[CNI News thanks Robert Collins for forwarding to us the following article, which appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on July 3, 1947. Note that this article appeared shortly after the famous Kenneth Arnold sighting of June 24, 1947, but several days ahead of the bombshell Roswell announcement of July 8.]
ARMY GETS AROUND TO CHECKING "FLYING DISC" AND IS MYSTIFIED
WASHINGTON, July 3 (UP) -- Army research experts can't explain the "flying saucers" reported seen in several western states, but they are investigating, they said.
The Army air forces has checked all of their research authorities and contractors, but none of them knew or could suggest anything concrete about the "saucers."
At first, Army officers laughed off the reports. Now they are beginning to take them at least a little seriously. At any rate, the Air Research Center at Wright Field, O., is looking into the reports, and all service intelligence agencies are at work on them.
Army experts suggested -- as a bare possibility -- that some civilian inventor has been making experiments of some kind.
The possibility that the discs might be of foreign origin was indirectly put forward by an A.A.F. spokesman who said:
"If some foreign power is sending flying discs over the United States, it is our responsibility to know about it and take proper action."
Meanwhile eight more names were added to the list of persons who say they have seen strange objects in the sky.
E. E. Unger, meteorologist in charge of the United States Weather Bureau at Louisville, Ky., said today he saw one of the mysterious disc objects last night when leaving a Louisville theater.
In Boise, Lt. Governor Donald S. Whitehead revealed that last June 24, the day Keneth [sic] Arnold of Boise, Idaho, said he saw speeding objects wavering through the air along the slopes of Mount Rainer, he and Head Justice of the Peace, J. M. Lampert observed a strange, comet-like object hanging in the western sky.
Dick Rankin, a former Portland (Ore.) flyer with more than 7000 hours air time, declared he saw the mysterious discs over Bakersfield, Calif., going 300 to 400 miles an hour June 23.
Original file name: CNI - Army mystified
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