The Early Days of Modern UFOlogy

 This photo was published in the Feb. 26, 1942 edition of the Los Angeles Times.  A colossal black triangular object is faintly discernible above the bright area illuminated by spotlights.  Below are the front page headlines.

Modern UFOlogy began to evolve during the eventful decade of the 1940s.  One milestone was first chronicled in newspaper reports about Idaho pilot Kenneth Arnold's sighting of what articles described as "nine shiny objects flying at 1,200 miles per hour flying over the coast range of Western Washington" on June 24, 1947.

Preceding this event, one of the most widely witnessed UFO encounters occurred in 1942 in the sky above Los Angeles during the uneasy period following the attack on Pearl Harbor, although at this time the expression 'unidentified flying object' was not yet part of the popular vernacular.  The event has come to be known as the ‘Battle of Los Angeles.’  The banner headline in the Los Angeles Times the following morning, Feb. 26, announced “ARMY SAYS ALARM REAL.”  The following blurb and paragraphs were presented beneath the headline "Roaring Guns Mark Blackout."

Identity of Aircraft Veiled in Mystery;

No Bombs Dropped and No Enemy Aircraft Hit;

Civilians Report Seeing Planes and Balloon

Overshadowing a nation-wide maelstrom of rumors and conflicting reports, the Army’s Western Defense Command insisted that Los Angeles’ early morning blackout and anti-aircraft action were the result of unidentified aircraft sighted over the beach area.

In two official statements, issued while Secretary of the Navy Knox in Washington was attributing the activity to a false alarm and “jittery nerves,” the command in San Francisco confirmed and reconfirmed the presence over the Southland of unidentified planes.

Relayed by the Southern California sector office in Pasadena, the second statement read:

"The aircraft which caused the blackout in the Los Angeles area for several hours this a.m. have not been identified.”

Insistence from official quarters that the alarm was real came as hundreds of thousands of citizens who heard and saw the activity spread countless varying stories of the episode.

The spectacular anti-aircraft barrage came after the 14th Interceptor Command ordered the blackout when strange craft were reported over the coastline.

Powerful searchlights from countless stations stabbed the sky with brilliant probing fingers while anti-aircraft batteries dotted the heavens with beautiful, if sinister, orange bursts of shrapnel.

The center column on the front page was allocated to an editorial that featured the headline "INFORMATION, PLEASE" with the following initial paragraph.

In view of the considerable public excitement and confusion caused by yesterday morning’s supposed enemy air raid over this area and its spectacular official accompaniments, it seems to The Times that more specific public information should be forthcoming from government sources on the subject, if only to clarify their own conflicting statements about it.

The Associated Press article from Washington that appeared in the Glendale News-Press was given the banner headline “ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS BLAST AT L.A. MYSTERY INVADER” and includes the statements: "Anti-aircraft guns thundered over the metropolitan area early today for the first time in the war, but hours later what they were shooting at remained a military secret.  An unidentified object moving slowly down the coast from Santa Monica was variously reported as a balloon and an airplane."

The following day, an article by Marvin Miles entitled “Chilly Throng Watches Shells Bursting In Sky” contributed other significant details.  As "sleepy householders awoke to the dull thud of anti-aircraft explosions" and searchlights filled the night sky, “. . . the object in the sky slowly moved on, caught in the center of the lights like the hub of a bicycle wheel surrounded by gleaming spokes.”  Other commentary included:

The fire seemed to burst in rings all around the target.  But the eager watchers, shivering in the early morning cold, weren’t rewarded by the sight of a falling plane.  Nor were there any bombs dropped.  "Maybe it's just a test," someone remarked.

The targeted object inched along high, flanked by the cherry red explosions.  And the householders shivered in their robes, their faces set, watching the awesome scene.

The “UFOlogy: A Primer in Audio 1939-1959” MP3 collection of the Wendy Connors Faded Discs Audio Archive of UFO History features an interview with Ray Angler, identified as Air Raid Warden, who recalled the events of that night in February 1942.  He commented that at about 1 a.m. during a blackout as the anti-aircraft started shooting off, “I wanted to see what was going on and I looked up in the sky.  And way high were a formation of approximately six to nine bright — in other words, luminous white dots in a group — close foreign formation.  It appeared to me like it was a triangular — it was a triangular formation.  It was during this time, as I recall, it seems to me there were searchlights on it . . .”

Here is a link to the original July 8, 1947 article "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region".

Among other preserved audio recordings on the “UFOlogy” CD are some with commentary about the mysterious events that occurred in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.  There are two newscasts along with tracks of individual commentaries about the "RAAF Flying Disc Cover-up."  Here are some transcript excerpts.

July 8, 1947 — “ABC Headline Edition” reporter Joe Wilson: “The Army may be getting to the bottom of all this talk about the so-called flying saucer.  As a matter of fact, the five hundred and ninth atomic bomb group headquarters at Roswell, New Mexico reports that it has received one of the disks, which landed on a ranch outside Roswell.  The disk landed at a ranch at Corona, New Mexico and the rancher turned it over to the Air Force . . .”

July 9, 1947 — WOR reporter Julian Afney: “Elsewhere, the sport of seeing flying saucers or disks was left behind in the excitement over the discovery on the ground of a number of objects resembling disks or saucers.  One object found on the ranch near Roswell, New Mexico turned out to be a battered Army weather balloon.  So it went with other prototypes of the flying disk that clattered down here and there into the backyards of otherwise normal and happy citizens.  Some turned out to be carefully manufactured practical jokes, others the product of keen imagination.  Nobody yet apparently had a suitable explanation for the sights or visions . . ."

Undated interview — Roswell Army Air base Public Information Officer Walter Haut: “Col. Blanchard, who was a commanding officer of the base at that time, called me into his office and he said, ‘I’ve got some information I want to give you and I want you to put out a press release on this material.'  The only thing that I felt at ease with was the fact that we had in our possession a flying saucer and we shipped it on basically to the next higher command.  I think that a cover-up was designed so that they could say it was a Mogul balloon or some kind of balloon.  Within my own feeling I think that it was something from outer space."  There is a 2002 Sealed Affidavit of Walter G. Haut about the Roswell events.

Undated interview — Major Jesse Marcel, Sr.: "It was not anything from this Earth.  That I'm quite sure of.  'Cause I was — being an intelligence officer I was familiar with just about every — all of the materials used in aircraft and — or air travel."  This audio track was from an interview featured in the 1980 "UFO Coverups" segment of the television show "In Search Of" narrated by Leonard Nimoy and now available on You Tube.

Undated interview — Brig. Gen. Thomas DuBose: "We knew that it was a cover story and whose idea it was I — I haven't the faintest — faintest idea."  Dubose signed a Sept. 16, 1991 Affidavit about the Roswell events.

Undated interview — Congressman Steven Schiff: “I think the Department of Defense is acting like there’s a cover-up even if, in fact, there is no cover-up."

Other tracks of audio recordings included on the "UFOlogy" CD provide accounts of UFO sightings during the 1940s, including a 1942 "Foo Fighter Encounter" described by Major Raymond Sabinski and a May 1949 newscast with an unidentified commentator reporting about a dispatch from Key West, Florida: ". . . a dispatch that quoted President Truman's Press Secretary Charles Ross as saying that President Truman has no knowledge of any secret project by this government that would give substance to the existence of such objects.  Ross also said that both the Air Force and the Navy deny that such objects exist."  Truman later commented at an April 4, 1950 press conference in Washington D.C.: "I can assure you the flying saucers, given that they exist, are not constructed by any power on Earth."

Descriptions of newspaper articles about 'flying saucers' and 'disks'—among some other strange objects seen in the sky—were presented in Behind The Flying Saucers (1950) by Frank Scully (1892-1964).  Concluding the book is "The Post-Fortean File 1947-1950" list including more than 150 article descriptions, including his own articles about flying saucers that he’d written as a columnist for the prominent Hollywood trade publication Variety.  One of the article descriptions was of an early photo of 'the mystery saucers': the July 4, 1947 photograph taken by Coast Guardsman Frank Ryman from a Seattle suburb.

In the first chapter, Scully responded to announced conclusions of the Air Force Project Saucer investigation that dismissed the majority of reports about "unidentified flying objects” after two years of research.

There had been an entente cordiale between the press and the Department of Defense to ignore these stories during the two years of the Air Force's official inquiry.  But when the Air Force pulled out, the floodgates opened.  Some newspapers continued to throw flying saucers into their wastebaskets.  Others broke down under the persistent barrage of reader reports and reader interest.  By Easter time every radio commentator of any standing, every comedian, every legislator, every televisable personality, even The New York Times, had had his or her say.

From Scully’s perspective, the “real inside story” about flying saucers was presented in a brief but startling lecture in 1950 at the University of Denver by unidentified middle-aged ‘Scientist X’ who spoke in an unprecedented way about three landed saucers and the recovery of bodies of dead crew members.  These saucer occupants were described being “of small stature.  No different from us, except for height, and lack of beards.  Some had a fine growth resembling peach fuzz.”

Scientist X said that the first recovered saucer had been found on a site within 500 miles of Denver.  Research had revealed that the materials used in the saucer had disclosed two metals formerly unknown.  The disks had revolving rings of metal and there were stabilized cabins at the center.  The construction showed no rivets, bolts or screws.  The control boards were a series of push buttons and the outer construction was of a light metal resembling aluminum but so hard that no application of heat could break it down.  The ships carried no weapons.  Although only forty inches tall, the passengers were not 'midgets' and showed no bad teeth.  Their apparel was a sort of uniform without any insignia on the collars or caps.

He drew four designs on the blackboard.  One showed the "System of Nines," believed to have been used in constructing the saucers. Two others showed two views of the saucer, which was 99.99 feet in diameter, 18 feet across the cabin and a clearance of 45 inches above the rim for pilots to see what might be around them.  The design looked very much like the photographs taken by Paul Trent of McMinnville, Oregon, and published in the June 26, 1950 issue of Life.  The fourth design showed how magnetic lines of force travel from the sun to the various planets, particularly to the earth and to Venus.

After his lecture had caused such a stir, the chalked designs were preserved by lacquer, and unless the lacquer has been removed are there  to this day.

 This is the UFO seen in Paul Trent's 1950 Oregon photographs.

Scully attested about Scientist X, "He delivered what was probably the most sensational lecture about this earth or any other planet since Galileo said, 'It moves!'"  In another chapter of the book, the vicinity of Aztec, New Mexico was identified as one the flying saucer landing sites.

Scully wrote about the identity of Scientist X:

Four students, as well as Baron Beshoar, Denver's bureau manager of Time-Life Incorporated (a gate-crasher to the lecture incidentally), were sure from Denver Post photographers that the man was Silas Mason Newton, president of the Newton Oil Company, amateur golf champion of Colorado in 1942, graduate of Baylor University and Yale, who did postgraduate work at the University of Berlin, a man who had never made more than $25,000,000 nor lost more than $20,000,000, the rediscoverer of the Rangely Oil Field, patron of the arts, and man of the world generally.  In brief, a man of substance as well as science and as American as apple pie.

Scully further described him as "Si Newton, who was closest to Dr. Gee and felt he was in a position to act as a sort of buffer state . . ."  'Dr. Gee' was a pseudonym for “a colleague of the lecturer of the University of Denver tempest.”  Scully wrote in a later memoir, In Armour Bright; Cavalier adventures of my short life out of bed (1963), that Dr. Gee was “a composite character of eight men who have given me pieces of this story."

One newspaper article that Scully doesn't seem to have known about was published in the Rocky Mountain News on July 7, 1947.  Preserved at the Denver Library, the banner headline announces "DISC ARMADAS CROSS DENVER, SCORES SAY."

The page five article "Scores Watch Saucers Sail Across Sky Here" by Jim Lyon begins as follows:

An armada of flying saucers, traveling at lightning speed, shot across Denver's sky yesterday—at least, that's what scores of observers of the strange phenomenon told The Rocky Mountain News.

The first alert of the mystery flight came before 7 a.m. when the first alarm was telephoned to The Rocky Mountain News.  In quick succession, others kept the switchboard buzzing.  More detailed accounts arrived throughout the day.

"It was going like a bat outa hell," a sailor at Buckley Field said.

"It had kind of a hollow booming noise—like thunder 'way off in the distance," George Kuger, 21, of 2385 Ash st., reported vividly.

Another portion of the article is as follows:

Another disc reportedly flashed over Idaho Springs at 1:30 p.m.  Pat Price, 11, said he heard a rumble like thunder.  He and his younger sister ran screaming to their mother that they had seen a flying disc.

Le Roy Krieger, aerologist second class at Buckley Field Naval Air Station, said the saucer he saw was not an airplane.  James Cavalieri, hospital apprentice, agreed.

'IT WAS ROUND AND SHINY' AND DIDN'T MAKE ANY NOISE

They reported that the object appeared east of the field, shooting up and down for about a minute.  It was "round and shiny like silver, but didn't make any noise."

"It sounded like wind rushing through a wire screen," said Harold Wallace, 11009 E. Colfax ave., who reported discs in V-formation shooting westward across the sky at 9:05 p.m.  They made a dim light, he added.

A single saucer about the size of the sun was sighted whirling out of the clouds at 8:30 p.m. by Mrs. J. E. Raeber, 1430 W. Center pl., Westwood.

In Behind The Flying Saucers, Scully had reported about the March 17, 1950 Farmington, New Mexico event detailed in the Farmington Daily Times under the banner headline "HUGE 'SAUCER' ARMADA JOLTS FARMINGTON" but he had never learned about the newspaper coverage of the earlier mass sighting flying saucer event in Denver or would have mentioned it in his book.

Frank Scully