The article below was published in the daily newspaper The Meriden Record, Meriden, Connecticut, USA, page 9, on July 8, 1947.
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Milwaukee, July 7. UPI-Lt. Col. Harry W. Schaefer of the Wisconsin Air Patrol announced tonight his group planned to conduct a series of mass flights in hopes of learning something about the mysterious "flying disc."
The announcement followed reports by two pilots that they had sighted "discs" in Wisconsin.
Col. Schaefer said he expected the mass flights to start next Monday and continue about a week. About 180 planes are expected to participate, he said.
Kenneth Jones, a flight instructor at the Elkhorn Air Service, Elkhorn, Wis., and Capt. R. J. Southey of Burlington were the pilots who said they sighted "discs."
Jones said he was flying at about 400 feet when he saw a "white ball" traveling at a terrific speed about 10 to 15 miles north of Elkhorn.
Capt. Southey, said he had landed at the Elkhorn airport and heard of Jones' experience. He and Glen Hackworthy, Milwaukee, took off and climbed to about 3,000 feet.
Southey said he saw a "silver thing" moving at a great speed. He turned the controls over to Hackworthy and prepared his camera in the hope of getting a picture but the object disappeared, he said, adding it re-appeared six or seven seconds later approximately ten miles away.
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cause of the Oak Ridge Atomic bomb plant, then a war secret.
Lester Barlow, of Stanford, Conn., internationally known explosives inventor, advanced the theory that the objects were radio controlled flying missiles.
Reports persisted that the Army was looking into the phenomena but Gen. Clark Spadatz, Army Air Forces commandant, said he knew of no AAF plans to search for the saucers.
The Navy and Atomic Energy Commission said they had no connection with the mystery.
The West, which originated the saucer reports, continued to produce observers who claimed to have seen the whirling disks and also brought forth one deflationary explanation of them.
Bob Johnson, operator of a flying service at Missoula, Mont., reported he had captured one of the disks and found it to be milkweed seeds.
"Crystal Ball"
Charles Odom, 23-year-old former B-17 navigator, theorized at Houten, Tex., that the objects might be a version of radio-controlled "crystal balls" used by the Nazis in the war.
These balls, which flew to the altitude of the bomber and apparently were magnetized to fly along with the planes, sent back to radar screens data on the bombers, he said.
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with radio controlled missiles. He said that he felt "quite certain" that quite a number of flying missiles had been produced and had reached such a stage of perfection that they were capable of flying in squadrons and being controlled from remote points.
The description of discs reported in the Far Northwest corresponded to the saucers, with the planes, sent back to radar screens data on the bombers, he said.
