Sunday Times Perth, Western Australia
President Eisenhower has dealt folklore a grave blow by implying flying saucers just don't exist.
His statement appeared just as most newspapers were publishing pictures of all things, flying saucers.
A scientist has just written a letter to New York's most serious paper putting unscientific Ike in his place.
He points out that in a recently published textbook, "High Altitude Rocket Research," detailed reports are given of Army experiments in launching artificial meteors from New Mexico.
The last launching apparently coincided exactly with the appearance of "widely publicised" pictures of a green fireball which was noticed all over south-west America.
It's pretty clear the US is playing some cosmic game, but whatever is being done by science is not nearly so exciting as the imaginations of ordinary Americans.
A hillbilly prankster recently made capital of this.
He devised some strange machine and left it, apparently in ruins on a main road.
Then he placed a dead monkey dressed in a miniature spacesuit and gasmask inside the ruins.
He had achieved some enormous fame in the local bars when the cops arrested him for causing a public mischief and being cruel to animals.
Deccan Herald (India)
BANGALORE, Jan. 4
From the past few years, reports have come from all over the world of strange objects being sighted in the sky which are generally known as Flying Saucers. Opinions regarding these strange objects vary from complete disbelief to the firm conviction that these are the spaceships from another planet, said Dr. P. S. V. Setty of Vijnana Kendra of Bangalore to Hindusthan Samachar.
Dr. Setty, who himself is a physicist, is the President of the small group of scientists meeting in Vijnana Kendra. Dr. Setty said that Vijnana Kendra collects data as to the sightings of these strange objects til June 30, 1955, and afterwards wish to make a comprehensive study of these.
Daily Sketch (UK)
By Flt.-Lieut
JAMES SALANDIN
of the Royal Aux. Air Force
In an interview with
Daily Sketch Air Correspondent,
LEN SMITH
I HAVE been buzzed by a flying saucer over the British coast.
It was on a Sunday afternoon while I was climbing in my 600 m.p.h. Meteor jet fighter at 16,000 ft. The sky was a clear blue.
Some people don't believe me, but it happened.
The thing looked like two ordinary saucers placed together with a bun-shaped bubble on top and another underneath. It was silvery in colour and apparently metallic.
It flew straight at me, more than filling my whole windscreen vision before turning away past my port side.
I had taken off from North Weald and was heading out over the Thames Estuary, climbing towards a gaggle of Meteors at about 30,000ft.
When I was at 16,000 ft and approaching Southbend-on-Sea I suddenly saw two circular objects streak past the Meteors in the opposite direction.
At first I thought they were Meteors too, and I turned and climbed to intercept them. But I could not identify them.
One was gold and the other silvery in colour and I was staggered by their speed. I estimated it to be about 1,100 m.p.h.
I watched them, fascinated, until they were out of sight high up on my left-hand side.
When I turned back to look straight ahead again, I got the shock of my life. There was this thing coming straight for me.
It did not appear to have any port-holes, nor were any jet pipes or other means of propulsion visible. It did not seem to be spinning.
After flying around for a few minutes to recover from the shock, I filed my first eyewitness report by radio telephone.
On returning to base I prepared a detailed report for investigation by the special flying saucer section of Air Ministry Intelligence.
I was the biggest sceptic in the squadron where flying saucers were concerned -- but not any more.
There was no question of balloons or clouds in this case. I am willing to be convinced by any logical explanation — but it had better be good.
Now every time I climb into the cockpit of my Meteor I am on the lookout for another saucer.
• Flight-Lieut Salandin, who is 29 and began flying with the Fleet Air Arm during the war, is by no means the first airman to report seeing a “flying saucer.”
Other sightings have been reported by airliner crews of both British Overseas Airways and British European Airways.
WITH FLYING SAUCER
IF Flight-Lieutenant J. R. Salandin, a week-end pilot of No. 604, County of Middlesex Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air Force, had not been sceptical about Flying Saucers before his near collision with one last October, the Air Ministry might have had one of the first authentic cine records ever taken and been closer to solving the riddle of the unidentified flying objects than ever before.
Flight-Lt. J. R. Salandin climbs into his Meteor fighter.
Reporting for duty after lunch on October 14, Jimmy Salandin climbed into a Meteor Mk. 8 jet fighter and at 4.15 took off from North Weald, Essex.
The sky was blue and cloudless, and as he climbed in a southerly direction towards the Thames Estuary he spotted two Meteors in formation high above him leaving vapour trails behind them.
As his aircraft climbed, Salandin kept his eyes on the two fighters and every now and then checked his instruments and position.
The altimeter was reading just over 16,000 ft. and Southend was just looming up beneath him when he saw two circular objects streaking between the two Meteors, travelling in the opposite direction. He watched them until they reached nine o'clock high — a position high on his port beam — when they disappeared beyond his range or vision. Reporting the incident later, Salandin said: “One was silvery and the other gold in colour.”
But the shock was yet to come. When he turned to look through his windscreen he was horrified to see another object coming straight for him at his own level.
“The thing had a bun-shaped top, a flange like two saucers in the middle and a bun underneath,” he said, describing it later. “It was silvery in colour and could not have been far off because it overlapped my windscreen.”
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A Meteor fighter's 37-ft. span wings just fill the windscreen at 150 yards.
As it closed in the object changed direction and passed Salandin on his port side.
“It was travelling at a tremendous speed,” he reported and added: “I was so shaken I had to fly around quietly for about ten minutes to recover. I told control over the R/T (radio / telephone) what had happened.”
What gripes Jimmy Salandin now is that he did not press his camera-gun button. “The thing was right in my sights,” he says wistfully. “Next time I’ll be on the ball.”
The ARGUS Melbourne, Australia
Weird light column
halts traffic all over city
THOUSANDS of people watched a weird, fiery column of light tower 3,000 ft. over Melbourne's eastern suburbs on Saturday night. Motorists stopped and people flocked from firesides to see the red, white, and orange "pillar" stretching from the clouds almost to earth.
Weather Bureau officials were inundated with phone calls for half-an-hour until the phenomenon vanished.
The Argus and R.A.A.F switchboards were jammed with queries from excited people in suburbs as far apart as Newport and Hurstbridge.
Weather Bureau experts could offer no explanation tor the column except the possible reflection of city lights on a low cloud formation.
An amazlng feature was a "dark blob" in the centre, which split the column in two.
The phenomenon first appeared at 7.55 and vanished when cloud closed in at 8.30.
Mr. F. Schulz, of Acacia st., Box Hill, one of hundreds who rang The Argus, said: "It was a long fiery streak, red on top and getting lighter towards its base, spreading a reddish glow in the sky around.
"A dark blob in the centre made it look like two rockets chasing each other, except that both sections of the column were stationary."
Mr. E. Hislop. of Main rd.. Diamond Creek, "trailed" the column from Hurstbridge to Diamond Creek.
"When I first saw it, I pulled in to the roadside to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks,"" he said.
"From where I was, it was a long, brilliant, pale yellow streak dim in the centre and bright above and below the dark patch. It was a fantastic sight."
Mr R. Rowan, of Canterbury rd., Surrey Hills, watched the phenomenon for half an hour from his front garden.
"It towered up to the clouds west of here — a vivid red streak with a long white tail," he said.
"As I watched, clouds obliterated it, but the light came back stronger than ever several minutes later.
"People were standing in groups pointing skywards and several motorists stopped to have a good look. It was a weird sight."
The ARGUS Melbourne, Australia
Tonight may provide the solution to the mystery light, column which towered over Melbourne's eastern suburbs on Saturday night.
Mr. A. N Curphey Victorian Chamber of Manufactures general manager, claimed yesterday the mystery glow was caused by 15.000 colored lights around the Exhibition for the Australian Industries Fair, and an 80ft high pylon, whlch was also illuminated. They will be on again tonight.
But Dr V. D. Hopper, senior physics lecturer at Melbourne University, an authority on cosmic rays, said; "The 'dark blob' reported to be in the middle of the shaft of light could have been one of my old cosmic ray research balloons.
"I gave it to the Chemistry School to fly captive over the University to publicise Open Day on Saturday."
Gordon Lore, author and former vice president of NICAP
Author Gordon Lore was the former Assistant Director and Vice President of the National Investigative Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). He was recently interviewed by researchers Jan Aldrich and Tom Tulien for the Sign Oral History Project where he recounted several of his UFO sightings.
Gordon's initial work, Mysteries in the Skies was written with Harold Denault. It was the first book to focus on historical UFO reports that pre-dated Kenneth Arnold's famous 1947 encounter.
His latest work, Flying Saucers from Beyond the Earth: A UFO Researcher's Odyssey recounts his own history with NICAP and afterward as the head of the "UFO Research" project.
Gordon related the following incidents during his interview with Jan Aldrich and Tom Tulien:
The Catalina Islander Catalina, California
CHANNEL LAST SATURDAY
While thousands were visiting the beaches Saturday on the mainland and here in Avalon, some high-powered futuristic goings-on were taking place just about mid-way between them all in the middle of the channel.
A family named Washington from San Bernardino were enjoying life on their boat, the Lucky W, headed from Newport to Avalon when out of the blue approached a flying saucer. It was a friendly flying saucer, too, because it hovered around possibly trying to be friends for about six minutes before it took off again into a cloud bank.
Washington, whose first name is George, estimated it as being about 50 feet in diameter, perfectly round, gray-white in color, and said it was spinning rapidly on its axis with fumes spurting from each side.
Apparently unnerved by their experience, the Washingtons returned to Newport where they told their story.
Republican Fresno, California
Strange Object Over City
Has the flying saucer season arrived again in Fresno?
It would appear so today following two reports of unidentified objects sighted in the skies yesterday, one by a trained weather observer with 17 years' experience.
The latest person to see an object flitting through the atmosphere over Fresno was Warren Langer, a weather observer briefer stationed at the federal weather bureau at the Fresno Air Terminal.
Langer said the object he saw was round, silver colored and moving through the skies at a regular rate of speed.
Early yesterday morning an International News Service photographer reported sighting a mysterious speeding light over Fresno.
Langer added he has been a weather observer for 17 years and while he has seen other unidentified objects, this one caused the greatest question in his mind.
A. A. Lothman, the chief of the Fresno weather bureau station, said Langer is one of his most reliable observers.
Langer said he believes in the stories of so called “flying saucers” because “too many good observers have seen them.”
Langer explained he was making observations of a weather balloon at about 1:30 PM when the object passed through his field of view against the wind.
Sights Object
“I was sighting through a theodolite at a pilot balloon,” he said, “when the object passed close by the balloon.” He declared the balloon was at 30,000 feet.
He explained a theodolite is a low powered telescope used for sighting on balloons and determining wind velocities aloft and other weather data.
“I followed the object for 20 to 30 seconds,” he added, “it moved away at a regular rate of speed.
“I had no way of estimating its distance but it must have been up somewhere near the balloon. It appeared about one fourth or one third the slze of the balloon which is six feet in diameter.
“I don’t know what it was but it was sharply outlined against the sky.”
The ARGUS Melbourne, Australia
BY JUDY JOY DAVIES
PROFESSOR FRANK STANLEY COTTON, until recently the Professor of Physiology at the Sydney University, has been handed one of his toughest assignments. He has been elected to discover eight men capable of winning the Olympic "eights," then to train them to competition.
The Professor has just 16 months in which to complete the "miracle," but if he does manage to, it won't be his first.
For Professor Cotton has been associated with the unusual in sport — and in other spheres — for the greater part of his life.
Flying saucers, anti-black-out suits for pilots, and the training of Olympic swimmers, athletes and oarsmen, have all occupied a part of jhe "sporting Professor's" research.
Short, grey haired, and as enthusiastic as a teenager, he is always willing to help sportsmen and women. With stethoscope around his neck and stopwatch in hand, the "Prof." as he is known to his human "guinea pigs" is a well-known figure around swimming pools, boat landings, and athletic ovals.
Born 66 years ago, Cotton got his doctorate in 1930, and two years later went to the U.S.A. as a Rockefeller Fellow. There he did 18 months research into the heart and circulatory system.
His most important invention was the Anti-G suit, the suit which prevented our war pilots from blacking out in steep dives and turns.
Nine months after making his first experiments on the G suit, Cotton was ordered to Canada to confer with scientists. After visiting England, Canada, and the U.S.A and convincing scientists and air force authorities that his invention had solved the pilots' blackout, the Professor returned home.
He reached Darwin the day of the first Japanese air raid. Caught in the open, Cotton jumped into a trench with a number of soldiers. And what did the Prof. do? Something very natural for him — he pulled out his stopwatch, and grabbing the nearest soldiers' wrist, took his heart rate.
"It was quite high, about 130 beats a minute, but I couldn't decide whether it was from excitement or fear," the Professor told me some time ago.
Another first to Cotton was when he exploded the myth of the flying saucers. In 1947 reports of flying saucers reached epidemic proportions. Cotton thought he had the answer, so made an experiment or two.
Calling volunteers from class students, he asked them to concentrate their gaze through windows at a fixed point, miles away, and then to draw what they saw.
On collecting the sketches Cotton found that 22 of the 30 students had drawn oval objects,some in line like a string of pearls, others with short tails like falling drops of water.
This was exactly what the Prof. had expected them to see!
His judgment was confirmed when later that day AFTER his experiment the newspapers published the first descriptions of the mysterious objects. AND — they were identical with the objects the Professor's students had seen!
"The very simple answer," the Professor has explained to me, "was that the 'flying saucers' were in reality red corpuscles moving in front of the retina of the eye. And — what is more — there are records of such optical illusions dating back to 1873!"
On his ergometer — a rowing machine of his invention that measures a man's output of energy — Cotton has worked countless guinea pigs. From them he has selected crews which rowing "know alls" scoffed at, but which turned out to be champions.
Such as the University crew that won the NSW 1949 championship, the first student crew to do so for 40 years.
The ARGUS Melbourne, Australia
BIG SCARE In CITY
Hundreds of people reported seeing a "flying saucer" over Melbourne late last night
Home-going theatre crowds stopped and gaped as the "saucer" drifted slowly down and across busy Collins St., towards Victoria Dock.
Switchboards of The Argus office, the police, airlines, and the Weather Bureau were jammed as inquiries come in about "a huge object" in the sky.
Later a startled motorist told of a "huge black saucer, 30ft. across, with lights from underneath." It rose up from a paddock on the Geelong rd., and soared over some trees towards Laverton.
"I was just passing new bridge work, 16 miles from Melbourne, on my way from Geelong, when I saw it," he said.
He said that the weird,low-flying object was almost an exact replica of overseas "saucer" pictures.
Late last night T.A.A and A N.A, issued a special alert to all inbound, and outbound planes to keep a close watch for the "saucer" in a bid to track it down.
Many observers said the saucer was surmounted by a cabin with lighted portholes, and had four "landing knobs" underneath.
From Collins St., Mr. Frank Hoath of Glenhuntly rd, Elwood, rang to say: "I've just seen a flying saucer going diagonally south and west over Collins st., below the clouds."
Mr. Alec Hume, taxi-driver, of Barkly st., St Kllda.: "I just dropped a fare in Smith st.. at Collingwood, when he said, 'Can you see that?' and pointed to a dark, circular thing moving over the Exhibition dome.
"It was like a cone with a light inside it. I was frightened until it went out of sight."
Mr I. Crawford, of Edwards st.. Kew. told The Argus: "I was on a training run in the Reservoir paddock off Cotham rd when I saw the saucer at 10.55.
"It came from a quarter-way up the horizon and swept right over my head, a flat disc with a cabin on top, silhouetted against the sky."
Mr. Peter Reilly, of Disraeli st.. Kew, said: "It was low, below the clouds, and drifting slowly west.
"I've never seen anything like it before."
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PROJECT 1947 comments: There are a number of re-evaluations of Air Force cases in CUFOS files. Hynek also re-examined the Air Force unknowns. Many times Hynek agreed with the Air Force's evaluation.
The 4602d Air Intelligence Service Squadron (AISS) [Headquarters located at Ent Air Force Base, Colorado] investigated UFO cases during this time frame for Project Blue Book. After reviewing the 4602d case files available at the National Archives II, in College Park, Maryland it seems reasonable to say to have an aversion to any cases in which the UFO was close to the witness. If the UFOs were viewed through window glass, they was almost automatically assumed to be reflections.
Another ploy was to label them insufficient information. Any case reported 7 days after it happened could be put in this category. Finally, the witness(es) in such close encounter cases were frequently said to have overactive imaginations. Therefore, the case deserved no further investigation.
It is also interesting to note that even short long-distance telephone calls required the UFO officer at the 4602d to obtain special permission prior to placing the call.
Dr. Hynek used a slightly different form in his reevaluation of Air Force unknowns.
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PROJECT 1947 comments: Summary on PROJECT 10073 Record Card (ATIC Form 329) reads:
"Shaped [sic] changed from cigar to egg shaped. Appeared to be grey in color. Formation changed from elliptical to a wavy line to scattered and back to straight line. Objs were first in trail form. Speeds from almost hovering to 1,000 mph. Radar out of operation at time of sighting."
Under Comments:
"Sounds like birds, however, case evaluated as UNIDENTIFIED in 1955."
UFO REPORTS - 1955 - Project Silver Bug
"The proposal is for the design of a supersonic research aircraft having a circular planform and VTO [Vertical Take Off] characteristics..."
"This proposal offers a possible solution to the USAF requirement for achieving dispersed base operations..."
"A possible solution to this problem has been proposed by A. V. Roe, Canada, Limited, in the form of their Project Y2 (Secret) operations. "
The demanding requirements for such a craft resulted in a SECRET design that was for all intents and purposes a "Flying Saucer."
When Bill Ralls and Glenn Joyner transferred their Project Silver Bug research to Project 1947, it came with several images of a strange-looking craft which purported to be Project Silver Bug. Many people had seen these images before, but they looked nothing like the Avrocar nor the designs from Project Silver Bug. Statistics show that these photographs are among the most popular items on the Project 1947 website.
When Tom Tulien and Jan Aldrich visited Joel Carpenter in 2001, Joel showed them a videotape from the Sherman Grinberg film library of newsreels. It was an old Pathe newsreel film from about 1953 containing a news items entitled "Canada Reveals 'Flying Saucer.'"
Commenting on the strange "craft" shown both on the Project 1947 website and the Pathe newsreel, Joel Carpenter added the following on the bogus Silver Bug mockups:
"My hunch is that when all the publicity came out about the 'Project Y' mockup, which really did exist, they couldn't show the actual mockup so someone took the time to build this contraption. If you look at it carefully, you can see that it's just probably made of plywood and canvas, and the wheels look like they're from a Piper Cub or something like that. The canopy is definitely from an F-86. It has bogus RCAF-like markings.
"In the newsreel, a bunch of VIPs are shown on a tour of the Avro plant. They walk into a room with a door marked 'Restricted' which closes in the camera's face. Then the next shot is a hangar door opening with this thing being pushed out by some guys. Then there's a top view of it. Some smoke, from a flare or something, comes out of the rear and it rolls slowly out of the frame. According to the notes on the Grinberg site, the footage originally ended with a sequence of shots showing it rolling into someone's car and denting the fender."It all looks like some kind of strange joke. It's definitely not a flying vehicle or prototype of any kind....
"Then there's a news article about General Putt's visit to the plant and his impressions of the mockup. His ARDC definitely did begin funding the project a few months later. There's a December '53 memo from Samford to ATIC about Putt's Avro trip where he checks in with ATIC about their knowledge of the project and asks them to look into the possibility of foreign counterparts. In June '54 CIA OSI sets up 'Intelligence Requirements for Unconventional Aircraft' which is intended to keep a lookout for Russian 'Avroskis.'"
T. Slater sent Project 1947 a picture of this mockup craft "flying" over a Canadian airbase. The picture was obviously a publicity plug for the Avrocar.
LINKS TO A. V. ROE, CANADA, THE AVRO ARROW AND THE AVROCAR
A. V. ROE CANADA
A. V. Roe Canada History
http://www.avroland.ca/al-avro-related-links.html
The Ottawa Citizen
February 2, 1998
Dief 'didn't destroy Arrow'
Eccentric A.V. Roe boss had planes scrapped, ex-minister says
Kathryn May
With files from Charles Enman.
AVRO Arrow books
Wings over the Pacific: The CF-105, AVRO Arrow
AVROCAR AND AVRO "FLYING SAUCERS"
Help Bring Canada's Saucer Back Home!
Canada's Flying Saucer
by Bill Zuk
Avro's Canadian Flying Saucers
by Joel Carpenter
http://www.ufx.org/avro/avro.htm
The Flying Disc
Article from the US Air Force "Air Intelligence Digest" December 1954, and a letter to U.S. Naval Attache in Moscow tasking the collection of intelligence items regarding possible Soviet developments of "circular aircraft" similar to the "Avro Flying Saucer". This item located and provided by Jan Aldrich of Project 1947.
The AVRO Flying Saucer
http://www.avroland.ca/al-vz9.html
http://www.aviation-history.com/garber/vg-bldg/avro_VZ9V-1_f.html
“That Avro Saucer - ALMOST AS MYTHICAL AS OTIS CARR'S”
Article from “Civilian Saucer Intelligence” (New York) - 7/15/59
PROJECT 1947 is grateful to researchers Bill Ralls and Glenn Joyner for permission to host their collection of Silver Bug documents, which Mr Ralls first requested through the FOIA in 1996.
Revised: February 1, 2012
