shaped body (hence it ...
might be responsible for disc sightings.
On June 30, one Oregon preacher suggested that the discs were "the 'advance guard' of universal disaster, heralding the end of the world".
On July 1, Air Force intelligence officer Col.
Alfred Kalberer and astronomer
Oscar Monnig Oscar E. Monnig (September 4, 1902 – May 4, 1999) was an American amateur astronomer, acknowledged for his contributions to meteoritics.
Private life
Monnig was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the United States. In 1925 he received a law de ...
briefed press to provide reassurance that "we're not being invaded by little platter-like planes from Mars".
Monnig described the sightings as "an interesting study in human psychology", arguing that after upon hearing Arnold's initial report, a colleague laughed and predicted "Watch the reports pour in now, from all across the country, from people who will imagine they have seen these things, too".
Kalberer cited the Orson Wells broadcast and the
May 1947 Tokyo Sea Monster broadcast
In sociology and psychology, mass hysteria is a phenomenon that transmits collective illusions of threats, whether real or imaginary, through a population and society as a result of rumors and fear.Bartholomew, Robert E. (2001). ''Little Green Me ...
.
Kalberer joked that he wished "someone would
put salt on the tail of one of these discs and catch it like our grandmothers used to tell us to do if we wished to catch a bird", adding "They're such friendly little discs. They seem to flip around and do all sorts of kittenish antics".
Also on July 1, headlines like "Flying Disc Deal 'Solved'" reported that a flying disc had been recovered in New Mexico after a local man chased the object until it landed. The object was identified as a "five by eight inch piece of tinfoil". In San Angelo, on July 2 the press relayed a report from Ivy T. Young who speculated that his hobby of releasing silvery balloons with his name attached may have been responsible for the disc sightings.
Increasing prominence
From June 24 to July 1, official response was one of skepticism and humor; that changed during the first week of July, when reports from reputable witnesses prompted further reactions and investigations.
Lt. Governor sighting followed by official investigation
On July 2, Idaho Lt. Governor
Donald S. Whitehead revealed publicly that both he and Boise Justice J.M. Lampert had witnessed objects on June 24, the day of Arnold's sighting.
The next day, papers nationwide reported that Lt. Gen.
Nathan Twining, commander of
Wright Field
Wilbur Wright Field was a military installation and an airfield used as a World War I pilot, mechanic, and armorer training facility and, under different designations, conducted United States Army Air Corps and Air Forces flight testing. Loca ...
, had announced that Air Material Command had opened a probe into the discs. Twining claimed that a "reputable scientist" had seen the disc-like objects in flight. Twining urged all persons seeing the strange objects in flight to contact Wright Field.
That day, headlines proclaimed "U.S. Stops 'Laughing Off' Stories of Flying Discs", quoting an Army Air Force spokesman as saying "If some foreign power is sending flying discs over the United States, it is our responsibility to know about it and take proper action".
Army experts acknowledged that they could not explain the disc and reported having checked research authorities and contractors, none of whom knew anything concrete about the discs.
They suggested the discs might be the product of a civilian inventor.
The Idaho Statesman quoted an unnamed military officer as saying he thought the air forces and FBI had been showing "complacency" by not pushing for a more "vigorous investigation". It also reported that Kenneth Arnold has not been contacted by military or the FBI about his sighting.
The Statesman quoted the FBI special agent in charge of the area's FBI force,
W.G. Banister, who reported "I don't know any more about it than what I read in the newspapers."
San Francisco fireworks and stories of landings
On July 3, press nationwide reported a story from California Highway Patrol Sergeant David Menary who told of seeing six large metallic discs dive into the San Francisco Bay at high speed the prior day.
Menary had been accompanied by Walter Castro, a garage owner. On July 3, US Army major Steve Monroe of
the Presidio
''The Presidio'' is a 1988 American crime film directed by Peter Hyams and starring Sean Connery and Mark Harmon. Hyams also handled the cinematography and the score was composed by Bruce Broughton.
Plot
At the Presidio Army base in San Fran ...
issued a report explaining that Menary's sighting had been caused by 'some of the boys' experimenting with fireworks. Monroe announced further such experiments would be cancelled.
On July 3, press announced a "mystery missle" had been seen in Altadena, California and was believed to have landed nearby; the witness stated that object "was NOT a 'flying disc'".
That same day, press reported on a potential landing in San Miguel.
July 4 press reports
By July 4, reports had spread to 11 states and two provinces, with new sightings reported in Delaware.
Headlines declared the recent investigation had finished: "Army Air Forces Drops Inquiry Into Mysterious 'Flying Discs'; Maybe They're Just Imaginary". An Army Air Force spokesman explained that the inquiry "has not produced enough fact to warrant further investigation".
Also on July 4, the United Press quoted
Meade Layne, a publisher of an occult magazine, who speculated that the discs were "etheric".
Alternatively, the San Francisco Chronicle publisheda letter from local eccentric Ole J. Sneide who claimed that the discs were "oblate spheroid space ships" who "have been absent from our planet since before the fall of the Roman Empire, when the Great Master left earth for the outer galaxy by fohatic teleportation."
That same day, it was reported that Frank Ryman, a Coast Guard yeoman in Seattle, had photographed a disc.
Also on July 4, it was reported that eight military men were hospitalized with burns after an acid accident at White Sands under Lt. Col. Harold B. Turner.
Flight 105
On the evening of July 4, United Airlines Flight 105 took off from
Boise, Idaho
Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown are ...
in a
DC-3
The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner
manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II.
It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...
bound for
Pendleton, Oregon
Pendleton is a city and the county seat of Umatilla County, Oregon. The population was 17,107 at the time of the 2020 census, which includes approximately 1,600 people who are incarcerated at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution.
Pendleton ...
.
In a sign of the times, on departure Boise tower jokingly suggested the crew "be on the lookout for 'flying saucers'".
During the flight, the crew reportedly observed "four or five 'somethings'", described as "smooth on the bottom and rough appearing on top", but they could not say whether they were "oval or saucer-like".
One object was reportedly larger than the rest.
The crew later witnessed what they interpreted as four additional objects.
Group sightings
The Flight 105 sighting was widely publicized on July 5. Also on July 5, papers reported a group of 60 picnickers in Twin Falls Park had witnessed 35 discs over a twenty-minute period the prior day.
Police in Portland received reports of discs, some reports coming from members of local law enforcement in Portland and Vancouver; the International News Service reported that "hundreds of persons" viewed the strange objects, up to 20 in number.
At
Hayden Lake, Idaho
Hayden Lake is a city in Kootenai County, Idaho, United States. Located in the northern portion of the state, it is considered a suburb of the city of Coeur d'Alene. Its population was 574 at the 2010 census. The city was named after the near ...
, a group of 200 people were said to witness a disc for thirty minutes.
Six people in Boise reported seeing discs the previous day.
On July 5, it was reported that a balloon and a six-pointed, star-shaped tinfoil object was recovered in
Pickaway County, Ohio
Pickaway County is a county in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 58,539. Its county seat is Circleville. Its name derives from the Pekowi band of Shawnee Indians, who inhabited the area. (See List of Ohio county ...
by farmer Sherman Campbell; the press speculated the object may have been responsible for recent local 'flying saucer' reports.
Also on July 5, press reported on the disappearance of an Army C-54 transport plane. The plane went missing after departing Bermuda bound for West Palm Beach with six men aboard. Years later, the disappearance and flying discs would be incorporated into the
Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is an urban legend focused on a loosely defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterio ...
folklore.
Wire service reports quoted astronomer Oliver J. Lee of the
Dearborn Observatory
The Dearborn Observatory is an astronomical observatory located on the Evanston, Illinois, Evanston campus of Northwestern University. The observatory was originally constructed in 1888, through an agreement between the university and the Chicago ...
as suggesting the discs were "probably man-made and radio controlled".
Human behavioral expert John. G. Lynn blamed the "wave of saucer hysteria" on "recent predictions that an atomic war would break out, laying waste the United States".
A Louisiana paper quoted physicist Norris Sill, a member of the Navy staff at the
Bikini tests, as discounting the suggestion that nuclear fission was causing the sightings, saying there was "no plausible connection between the two".
Atomic link claimed
During the 1947 craze, flying discs and atomic weaponry became linked in the public consciousness. On July 6, headlines proclaimed "Discs Atom Products, A-Bomb Scientist Says". Articles cited an unnamed "noted scientist in nuclear physics" affiliated with CalTech who had been part of the Manhattan Project. The scientist declared "People are not 'seeing things'" and 'said flatly that experiments in "transmutation of atomic energy" being conducted at Muroc Lake Calif; White Sands, N.M.; Portland Ore., and elsewhere are responsible for the "flying discs".
Papers observed that the "Bulk of the flying disc reports have generated in a wide circle through Idaho, Washington, and Oregon surrounding the
Hanford works".
Col. F. J. Clarke, commander of Hanford, denied knowledge of any connection.
Harold Urey
Harold Clayton Urey ( ; April 29, 1893 – January 5, 1981) was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium. He played a significant role in the d ...
, atomic scientist in Chicago, dismissed the report as "gibberish", as did Atomic Energy Commission chair
David E. Lilienthal.
The Associated Press reported that fighters had been placed on alert at
Muroc Army Airfield
Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is Ed ...
and Portland, Oregon—two hotspots of reports in the prior weeks.
By July 6, reports had spread to 31 states.
Louis E. Starr,the national commander of the
Veterans of Foreign Wars
The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), formally the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, is an organization of US war veterans, who, as military service members fought in wars, campaigns, and expeditions on foreign land, waters, or a ...
, called for more information about the discs, declaring that "Too little is being told to the people of this country".
Reports peak
On July 7, newspapers announced that reports "poured in" from the San Francisco Bay. Berkeley professor
Raymond Thayer Birge
Raymond Thayer Birge (March 13, 1887 – March 22, 1980) was an American physicist.
Career
Born in Brooklyn, New York, into an academic scientific family, Birge obtained his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in 1913. In the same year h ...
reassured the public that the discs "aren't coming from outer space". Army pilots began flying "camera patrols" as 11 planes were equipped with telescopic cameras in the hopes of capturing images of a flying disc.
Also on July 7, press reported the account of Vernon Baird, who claimed to have seen a 'Flying Yo-Yo' over Montana.
Baird, a civilian pilot working work for a mapping firm, reported the object "came apart like a clamshell. The two pieces spiraled down somewhere in the Madison Range". Baird described seeing similar objects darting around "like a batch of molecules doing the rumba." Later that day, it was reported that Baird had admitted the entire story was false.
One recovered disc was revealed to be a circular saw blade with tubes and wires attached, while a second disc turned out to be locomotive packing washers.
Retired general
Hap Arnold
Henry Harley Arnold (June 25, 1886 – January 15, 1950) was an American general officer holding the ranks of General of the Army and later, General of the Air Force. Arnold was an aviation pioneer, Chief of the Air Corps (1938–1941), ...
(no relation) publicly speculated the discs had either been developed by United States scientists or were foreign technology that "operating out of control".
The ''Los Angeles Examiner'' received and publicized a letter claiming the discs were atomic-powered Russian planes.
Dr.
Winfred Overholser Winfred Overholser (1892 – October 6, 1964) was an American psychiatrist, president of the American Psychiatric Association, and for 25 years the superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital, a federal institution for the mentally ill in Washington, ...
, nationally renown psychiatrist, described the reports as a "national hysteria".,
though Harry A. Steckel, psychiatric consultant to the Veterans Administration, dismissed the "mass hysteria" explanation, adding that the dics might be the result of "experiments by unknown government agencies".
On July 7, it was reported than an Army weather kite was found a farm near Granville, Ohio. Truman returned to Washington after a weekend in Charlottesville, driving himself most of the way, with police escort.
Also on July 7, it was reported that the FBI was investigating a letter received by the ''Los Angeles Examiner'' which claimed the discs were atomic-powered Russian craft. The ''Examiner'' turned the letter over to authorities after a recommendation by a "top-flight atomic scientist" who appraised the letter as "not all nonsense".
Weather balloons, pranks, and hoaxes
On July 8, United Press reported that Soviet Vice Counsel Eugene Tunantzev denied responsibility for the discs, saying that "Russia respects the sovereignty of all governments and by no stretch of the imagination would use another country for a proving ground." American officials agreed, dismissing speculation that the discs might be 'secret weapons of use in bacteriological warfare'.
$1,000 rewards were offered in three different parts of the country: in Los Angeles, the "World Inventors' Exposition" announced a $1,000 reward for 'flying disc' by the end of the week.
Similar rewards were offered by entrepreneur
E.J. Culligan of Northbrook Illinois and the
Spokane Athletic Round Table, described as a 'group of gagsters'. On July 8, paper reported comments by White House press secretary Charles G. Ross who jokingly shared a telegram from a professional juggler who reported the "saucers" were things used in his act that "got out of hand".
Pulitzer-prize winning journalist
Hal Boyle
Harold Vincent "Hal" Boyle (July 24, 1911 – April 1, 1974) was a prolific, Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist for the Associated Press. During 30 years with the AP, Boyle wrote 7,680 columns.ObituaryFormer Columnist Hal Boyle Dies, ''Tri-City Her ...
authored a satirical report from inside a flying saucer.
On July 8, it was reported that Norman Hargrave reported finding a object containing the inscription "Military secret of the United States of America". Another unsubstantiated story was circulated of a disc being recovered on the Texas Gulf coast. Flying disc reports spread to Sydney, Australia, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Copenhagen, Denmark.
Sightings were reported in Saanich, B.C.
In Victoria, B.C., a palm-sized disc was photographed and turned over to police by Arthur Morfitt, who said the disc landed near him.
By July 8, reports had spread to 41 states.
Science-fiction author and
Fortean
Charles Hoy Fort (August 6, 1874 – May 3, 1932) was an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are sometimes used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold w ...
R. DeWitt Miller
Richard DeWitt Miller (January 22, 1910 – June 3, 1958) was an American writer of science fiction and Forteana. His first science-fiction publication was "The Shapes" which appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in 1936. His non-fiction books ...
compared the current craze to 19th-century folklore, speculating the discs were either a new weapon, interplanetary, or else "things out of other dimensions of time and space".
Newspaper and radio firebrand
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was a syndicated American newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator. Originally a vaudeville performer, Winchell began his newspaper career as a Broadway reporter, critic and co ...
cited DeWitt's book "Forgotten Mysteries", highlighting three 19th-century reports that Winchell alleged were similar to the ongoing disc craze.
Tobacco salesman Lloyd Bennet, of Oelwein, Iowa, claimed to have found a 6.5-inch diameter disc in his front yard.
Frances Adams of Austin similarly recovered a disc which was photographed and publicized.
F.G. 'Happy' Harston, a Shreveport auto salesman, recovered a 16-inch aluminum disc thrown by pranksters.
Thomas W. Wilson, also of Shreveport, chased a "disc" which was revealed to be a balloon.
John Caldwell, of Austin TX, reported seeing a disc and also shared having seen a mysterious aircraft 57 years prior; Caldwell dismissed both as illusions.
On July 8, celebrity
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
publicly denied any connection to the flying discs, saying "I
scared the shirts off Americans once. That was enough."
Media reported on rumors that a disc had crashed near Lancaster, CA, setting fifteen or 20 tree afire; ranch owner Fritz Godde denied the reports.
Media compared the ongoing craze to the unexplained fireballs reported in May and June 1945 over Japan, beginning with the May 23 night raid of Tokyo.
July 8 saw the first publication of a flying disc photograph, captured by Albert Weaver of Michigan.
Also on July 8, press ran a photo of three prominent disc observers, Kenneth Arnold, E.J. Smith, and Ralph Stephens, who had gathered to "compare notes on the 'flying discs'"
Roswell debris
![Marcel-roswell-debris 0](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Marcel-roswell-debris_0.jpg)
On July 8, 1947, RAAF
public information officer
A spokesperson, spokesman, or spokeswoman, is someone engaged or elected to speak on behalf of others.
Duties and function
In the present media-sensitive world, many organizations are increasingly likely to employ professionals who have receiv ...
Walter Haut
1st Lt. Walter Haut (June 3, 1922 – December 15, 2005) was the public information officer (PIO) at the 509th Bomb Group based in Roswell, New Mexico during 1947. Early on July 8, 1947 he was ordered by the base commander, Colonel William Blanc ...
issued a
press release
A press release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public release. Press releases are also considere ...
stating that personnel from the field's
509th Operations Group
The 509th Operations Group (509 OG) is the flying component of the United States Air Force 509th Bomb Wing (509 BW), assigned to Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. It is equipped with all 20 of the USAF's B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, flown by it ...
had recovered a "flying disc", which had landed on a ranch near Roswell.
The following day, the "disc" was revealed to be pieces of a weather balloon. On July 9, ''
Roswell Daily Record
The ''Roswell Daily Record'' is a local newspaper located in Roswell, New Mexico, and has a circulation of less than 12,000. The paper is well known in the UFO community because it reported the alleged Roswell UFO crash in 1947. The newspaper was ...
'' reported that the debris consisted of "large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks."
Reports diminish
On July 9, the Oakland Tribune announced that reports had dropped off and "it appeared the show is over". Press reported that the Army and Navy had begun a campaign to halt the flying disc tales.
Also on July 9, media reported that a triangular object found near Oxford Ohio by John Strucks was also a radar target used on weather balloons. Dozens of "flying discs" in Richmond, Virginia were revealed to be paper plates released by jokesters from a tall building. On July 9, airplane inventor
Orville Wright argued the disc reports are "more propaganda for war, to stir up the people and excite them to believe a foreign power has designs on this nation".
On July 9, Missouri press reported that a contraption made from pie pans, wires, and radio tubes was found burning on the Clayton County courthouse lawn.
![Rhodes UFO photos](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Rhodes_UFO_photos.png)
Al Hixenbaugh of the Louisville Times photographed two objects streaking across the sky. William A. Rhodes
photographed an object over the skies of Phoenix. Disc reports from Iran were published in US media.
On July 9, with the announcement of new disc reports from Kansas, reports had come from all 48 states. That same day, press ran headlines reporting: "Army, Navy try to stop rumors of 'Flying Discs'".
Hoaxed discs recovered in Hollywood and Detroit
On July 10, it was reported that Russell Long of North Hollywood had discovered a 30-inch diameter disc which allegedly struck his house and came to rest in his flower garden. The disc, still smoking, prompted a call to the fire department; firemen reported an "acrid, chemical smell". The device was described as having exhaust pipes, a fin and rudder. The local fire battalion chief told press that "It looks like someone went to a great deal of trouble for a joke." The disc featured a glass radio tube. Local FBI chief Richard B. Hood reported that the FBI took possession of the disc and would turn it over to the military.
In Detroit, Emmett C. Daniels discovered a disc with "red painted hieroglyphics apparently of oriental origin". Local workers took credit for creating the disc.
Balloons
The Navy announced it had conducted a test, releasing a helium balloon carrying a tin-foil screen over Stone Mountain, Georgia. As anticipated, local newspapers received disc reports.
Leroy Leach of Dover, Ohio reported discovering a balloon with foil on his farm.
On July 10, a local army recruiter was photographed with a shattered kite and balloon that had been recovered from Bakersfield.
In Lima, Ohio, a cardboard disc attached to a balloon was recovered by Julian Faccenda, workers at a local factory took credit for the device. Original disc witness Kenneth Arnold flatly denied that the objects he saw could have been balloons.
The Wisconsin Civil Air Patrol announced it has ceased its aerial search for discs.
In Barstow, California, one columnist observed that reporting on discs might jeopardize national security: "If these 'flying discs' are enemy experimental dummy bombs or rockets, we have given the enemy valuable information. We have published the exact location, time, etc. This would make excellent data for enemy agents." Walter Winchell speculated that, despite official denials, the disc reports likely stemmed from secret Navy flying wing aircraft.
Twin Falls recovered disc hoax
On July 11, press reported the recovery of a 30-inch disc from the yard of a Twin Falls home. Residents reported hearing a "thud" around 2:30 AM, but dismissed the noise as a truck. At 8:20 AM, a next-door neighbor reportedly discovered a "disc" and summoned police.
Local police arrived and took possession of the object. The matter was referred to both FBI and military intelligence. Multiple officers from
Fort Douglas
Camp Douglas was established in October 1862, during the American Civil War, as a small military garrison about three miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah, to protect the overland mail route and telegraph lines along the Central Overland Route. In ...
flew in to investigate. Authorities "clamped down a lid of secrecy pending the outcome of further investigation". Local press featured a piece on Army "cloak and dagger" during the disc investigation, mentioning that photographs of the object were confiscated. On July 11, the FBI reported the apparently-mundane object had been turned over to the Army.
On July 12, it was reported nationally that the Twin Falls disc was a hoax. Photos of the object were publicly released. The object was described as containing radio tubes, electric coils, and wires underneath a Plexiglas dome. Press reported that four teenagers had confessed to creating the disc.
The Twin Falls hoax, with its nationally published image showing a bemused army officer holding a disc-like object of mundane construction, has been called the "
Coup de Grace of press coverage" on the Summer 1947 Flying Disc wave; in the days following the story, "press accounts rapidly fell off".
Reports subside
Blocher writes: "With scarcely more than a dozen sightings for July 10th, the UFO wave of 1947 had almost completely subsided. Few if any of the reports were carried by the wire services".
[Bloecher, 1967] Bloecher adds: "While interest was high at the time of the sightings, it died out not long after".
Another scholar commented on the brevity of the craze, writing: "The first newspaper accounts preceded a sweep of confirmative stories - some creditable, some doubtful, some proven hoaxes, and innumerable explanations - that caught the nation's attention in a matter of days, and the world inside of three weeks...Yet a hypothetical person not in contact with a medium of communication during the incident, and returning to read an American newspaper after July 20, 1947, would know nothing of the episode which, shortly before, held the world in its grip. The episode was that short, that concentrated, that volatile."
In 1948, the press published a new spate of disc reports and revitalized interest in discs.
Crash at Kelso
On August 1, it was publicly reported that a
B-25
The North American B-25 Mitchell is an American medium bomber that was introduced in 1941 and named in honor of Major General William "Billy" Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. military aviation. Used by many Allied air forces, the B-25 served in e ...
departing
McChord Field
McChord Field is a United States Air Force base in the northwest United States, in Pierce County, Washington. South of Tacoma, McChord Field is the home of the 62d Airlift Wing, Air Mobility Command, the field's primary mission being worldw ...
bound for
Hamilton Field had crashed near
Kelso, Washington
Kelso is a city in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Washington and is the county seat of Cowlitz County. At the 2020 census, the population was 12,720. Kelso is part of the Longview, Washington Metropolitan statistical area, which h ...
, killing both pilot and co-pilot; two other men bailed out, though one was critically injured in the parachute jump.
[Peebles, Ch.2][G. Arnold, Ch. 11]
The following day, press accounts revealed that a "mysterious telephone informant with uncannily accurate information" had contacted the United Press of Tacoma. The caller claimed that the crashed B-25 had been loaded with flying disc fragments; the caller further claimed that flying saucer witnesses Kenneth Arnold and E.J. Smith had been "in secret conference" at Tacoma's Hotel Winthrop. General Ned Schramm of the fourth air force publicly acknowledged that the deceased pilots were intelligence officers who had traveled to Tacoma to meet with original saucer witness Kenneth Arnold, but Schramm told denied knowledge of any debris onboard the plane, telling press that "it was his understanding" that the pilots "were not bringing anything back with them".
By August 3, press reported a detailed narrative about the events: original saucer witness Kenneth Arnold had travelled to Tacoma to investigate claims by
Fred Crisman
Fred Lee Crisman (July 22, 1919 – December 10, 1975) was a fighter pilot and later educator from Tacoma, Washington known for claims of paranormal events and ties to 20th century conspiracies.
In 1946, Crisman claimed to have battled with non- ...
and Harold Dahl, who reported recovering debris dropped by a flying saucer at
Maury Island
Maury Island is a tied island in Puget Sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is connected to Vashon Island by an isthmus built by local homeowners in 1913. Before construction of the isthmus, the island was connected to Vashon only during l ...
. Flight 105 pilot E.J. Smith joined the investigation, which received "lava rocks" from Crisman who claimed they were "flying disc debris". Army Air Force investigators were contacted, and two investigators flew to Tacoma where they took possession of the debris and departed in their B-25 to return to Hamilton Field.
Public awareness
On August 19, Gallup published a poll reporting that 90% of the public had heard about flying discs.
Reports noted this poll "places the saucers on par with Orson Welles' 'Invasion from Mars', the Loch Ness Monster, and
Tom Thumb Golf." By comparison, only half the public had heard of the Marshall Plan.
The survey showed that 29% of the public believed the discs were illusions or imaginary,
33% did not know what the discs were, and 9% offered other interpretations, including linking the discs to atomic weapons or the end of the world.
Maps and table of reports
Contemporary interpretations
Technological
![Vought V-173](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Vought_V-173.jpg)
Initial speculation held that the disc might be technology developed by the Americans or the Soviets.
Army rocket expert Lt. Col. Harold R. Turner publicly speculated the "discs" were jet airplanes, arguing that "the jet planes' circular exhaust glows brightly when heated and might easily appear to be discs at a distance.
By June 29, public speculation suggested that the reports might be attributed to
"Flying Flapjack", an experimental Navy fighter aircraft with a somewhat disc-shaped body that had been profiled in the May 1947 issue of ''Mechanix Illustrated''. The Navy dismissed that suggestion, noting that only one such prototype existed, and it had never flown outside of Connecticut.
On July 3, Army Lt. Gen
Nathan Twining, head of Air Material Command and commander of Wright Field, announced an investigation into the discs and informed the public that the Army Air Forces "have nothing that would compare to the descriptions of the object"
On July 6, the International News Services interviewed racecar builder Leo Bentz who speculated the discs were the work of an inventor named George De Bay. On July 9, the El Paso Times published an editorial calling on the Army to admit the discs were new US technology.
Others suggested the discs were Russian weapons, akin to the
incendiary balloons released by the Japanese to cross the Pacific and explode in the US.
The ''Los Angeles Examiner'' received and publicized a letter claiming the discs were atomic-powered Russian planes.
![Weather-balloon 0](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Weather-balloon_0.jpg)
Retired general
Hap Arnold
Henry Harley Arnold (June 25, 1886 – January 15, 1950) was an American general officer holding the ranks of General of the Army and later, General of the Air Force. Arnold was an aviation pioneer, Chief of the Air Corps (1938–1941), ...
(no relation) publicly speculated the discs had either been developed by United States scientists or were foreign technology "operating out of control".
Conventional
Army rocket expert Lt. Col. Harold R. Turner revised his estimate on June 29 and suggested that meteors, not jets, were responsible.
One ironworks operator speculated that the " flying discs" were caused by the melting of bottlecaps".
Oklahoma sightings were revealed as handbills released from an airplane.
Numerous recovered objects were revealed to hoaxes, pranks, or mistaken identifications.
On July 4, press nationwide quoted an unnamed Chicago scientist who speculated that people were seeing "spots in front of their eyes." In the prior decades, reports of
canals on Mars
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were "canals" on the planet Mars. These were a network of long straight lines in the equatorial regions from 60° north to 60° south latitude on Mars, observed ...
had been revealed to stem from
optical illusions
Within visual perception, an optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is an illusion caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual percept that arguably appears to differ from reality. Illusions come in a wide variety; thei ...
.
Behavioral
![Dance at Molenbeek](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Dance_at_Molenbeek.jpg)
During the 1947 craze, experts in human behavior argued the reports were best explained as a
psychological
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between t ...
or
social
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives from ...
phenomenon. The flying disc craze was compared to Scotland's
Loch Ness monster
The Loch Ness Monster ( gd, Uilebheist Loch Nis), affectionately known as Nessie, is a creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or mor ...
, the panic caused by the Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds, and a
sea monster panic caused by a US Armed Forces Radio hoax in Japan.
On July 3, the International News Service suggested a sociological component, arguing that Arnold had "broken the ice" and induced "trained observers to tell stories they had hesitated to relate before in the fear nobody would believe them". As early as July 5, press featured speculation that the disc craze was the result of
mass hysteria
Mass psychogenic illness (MPI), also called mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic disorder, epidemic hysteria, or mass hysteria, involves the spread of illness symptoms through a population where there is no infectious agent responsible for c ...
.
On July 9, psychiatrist
Edward Strecker
Edward Adam Strecker, M.D. (1886–1959) was an American physician, a psychiatric educator, a professor of psychiatry at several medical schools, and a leader in American psychiatry during the mid-twentieth century.
Strecker was born in Philadelp ...
described discs as the result of "pathological receptiveness". Strecker argued that initial witnesses "may have seen something, such as the glint of an airplane" while subsequent sightings were likely illusions brought on by hysteria. Strecker argued that 'the emotional state of many person had been over-active since the first atomic bomb exploded'.
Winfred Overholser Winfred Overholser (1892 – October 6, 1964) was an American psychiatrist, president of the American Psychiatric Association, and for 25 years the superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital, a federal institution for the mentally ill in Washington, ...
, nationally renown psychiatrist, described the reports as a "national hysteria".
On July 9, it was reported that an Indianapolis woman was sent to a mental ward after she was discovered "hacking holes in the sidewalk with a hatchet" in an effort to 'drive the saucers away'. The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph ran a headline telling readers "If you're seeing those saucers -- call the psychiatrist, and quick!" after a Harvard professor proclaimed that flying disc mystery was "not a problem for meteorologists or astronomers, but one for psychiatrists."
Interplanetary
![Amazing Stories 1927 08](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Amazing_Stories_1927_08.jpg)
On June 27, unnamed experts argued that supersonic saucer-shaped aircraft would be "out of this planet". On June 28, headlines joked "No, They're Not Men from Mars". By June 29, one source reported that "These discs, some people suggest, may presage an invasion from Mars."
On July 7, 1947, two stories came out where Arnold raised the topic of possible extraterrestrial origins, both as his opinion and those who had written to him. Per the Chicago Times:
:"...Kenneth Luis Arnold...is not so certain that the strange contraptions are made on this planet. Arnold...said he hoped the devices were really the work of the U.S. Army. But he told the TIMES in a phone conversation: 'If our government knows anything about these devices, the people should be told at once. A lot of people out here are very much disturbed. Some think these things may be from another planet. But they aren't harming anyone and I think it would be the wrong thing to shoot one of them down—even if can be done. Their high speed would completely wreck them...'
:"Arnold, in pointing to the possibility of these discs being from another world, said, regardless of their origin, they apparently were traveling to some reachable destination. Whoever controlled them, he said, obviously wasn't trying to hurt anyone...He said discs were making turns so abruptly in rounding peaks that it would have been impossible for human pilots inside to have survived the pressure. So, he too thinks they are controlled from elsewhere, regardless of whether it's from Mars, Venus, or our own planet."
On July 9, US Senator from Idaho
Glen H. Taylor
Glen Hearst Taylor (April 12, 1904 – April 28, 1984) was an American politician, entertainer, businessman, and U.S. senator from Idaho.
He was the vice presidential candidate on the Progressive Party ticket in the 1948 election. Taylor was ...
said he 'almost hoped' that the discs would turn out to be space ships from another planet. Taylor explained that "'the mere possibility' that the spinning circles might be hostile would unify the peoples of earth as nothing else could."
In an Associated Press story from July 19, Arnold reiterated his belief that if they weren't Army, then they were extraterrestrial.
Eschatological
Some members of the public interpreted the reports as signifying
the end of the world.
On June 27, Kenneth Arnold told press that he had been contacted by a preacher who insisted saucers were harbingers of Doomsday. On June 30, one Oregon preacher suggested that the discs were "the 'advance guard' of universal disaster, heralding the end of the world".
On July 9, deputies in Everett, Idaho took a woman into custody who was marching around a lake, Bible in hand, speaking only of discs and the end of the world. The woman had never been known to be irrational, a deputy told press. In
Oshkosh, a housewife directed press to the
Book of Job
The Book of Job (; hbo, אִיּוֹב, ʾIyyōḇ), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and is the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Scholars ar ...
, explaining "when man becomes too vain and smart, some divine being will send things of various sizes and shapes through the air to confound and confuse man".
On July 5, press reported on a 67-year-old gardener who claimed to have watched saucers for about 30 minutes before going to bed, saying: "I thought about waking up some of my neighbors but decided if it meant the end of the world they would be just about as happy sleeping when the world ended."
In Louisiana, Governor
Jimmie Davis
James Houston Davis (September 11, 1899 – November 5, 2000) was an American politician, singer and songwriter of both sacred and popular songs. Davis was elected for two nonconsecutive terms from 1944 to 1948 and from 1960 to 1964 as the ...
relayed an explanation attributed to an 'elderly negro': "Saucers are part of the prophecy, something man is supposed to see and not understand. Next the world will know no seasons; Winter will come in the Summer; In Winter men will walk before they crawl; cotton will open before it blooms; the watermelon will come before the vine; in fact, I look for it to be kind of spooky from now on."
Occult
![Olcott Besant Leadbeater](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Olcott_Besant_Leadbeater.jpg)
As early as July 4, occultists like
Meade Layne claimed that the discs were occult or "etheric".
Layne claimed to be in telepathic communication with "people in the saucers", arguing "it is possible for objects to pass from an etheric to a dense level of matter and will then appear to materialize. They then will return to an etheric conditions".
Layne claimed that "These visitors are not excarnate humans but are human beings living in their own world. They come with good intent. They have some idea of experimenting with earth life."
The prior year, it had been reported that Layne consulted a medium who relayed communications from a "space ship named Careeta" that came to Earth from 'an unidentified planet'.
Esoteric
![Amazing Stories August 1946 back cover](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Amazing_Stories_August_1946_back_cover.png)
During the mid-1940s, an obscure sub-culture developed around the science-fiction magazine
Amazing Stories
''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearances i ...
and its tales of
Richard Sharpe Shaver
Richard Sharpe Shaver (October 8, 1907 Berwick, Pennsylvania – November 5, 1975 Summit, Arkansas) was an American writer and artist.
He achieved notoriety in the years following World War II as the author of controversial stories that were pri ...
, claimed to be non-fictional.
Since 1945, the magazine had published Shaver's claims to be in communication with subterranean beings concerned about atomic pollution who piloted disc-shaped craft.
In the October 1947 issue of Amazing Stories, editor
Raymond Palmer
Raymond Arthur Palmer (August 1, 1910 – August 15, 1977) was an American author and editor, best known as editor of ''Amazing Stories'' from 1938 through 1949, when he left publisher Ziff-Davis to publish and edit '' Fate Magazine'', and ev ...
argued the flying disc flap was proof of Richard Sharpe Shaver's claims. That same issue carried a letter from Shaver in which he argued the truth behind the discs would remain a secret.
Wrote Shaver: "The discs can be a space invasion, a secret new army plane — or a scouting trip by an enemy country...OR, they can be Shaver's space ships, taking off and landing regularly on earth for centuries past, and seen today as they have always been — as a mystery. They could be leaving earth with cargos of wonder-mech that to us would mean emancipation from a great many of our worst troubles— and we'll never see those cargos...I predict that nothing more will be seen, and the truth of what the strange disc ships really are will never be disclosed to the common people. We just don't count to the people who do know about such things. It isn't necessary to tell us anything."
Aftermath
Original saucer witness Kenneth Arnold went on to detail his purported sightings and subsequent disc investigations in a 1952 book co-authored with ''Amazing Stories'' editor Raymond Palmer. Arnold was the Republican nominee in the
1962 Idaho lieutenant gubernatorial election
The 1962 Idaho lieutenant gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 1962. Democratic incumbent W. E. Drevlow defeated Republican nominee Kenneth Arnold with 54% of the vote. Primary elections
Primary elections were held on June 5, 1962. D ...
; In 1977, he appeared at a convention curated by ''Fate Magazine'' to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the "birth of the modern UFO age".
Occultist Meade Layne went on to found the pseudo-scientific "Borderland Sciences Research Associates". In 1961, he self-published ''The Flying Saucer Mystery and Its Solution'', continuing to argue for his "Ether Ship" belief; Layne would come to be seen as an early proponent of the
interdimensional hypothesis
The interdimensional hypothesis is a proposal that unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings are the result of experiencing other ''"dimensions"'' that coexist separately alongside our own in contrast with either the extraterrestrial hypothesis ...
.
Numerous other
Saucer cults and UFO religions arose in the coming years.
Richard Sharpe Shaver, who had made claims of an ancient underground advanced civilization since 1945, continued to promote his stories. During the last decades of his life, Shaver devoted himself to "rock books"—stones that he believed had been created by the advanced ancient races and embedded with legible pictures and texts.
After Shaver's death in 1975, his editor Raymond Palmer admitted that "Shaver had spent eight years not in the Cavern World, but in a mental institution" being treated for
paranoid schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. ...
.
On September 23, 1947, Lieutenant General Twining issued a memo to Brigadier General George Schulgen of the Army Air Forces. The subject line of the memo read "AMC Opinion Concerning 'Flying Discs.'" The general tone of the memo was that unidentified objects seen in the skies by military personnel were not weather, astronomical or other phenomenon but rather objects that warranted further investigation. Twining wrote "The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious."
In 1948, General Nathan Twining, of Air Material Command, initiated
Project Sign
Project Sign (Project Saucer) was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) undertaken by the United States Air Force (USAF) and active for most of 1948. It was the precursor to Project Grudge.
History
The project wa ...
, an Air Force investigation into the reports. Twining went on to become
Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force
The chief of staff of the Air Force (acronym: CSAF, or AF/CC) is a statutory office () held by a general in the United States Air Force, and as such is the principal military advisor to the secretary of the Air Force on matter pertaining to th ...
in 1953.
He remained in that post until 1957 when he was appointed
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) is the presiding officer of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The chairman is the highest-ranking and most senior military officer in the United States Armed Forces Chairman: app ...
by Eisenhower.
[ In 1984, the hoaxed ]Majestic 12
Majestic 12, also known as MJ-12 for short, is a purported organization that appears in UFO conspiracy theories. The organization is claimed to be the code name of an alleged secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officia ...
documents included a memo attributed to Twining; Upon examination, the FBI declared the documents to be "completely bogus"—an assessment echoed by most Ufologists.
Flying saucer conspiracy theories
In May 1949, journalist Donald Keyhoe
Donald Edward Keyhoe (June 20, 1897 – November 29, 1988) was an American United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps naval aviator,
Donald E(dward) Keyhoe. (April 30, 1998) Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource ...
of True magazine was tasked with investigating the reports. On December 26, ''True'' published Keyhoe's piece, titled "The Flying Saucers Are Real
''The Flying Saucers Are Real'' by Donald Keyhoe, was a book that investigated numerous encounters between United States Air Force fighters, personnel, and other aircraft, and UFOs between 1947 and 1950.
Synopsis
It was printed in paperback by G ...
". Keyhoe claimed that elements within the Air Force knew that saucers existed and had concluded they were likely 'inter-planetary'. The ''True'' article caused a sensation. The article was expanded into a book of the same name. In 1953, Keyhoe wrote that "Since July, 1952, in a new investigation of the saucers, I have been privileged to cooperate with the Air Force. Because of my present understanding of their very serious problem, and certain dangers inherent in the situation, I have been given information unknown to most Americans."
In 1955, Keyhoe authored a book that pointedly accused elements of United States government of engaging in a conspiracy to cover up knowledge of flying saucers. Keyhoe claims the existence of a "silence group" of orchestrating this conspiracy.[Peebles, p. 111-113] Historian of folklore Curtis Peebles
Curtis Peebles (May 4, 1955 – June 25, 2017) was an American aerospace historian for the Smithsonian Institution, a researcher and historian for the Dryden Flight Research Center, and the author of several books dealing with aviation and aerial ...
argues: "''The Flying Saucer Conspiracy
''The Flying Saucer Conspiracy'' is a 1955 book authored by early UFO researcher Donald Keyhoe. The book pointedly accused elements of United States government of engaging in a conspiracy to cover up knowledge of flying saucers. Keyhoe claims the ...
'' marked a shift in Keyhoe's belief system. No longer were flying saucers the central theme; that now belonged to the silence group and its coverup. For the next two decades Keyhoe's beliefs about this would dominate the flying saucer myth."
Roswell conspiracy theory
In February 1978, UFO researcher Stanton Friedman
Stanton Terry Friedman (July 29, 1934 – May 13, 2019) was an American nuclear physicist and professional ufologist who resided in New Brunswick, Canada. He was the original civilian investigator of the Roswell UFO incident.
Early life
Born ...
interviewed Jesse Marcel
Jesse Marcel Sr. (1907 – 1986) was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force who helped administer Operation Crossroads, the 1946 atom bomb tests at the Bikini atoll. He was a key figure in the 1947 Roswell alleged UFO incident, which ...
, who had traveled with Roswell debris from New Mexico to Fort Worth
Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...
. Marcel's statements contradicted those he made to the press in 1947. In November 1979, Marcel's first filmed interview was featured in a documentary titled "UFO's Are Real", co-written by Friedman. On September 20, 1980, Marcel appeared on the TV series '' In Search of...'' described his participation in the 1947 press conference: "They wanted some comments from me, but I wasn't at liberty to do that. So, all I could do is keep my mouth shut. And General Ramey is the one who discussed – told the newspapers, I mean the newsman, what it was, and to forget about it. It is nothing more than a weather observation balloon. Of course, we both knew differently." Marcel gave a final interview to HBO's America Undercover
''America Undercover'' is a series of documentaries that aired on the cable television network HBO from 1983 through 2006. Within the series are several sub-series, such as ''Autopsy'', ''Real Sex'', and ''Taxicab Confessions''.
History
The seri ...
which aired in August 1985. Marcel consistently denied the presence of bodies. By the 1990s, Roswell was home to a UFO museum and an annual UFO festival.
Project Mogul and Skyhook
Skyhook balloons may have been the origin of some UFO observations.
In the 1990s, the US General Accounting Office
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal govern ...
launched an inquiry and directed the Office of the United States Secretary of the Air Force
The secretary of the Air Force, sometimes referred to as the secretary of the Department of the Air Force, (SecAF, or SAF/OS) is the head of the Department of the Air Force and the service secretary for the United States Air Force and United S ...
to conduct an internal investigation about the 1947 UFO wave. The result was summarized in two reports. The first, released in 1994, concluded that the material recovered in 1947 was likely debris from Project Mogul Project Mogul (sometimes referred to as Operation Mogul) was a top secret project by the US Army Air Forces involving microphones flown on high-altitude balloons, whose primary purpose was long-distance detection of sound waves generated by Soviet ...
, a military surveillance program employing high-altitude balloon
High-altitude balloons are crewed or uncrewed balloons, usually filled with helium or hydrogen, that are released into the stratosphere, generally attaining between above sea level. In 2002, a balloon named BU60-1 reached a record altitude of .
...
s (and classified portion of an unclassified New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
project by atmospheric researchers).
By the 1990s, a scholarly consensus emerged concluding that the military decided to conceal the true purpose of the crashed device—nuclear test
Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by ...
monitoring—and instead inform the public that the crash was of a weather balloon
A weather balloon, also known as sounding balloon, is a balloon (specifically a type of high-altitude balloon) that carries instruments aloft to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed by means of a ...
.[: Olmsted writes "When one of these balloons smashed into the sands of the New Mexico ranch, the military decided to hide the project's real purpose." The official Air Force report (Weaver & McAndrew 1995) had concluded (p. 9) "...the material recovered near Roswell was consistent with a balloon device and most likely from one of the MOGUL balloons that had not been previously recovered."] The balloon had been launched from Alamogordo Army Air Field
Alamogordo () is the seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. A city in the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains and to the west by Holloman Air Force Base. The population was ...
a month earlier. It carried a radar reflector and classified Project Mogul Project Mogul (sometimes referred to as Operation Mogul) was a top secret project by the US Army Air Forces involving microphones flown on high-altitude balloons, whose primary purpose was long-distance detection of sound waves generated by Soviet ...
sensors for experimental monitoring of Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
nuclear testing.[.]
See also
*1952 Washington, D.C., UFO incident
From July 12 to 29, 1952, a series of unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings were reported in Washington, D.C., and later became known as the Washington flap, the Washington National Airport Sightings, or the Invasion of Washington. The most p ...
*Battle of Los Angeles
The Battle of Los Angeles, also known as the Great Los Angeles Air Raid, is the name given by contemporary sources to a rumored attack on the continental United States by Imperial Japan and the subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage which ...
*Mad Gasser of Mattoon
The Mad Gasser of Mattoon (also known as the "Anesthetic Prowler," the "Phantom Anesthetist," or simply the "Mad Gasser") was the name given to the person or people believed to be responsible for a series of apparent gas attacks that occurred in Ma ...
, a 1944 outbreak of hysteria in Mattoon, Illinois
* The mystery airship wave of 1896-7
*Spring-heeled Jack
Spring-heeled Jack is an entity in English folklore of the Victorian era. The first claimed sighting of Spring-heeled Jack was in 1837. Later sightings were reported all over the United Kingdom and were especially prevalent in suburban Lon ...
, an 1838 outbreak of mass hysteria
* The War of the Worlds hysteria of 1938
Further reading
; Popular
* Wennergren, Emil Earl (1948) ''The "Flying Saucers" Episode''
* Peeples, Curtis (1995) ''Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth''
* Saler, Benson; Ziegler, Charles A.; Moore, Charles (1997) ''UFO Crash at Roswell: The Genesis of a Modern Myth''
* Clarke, David (2015) ''How UFOs Conquered the World: The History of a Modern Myth''
* Arnold, Gordon (2021) ''Flying Saucers Over America: The UFO Craze of 1947''
; Scholarly
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References
Bibliography
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{{UFOs
June 1947 events in the United States
July 1947 events in the United States
Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1947
1940s fads and trends
Folklore studies
Religious studies
UFO sightings in the United States
Flying saucers
Apocalypticism
American folklore
Myths