Sign Historical Group

QUARTERLY BULLETIN   LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

WHO IS INSIDE THE FLYING SAUCERS?

Gerald Heard of Los Angeles, author of "Is Another World Watching?" and former president of Civilian Saucer Investigation, contributed a stimulating, intriguing article on who, if anyone, is inside the flying saucers in the Aug. 17, 1953 issue of Fortnight magazine.

Here are some of Mr. Heard's most pertinent observations: "There can be little doubt that the hollow rings that descend, scan the earth and then rise again, vanishing in the sky, are sounding instruments. These hollow rings are clearly managed but not manned – they are remote controlled fact finders. One of the best observations of these was made by a large number of people when such rings came down over the bridge over the Forth Estuary near Edinburgh, Scotland on Sept. 25, 1950.

"Water, so common to us may be a fascinating, powerful and anomalous liquid to any creatures from a waterless world.

"'Little men' stories have today a very suspicious smell. Too many fraudulent accounts have come to hand."

However, Mr. Heard cites two cases which; seem to stand investigation – an incident in West Germany in the first week of July, 1952, involving Oskar Linke, mayor of Gleimershausen, and the Flatwoods, West Virginia case of Sept. 11, 1952 involving Gene Lemon, aged 17, and his friend Neil Nunley. In the former; the mayor and his 11-year-old daughter observed a landed saucer and two apparently human figures near it in a forest. The occupants, sighting the mayor and his daughter, leaped into the disc and ascended straight into the air. In the Flatwoods case, the boys came up a hill and encountered a figure eight or nine feet tall soon after a disc had been sighted over the town.

"In answer to the question, 'What if anything, is inside a saucer?"', Mr. Heard writes, "we have to follow the most difficult of mental disciplines, we have to keep an open mind... Discs do exist... But as to who or what guides and maybe cruises in them, all we can say is, it is not true to say there is no evidence that no one is inside and no one has ever been seen outside."

THE LARGEST SAUCER EVER OBSERVED

Numerous saucer sightings have been made in Australia and reported to the Australian Flying Saucer Magazine, which, like its American counterparts, is engaged in trying to solve the great riddle of the age.

The magazine also published sightings from all over the world. The May, 1953 issue contained a most unusual one from Mrs. A. M. King, of P.O. Box 2162, Nairobi, Africa. While enroute to Capetown on the S.S. Llandovery Castle at the end of June, 1947, Mrs. King observed a spectacular sighting. It occurred at approximately 11 P.M. The object was sighted as the ship was

going through the Straits of Madagascar.

"We noticed a particularly bright star. It was traveling very fast and approached the ship. Suddenly; a searchlight appeared which flashed a strong beam of light on the water within 50 yards of the ship. It descended, its beam shortening and becoming brighter as it neared the water, and the next instant there was no more light, but an object appeared, apparently made of steel and shaped like a cigar cut at the rear end. It remained in the air about 20 feet above the sea, parallel with the Llandovery Castle, and traveling in the same direction.

"Gaining a little in speed, after a second or two, the whole shape disappeared without a sound, from the rear issuing fierce flames which shot out to about half the length of the object. It appeared that there must be something like a huge furnace inside the thing, but still we could hear no noise from the flames. No windows could be seen, only a band of metal around the entire thing, which, if it had been a complete cigar-shape, would have been centrally located.

"The object was very large, about four times the length of the Llandovery Castle and, at a rough guess, about four times as high. We had a wonderful view but in a few seconds it disappeared. No light was seen forward as it left, it just vanished soundlessly in the darkness... One of the ship's officers with a few passengers... had seen the same thing... To my surprise, I read later of Capt. Bicknell's experience over Mt. Kilimanjaro in 1951 (see CSI Bulletin No. 2, 1953) and saw the exact shape in an illustration of what I had seen and drawn previously for my husband and several friends."

GIANT ILLIPSOID SEEN OVER CINCINNATI

Many saucer sightings received by CSI are identical or nearly so to scores of others received. Many others are incomplete or inconsequential. But from time to time CSI receives remarkable reports as in this instance from Leonard H. Stringfield of Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Stringfield, a qualified observer (he served in the 5th Air Force Intelligence during WW II with 30 months in the Pacific Theatre, and is experienced in the recognition of plane types day or night) made "an. amazing sighting on the cool night of Sept. 29th, 1952. The descriptive details and maneuverable behavior of this latter object are analagous <[sic]> to the metallic monster witnessed over Godman Field in 1948, which lured Capt. Mantell to his death."

Reports Mr. Stringfield: "I observed this giant illipsoid at approximately 4:15 A.M. in a pitch black but cloudless sky. The stars were out in fullest brilliance. Walking home, after admitting my wife (at Mercy Hospital) for an emergency appendectomy, I glanced skyward to seek out the position of Jupiter. Instantly, the object came in view. Moving in a northerly course, I judged the object to be at great altitude, roughly several miles. It moved two half dollar length (based on its size equal to a half dollar) in a minute's time before completing its strange disappearance. The object was of a paled or milkish-blue luminescence, with a multiple rib effect running its entire length. These ribs or corrugations emanated a brighter bluish-white luminosity which may have been the vehicle's windows or power plant exhaust jets.

"The behavior too, was singular. The craft, in its forward motion, seemed to list or roll. At the completion of this maneuver, the object then passed through what seemed a hypothetical vanishing line – a region of space that gradually swallowed up the entire luminous contour. The frontal portion of the object seemed vaguely pointed or acuminate like a leaf pattern, while the posterior tapered to a blunt, almost amorphous edge. No exhaust trail was visible, no sound audible."

SAUCERS SIGHTED 3500 YEARS AGO

The current issue of Doubt, official publication of the Fortean Society, dedicated to the followers of Charles Fort, pioneer in exploring the unknown, contains a remarkable translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics by Borris de Rachewiltz which clearly indicated the existence of flying saucers in ancient Egyptian times.

1500 years B.C.

The transcription is a part of the Royal Annals of the times of Thuthmosis III (1504-1450 circa B.C.) and the original is in very bad condition. Part of the translation given is as follows:

"In the year 22, the third month of winter, sixth hour of the day. . .the scribes of the House of Life found it was a circle of fire that was coming in the sky. (Though) it bad no head, the breath of the mouth (had) a foul odour. Its body one 'rod' long and one 'rod' large. It had no voice. Their hearts became confused through it: then they laid themselves on their bellies.

"Now after some days had passed over, those things, Lo! they were more numerous than anything. They were shining in the sky more than the sun to the limits of the four supports of heaven. Powerful was the position of the fire circles. The army of the king looked on and His Majesty was in the midst of it."

STRANGE CASE OF THE FLYING FLIVVER

Eva Rosacker, CSI's diligent, Associate member in Seattle, recounts a unique ground sighting in the desert of central Washington at night in 1935. A motorist traveling cross-state, at long intervals met and passed a car coming from the opposite direction.

Suddenly, he saw coming toward him at terrific speed, an object which he thought to be a car with one glaring headlight. Preparing to meet and pass it, imagine his amazement when the car with one headlight, now quite near, made a sharp turn from the highway and sped off across the prairie, rolling along above the sage brush. When the story was printed in newspapers of the time, it brought forth several accounts of like nature.

Scoffers claimed that the lights were natural phenomena, either ball lightning or will-o-the-wisps, but who is to say for sure?

WHAT SAUCERS ARE NOT

The U.S. Air Force, which has repeatedly stated in the past that saucers are not of U.S. origin, reaffirmed the declaration to a Hollywood producer, planning a science-fiction film dealing with the saucers.

The official statement given to Columbia Pictures was:

"These unidentified aerial phenomena are not a secret weapon, missile or aircraft developed by the United States. None of the three military departments nor any other agency in the government is conducting experiments, classified or otherwise, with flying objects which could be a basis for the reported phenomena. As far as is known, there is nothing in them that is associated with material or vehicles that are directed against the United States from another country or from other planets.

The statement was made by Lt. Col. Hugh A. Day of the Office of Public Information, U.S. Air Force.

RECENT SIGHTINGS

1953 has thus far been a disappointing year for the saucer investigator. The stream of sightings thinned to a trickle during the first part of the year and only during the past six weeks or so has there been a recurrence of activity. June brought a scattering of reports. July showed an uptrend. August, thus far, is about on a par with July.

Our reports indicate that Central Ohio vas visited with a disproportionate (compared with the rest of the country for the same period) number of sightings during the latter half of July. We have reports of activity for the 9th, 10th, 19th, two reports for the 22nd, one for the 23rd, and two for the 24th days of that month. All of the objects observed were seen over Columbus and its suburbs.

One of this summer's more unusual sightings originated in the Sequoia-Kings National Parks, California, on July 29th. Park officials and residents of the area were startled to see on four successive nights, a series of "weird flashes of bright

yellow light." E. T. Scoyen, the Park Superintendent, reported that he and his wife saw a bright yellow light streak to the canyon near Moro Rock. Scoyen reported that the light traveled at tremendous speed. "About ten seconds later," he told reporters, "a big yellow ball about 1000 feet in diameter rose from the point." The Park Superintendent told reporters that the flashes had been witnessed by more than a dozen people, some as far away as Visalia, California. All witnesses agreed on the color of the light and its direction of flight.

SAUCERS ARE NOT SPACESHIPS, SAYS CLARKE

A new theory on what flying saucers may be is advanced in the current issue of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society by A. C. Clarke, chairman. It varies from the basic views held by the majority to date – that saucers are either spaceships from some other planet or are the secret missiles of some nation on our own earth.

"Before going to the United States in the Spring of 1952, I believed that flying saucers probably did not exist," Clarke states, "but that if they did, they were spaceships. As a result of meeting witnesses whose integrity and scientific standing could not be doubted, and discussing the matter with many people who had given it serious thought, I have now reversed my opinion.

"I have little doubt that Unidentified Aerial Objects do exist – and equally little doubt that they are not spaceships! The evidence against the latter hypothesis is, in my opinion, quite overwhelming, for reasons given below.

"Only recently did I come across the classic sighting by Maunder of the Greenwich Observatory in 1882 which undoubtedly accounts for some of the most spectacular cases and proves the existence of phenomena which, a priori, one would not have believed possible.

"I think it must be said at once that there is no single explanation for all U.A.O.'s. Even the reports that are left after a thorough weeding-out of hoaxes, misinterpretations, etc., vary too much among themselves.

"Two facts, in my opinion, prove almost conclusively that perhaps the largest and most representative class are not spaceships. In the first place they have been observed to travel at accelerations which no material body could stand.

"The second fact is ever more significant. Despite the enormous speeds reported, no sounds are ever heard from any U.A.O.'s. As everyone who has ever heard a sonic bang will admit, even a small body moving at speed through the atmosphere can produce a considerable amount of noise. Some of the U.A.O.'s reported would have caused nothing less than concussions that would have blasted hundreds of square miles.

"This, in my opinion, leaves no doubt that they are not material bodies. Or if they are solid, they must be above the atmosphere – an explanation which is ridiculous as it would make the accelerations even more fantastic, and would mean that some of the objects were many miles in diameter.

"The erratic and purposeless behavior of the phenomena, their non-material character and above all the fact that they have been observed in exactly the same form for at least 150 years, suggests overwhelmingly that we are dealing with some hitherto unexplained natural occurrence. The analogy with fireballs has often occurred to me: here is something which undoubtedly exists, which parallels on a small scale the behavior of U.A.O.'s. and has never been explained.

"The well-known astronomer Walter Maunder had been asked to describe the most remarkable phenomenon he had ever witnessed in his career as an observer. His mind went back to November 17, 1882, to an experience that stands out from its unlikeness to any other.

There had been a violent magnetic storm during the day, and as soon as dusk fell, Maunder – who was then at Greenwich (Observatory) –

took up his position on the roof of the observatory where he could have an uninterrupted view of the sky. He rightly believed, though it was not proved conclusively until later, that magnetic storms were associated with auroral displays, and hoped to see something interesting. He was not disappointed.

As soon as the sunset hues faded away, a rosy auroral glow spread itself over the northwest and began to exhibit the usual rays. . . Let Maunder tell the rest of the story:–

      "Then, when the display seemed to quieten down, a great circular disc of greenish light suddenly appeared low down in the E.N.E., as though it had just risen, and moved across the sky smoothly and steadily as the Sun, moon, stars and planets move, but nearly a thousand times as quickly. The circularity of its shape when first seen was merely the effect of foreshortening, for as it moved it lengthened out, and when it crossed the meridian and passed just above the Moon its form was almost that of a very elongated ellipse, and various observers spoke of it as "cigar-shaped," like "a torpedo," or a "spindle" or "shuttle"

      "'Its entire passage took less than two minutes to complete. It appeared to be a definite body, and the inference which some observers drew from this was that it was a meteor. . .But nothing could well be more unlike the rush of a great meteor or fireball with its intense radiation and fiery train than the steady – though fairly swift – advance of the "torpedo."

This remarkable phenomenon was seen by hundreds of people, and an article in the Philosophical Magazine of May, 1883, summarized 26 reliable observations, from which it was concluded that the object traveled at 10miles a second and was at an altitude of 133 miles. This would make it at least 50 miles in length."

Clarke points out that the great value of this report, which should be better known that it is, is that it proves conclusively that a purely natural – yet still completely unexplained – phenomenon can produce such extraordinary effects. If this torpedo were seen today, he says, there would probably be no way of convincing half the population that they had not seen a spaceship.

"But Maunder was living at a time before the saucer-hysteria had made the evaluation of U.A.O.'s as difficult as it is today, and he was able, by the spectroscope, to establish the auroral nature of the object without doubt. . .It appears highly probable, therefore, that many of the luminous objects recently reported in the sky may have some such origin.

"However solid, symmetrical and artificial U.A.O.'s may appear, that is no proof that Nature is not up to her little tricks.

The only thing to do, therefore, is to maintain an open mind until the evidence is overwhelming, one way or the other."

CSI TO GO ON STAND-BY STATUS

Following the publication of the fourth (Winter) issue of the CSI quarterly in October, Civilian Saucer Investigation is disbanding and will go on a stand-by status, on call to resume activities at any future date when warranted.

The CSI Post Office Box 1971, Los Angeles, will remain open through December of this year and thereafter provision will be made for forwarding of correspondence to the secretary.

Meanwhile, no additional subscriptions to the Bulletin can be accepted.

This issue of the Bulletin is presented in mimeographed form for the first time in order to save money. Funds from subscriptions have not been sufficient, despite the steadily mounting list of subscribers, to finance the printed editions as heretofore.

CSI has made a number of notable contributions and discoveries in pushing the saucer quest, it is felt, and these, together with our findings, will be summarized in the final edition of the Bulletin this fall by Ed J. Sullivan, founder of the organization.

List of associate members will be kept on permanent file with CSI for possible future contact.

CSI decided on a poll of the membership to go on a stand-by status because of the slight progress made in the past year in unraveling further the saucer mystery and because of the sharp drop-off in sightings.

DISCS OVER PRESCOTT

CSI has received from a contributor in Flagstaff, Arizona, a copy of the Prescott Evening Courier dated Friday, May 22, 1953. The front page banner reads 'Flying Saucers Return to Prescott.' The lead article deals at some length, with the cavortings of eight disc-like objects which maneuvered for a full hour over Prescott on the morning of May 21st.

Three witnesses, Bill Beers, a pilot for 20 years and now President of the Prescott Sportsman's Club. Ray Temple; a Post-Office employee, and O. Ed Olson, all give identical descriptions of the sky-objects at the time of the sighting, the men were 20 miles north of Prescott. Temple first spotted the discs and called them to the attention of the others.

Beers who had "poo-pooed" flying saucers until this experience reported that he was no longer a skeptic." He declared the objects could not possibly have been birds, balloons, or planes. Beers judged them to have been about 10,000 feet in the air.

The three men stated that two discs remained hovering, stationary, while the otter six flitted about completing involved maneuvers.

The Courier quoted Beers: "The six craft swooped around in formation, broke formation, peeled-off, and shot directly up and down in a manner that could not be duplicated by a plane. When they moved, they varied from very slow to speeds faster than a jet plane."

After performing for a full hour, the eight discs took off toward Prescott.

The Courier quoted Beers as saying, "I'm more than convinced that what we saw was some sort of space craft unknown to the public, for no aircraft could act like the discs we saw."

The Civil Aviation Department of Australia has put a ban on the release of "flying saucer" reports in the hope of encouraging citizens to make "confidential" detailed reports.

An Australian newspaper quotes Dr. Shaw, the Departments supervising aeronautical engineer as stating, "We have decided that people will discuss 'sightings' more freely if they know their reports will not expose them to ridicule.

"The Department has examined every responsible report, but has not yet made any conclusions."

Box 1971
Main Post Office
Los Angeles 53, Calif.