PROJECT 1947

On the 6th of July, Vernon Baird, a pilot for Fairchild Photogrammetric Engineering, Co., of Bozeman, Montana, was flying in a demilitarized P-38 photo-mapping plane. At an altitude of 30,000 feet, Baird claimed the propwash from his propellers knocked down a trailing small disk with a dome on it that opened like a clam shell. The next day Baird admitted that he'd made the whole story up.

Hangar Jest At Gallatin Field Burned Up Wires

    A hangar jest, rising from friendly competition in story telling, got out of bounds Monday and literally had set the nation on fire about the flying saucers.

    First report of the story to top all sky yo-yo yarns leaked out of the hangar Sunday night and was printed in Monday morning's daily newspaper reaching Bozeman from Butte.

    Still not realizing the incendiary nature of their realistic account of the encounter with yo-yo's, and the account of one disc's disintegration in the prop wash, the fliers Monday morning gave a Courier reporter an account in full of the weird experience the pilot and his photographer had at over 30.000 feet elevation.

    The Courier story was relayed to the United Press in Helena, and long distance calls confirmed the fact that the yarn got three-inch headlines in Monday afternoon's Los Angeles newspapers.

    The originators of the tallest tall disc story are employees of the Fairchild Photogrammetric Engineers, aerial mapping service. They had completed a photographic mission and while resting over a cold soft drink in a hangar at Gallatin field members of the Fairchild crew and local operators were trying to outdo one another on a yo-yo story.

    This story gained in proportions and fantasy as it was passed from pilots and mechanics and back to pilots and mechanics and all of the participants were thoroughly aware that the conversation was merely "idle conversation" and that there was no adherence to the truth. Apparently part of this nonsensical conversation was overheard by other parties and was relayed through swift communications to the nation.

    Bantering at the hangar was wholly and unconsciously transmitted to another person or persons who wanted to believe the yarn, one of the fabricators said.