ACUFO:

P-38 Knocks Down 'Flying Saucers' as More Discs Sighted

By United Press

BOZEMAN, Mont., July 7 (UP) -- A Los Angeles pilot reported today that he knocked down a "flying saucer" - he called it a "flying yo-yo" - yesterday over the Tobacco Root mountains in Western Montana.

Vernon Baird, Los Angeles, pilot for the Fairchild Photogrammetric Engineers Co., said he tangled with the "yo-yo" while flying a P-38 for the firm. The company is mapping the area between Helena and Yellowstone park for the reclamation Bureau.

Baird said he and his photographer, George Suttin, Los Angeles, were flying 360 mph at 32,400 feet when he turned to check an oil distribution mechanism.

Plane ducks

"There about 100 yards behind me was the yoyo," Baird said. "It was a pearl-gray clam-shaped airplane, with a plexiglass dome on top. It was about 15 feet in diameter and almost four feet thick."

The curious yo-yo overhauled the P-38 and Baird took evasive action.

"The yo-yo caught in my propwash and the thing came apart like a clamshell. The two pieces spiralled down some place in the Madison range."

Baird said that after the yo-yo fell apart he looked around and saw several of them darting around "like a batch of molecules doing the rhumba."

Forgot Camera

Baird said he was too busy handling his plane to notice if there was a man inside the gadget.

His photographer didn't think about his camera until too late to get a picture, Baird said.

Army pilots were ready today for another air search for the mysterious "flying saucers" now reported in 31 states and parts of Canada as practical jokesters added to the confusion.

Equipped with telescopic cameras, 11 army planes searched the Pacific Northwest yesterday without finding any trace of the flying discs which had been reported over scores of communities the preceding two days. At Sioux Falls, Mr., a coast guard plane already in the air was ordered to investigate a silvery disc with a short tail which Gregory Zimme said he saw shoot across the heavens. The pilot found nothing but empty sky.

The army "camera patrol" over the Cascade mountains yesterday included eight P-51 pursuit ships and three A-26 bombers.

There was growing belief that the concentrated search would show the saucers to be optical illusions and the work of practical jokesters magnified by aroused imaginations.

Odds are 50 to 1 on These Flying Discs

[Photo caption:] On the chance that the few readers of the Ogden Standard-Examiner have seen the "flying saucers" which have become a nationwide basis of gags and wonderments, Photographer Ted Collins provides this proof -- and leaves it up to you whether it's positive or negative. Collins thereby becomes probably the only observer among hundreds who has seen the discs without even leaving his photographic darkroom - for he created the illusion by picking a four-bit piece and four pennies (all he had left of his weekly's salary, no doubt) stopped a fogged negative and printing the results.

Montana Has Tangle With 'Flying Yo-Yo'

BOZEMAN, Mont., July 7 (UP) The nation's flying saucers have turned into flying yo-yos in Western Montana.

Vernon Baird, Los Angeles, pilot for the Fairchild Photographic Engineers Co., reported today he had tangled with a "flying yo-yo" over the Tobacco Root mountains in Western Montana yesterday.

Baird, flying a P-38 for the firm, which is mapping the area between Helena and Yellowstone park for the reclamation bureau, said he and his photographer, George Sutin, Los Angeles, were flying 360 m. p. h. at 32,400 feet when he turned to check an oil distribution mechanism.

"There about 100 yards behind me was the yo-yo," Baird said. "It was a pearl-gray clam-shaped airplane, with a plexiglas dome on top. It was about 15 feet in diameter and about four feet thick."

The curious yo-yo overhauled the P-38 and Baird took evasive action.

"The yo-yo got caught in my propwash and the thing came apart like a clamshell. The two pieces spiraled down some place in the Madison range."

Baird said that after the yo-yo fell apart he looked around and saw several of them darting around "like a batch of molecules doing the rhumba."

Baird said he was too busy handling his plane to notice if there was a man inside the gadgets.

His photographer didn't think about his camera until too late to get a picture, Baird said.

---

Lands in Pocatello Street

POCATELLO, Jul 7 (AP) -- The Pocatello Tribune received a communication this morning from H. C. McLean of Seattle, who reported that as he was driving through Pocatello he saw a disc about the size of a farm wagon wheel float lightly to the middle of the street and come to a stop. It stopped only a few seconds but he got a good look at it, since it was only twenty yards away and almost still.

"It was not a saucer, but a disc," said The Tribune. "This was surrounded by a tube that had an en-

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(Column Five)

[Photo caption:] Kenneth Arnold (left) Capt. E. J. Smith, and First Officer Ralph Stephens (right) compare notes on "flying discs." Arnold, a private pilot, was first person to report the objects, and clocked them at about 1200 miles per hour. Smith and Stephens said they turned their United Airlines passenger plane off its course over Boise, Idaho and chased a "strange object" for 15 minutes before it outdistanced them or disintegrated in the dusk. Arnold and Dave Johnson, aviation editor of the Idaho Daily Statesman, Boise, were winging their way over the northwest looking for discs - and centering their search in the vicinity of the Hanford, Wash., atom research plant.

'Flying Saucers' Still Puzzle As More Witnesses Join List

SAN FRANCISCO, July 7 (AP) -- From one end of the country to the other, new reports of disc-like "flying saucers" skimming through the skies today added the mystery which has baffled the nation since June 25.

There was no satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. The saucers first were reported seen in the state of Washington June 25. Then persons in other western states said they had seen them. The peak came over the July 4 holiday when they were first reported seen east of Mississippi.

The latest tabulation showed the mystery objects had been reported seen in 30 states, the District of Columbia and in Canada.

Yesterday they were reported seen in more than a dozen states and in southwestern Ontario.

An aerial patrol by the Oregon National Guard failed to sight one of the objects. The guards planned to send a plane today to a spot near St. Maries, Idaho, where one woman said 10 persons saw 8 of the discs disappear in timber July 3.

Boise Man Started It

Kenneth Arnold, businessman pilot of Boise, Idaho, first reported seeing the discs. He said he saw nine flying in formation at 1200 miles an hour over the Cascade mountains. Other observers have given the objects varying speeds and in at least one case said they appeared to be suspended in the air.

Most observers usually agreed that the objects were round or oval. Guesses as to their size have ranged from that of a five-room house or a large airplane to one description of "a silver ball, 6 inches in diameter."

The army, the navy and the atomic energy commission all disclaimed any connection with the mystery. An army spokesman in Washington said the A. A. F. had been checking into the reports "and we still haven't the slightest idea what they could be."

Some scientists suggested that reflections of light, such as from aircraft, might account for the bright objects which have been reported. In some cases, the observers

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(Column Four)

'Flying Saucers' Still Puzzle as More See Discs

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have insisted that the "saucers" have been accompanied by sound.

"Roared Like Train"

A Hagerstrom, Md., woman, said she saw five go eastward at "terrific speed" and that they roared with a sound like a faraway train."

Mrs. Walter Johnson of Spokane, who reported she was one of a group which saw the objects fall near St. Maries, said she and her companions could not find either the disks or anything to indicate where they might have fallen. She described them as "about the size of a five-room house" and said they resembled washtubs, more than discks.

The coast guard [Fred Ryman] at Seattle said there was nothing to indicate that the objects might have come from foreign vessels near shore.

The objects were reported seen since June 25 in Canada, the district of Columbia, and the following states: Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, Maine, Florida, Utah, Maryland, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Alabama and Virginia.

Spaatz Denies Knowledge

Gen. Carl Spaatz, commandant of the army air forces, in the Pacific northwest on a fishing trip, said he knew nothing about the mystery objects or of plans to use AAF planes to search for them.

His comment came after Louis E. Starr, national commander in chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said at Columbus, Ohio, that he understood Spaatz had "a group out right now" searching for the objects.

From the east coast to the Pacific, from the deep south to the Canadian border and beyond, the reports piled in.

Discs were reported seen high in the sky west of Salt Lake City and former Utah State Treasurer Oliver G. Ellis and others said: "The luminous discs behaved like radio-controlled objects, hovering in a group for one moment, then suddenly they formed a swiftly whirling horizontal circular pattern."

Ellis said two broke loose from the group "as if snapped from the end of a giant whip" and careened southward at "terrific speed" on a gradual slant toward the earth, after which others reassembled and resumed their horizontal circular movements He said they later formed a straight line, then a V-formation and then moved southwestward until they disappeared.

There were numerous reports of the objects in the skies overs San Francisco and neighboring cities.

Montana Calls it 'Flying Yo-Yo'

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larged opening at one end, like a funnel, and ending in a tapered point at the other. In the middle of the disc he could make out a bulge as if a plate had been welded onto the disc and there were two narrow strips of metal running almost parallel to each other above and below the midsection. Something held it upright, and then the disc was subjected to a number of short jerks, moving forward each time a foot or two. The funnel part of the tube was set into the disc so that the latter could roll freely and after moving a distance of about twenty yards, it rose easily and began at once to climb."

"I examined the place where the disc had landed but it touched the ground so lightly that it left no mark. I am convinced that the disc's flight was controlled, that it gave out signals indicating its position and that it is harmless" said McLean.

The disc was observed Sunday morning just after dawn.

---

Hunted in Airplane

BOISE, Ida., July 7 (AP) -- Kenneth Arnold, Boise airman who first reported spotting "flying discs" in the Pacific northwest, took off from here today on an aerial search for the objects which his pilot, Aviation Editor Dave Johnson of the Idaho Daily Stateman said would center near the atomic research plant of Hanford, Wash.

Johnson, piloting the Statesman's plane Early Bird No. 3 was assigned to the flight by his city editor with instruction to "go up around the Hanford atom plant area in Washington and stay there until you find something or give it up."

Arnold accepted the newspaper's invitation to make the flight. Yesterday Arnold said he had purchased a movie camera to take with him on every flight he makes over the five-state territory he travels by air in his own plane. The 32-year-old Boisean said he hoped to obtain photographic proof of the "flying discs" he reported sighting June 24 over Washington state.

---

SPOKANE, July 7 (AP) -- Air and ground patrols today began a search of an Idaho mountainside where a Spokane housewife reported that 10 persons saw eight or nine "flying saucers" fall into timber.

Sheriff Oron L. Thomas organized a detail of Boy Scouts and other volunteers at St. Maries, Ida., to scour the area, and two light aircraft, one owned by A. W. Runser, secretary of the local chamber of commerce, were to take off shortly after nine a. m., Pacific standard time, to make an air search.

From Spokane, too, Col. Franck Frost, commanding officer of the 116th fighter squadron, Washington national guard, was preparing to take off for the area.

Many See Flying Saucers but Air Patrol Hunt Fails

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9 flying in formation at 1200 miles an hour over the Cascade mountains. Other observers have given the objects varying speeds and in at least one case said they appeared to be suspended in the air.

Most observers usually agreed that the objects were round or oval. Guesses as to their size have ranged from that of a five-room house or a large airplane to one description of "a silver ball, 6 inches in diameter."

Mystery in Army

The army, the navy and the atomic energy commission all disclaimed any connection with the mystery. An army spokesman in Washington said the A. A. F. had been checking into the reports "and we still haven't the slightest idea what they could be."

A Hagerstown, Md., woman, said she saw five go eastward at "terrific speed" and that they roared with a sound like a faraway train."

Mrs. Walter Johnson of Spokane, who reported she was one of a group which saw the objects fall near St. Maries, said she and her companions could not find either the disks or anything to indicate where they might have fallen. She described them as "about the size of a five-room house" and said they resembled washtubs, more than disks.

The coast guard [Fred Ryman] at Seattle said there was nothing to indicate that the objects might have come from foreign vessels near shore.

Eyesight Blamed

Howard W. Blakeslee, Associated Press science editor, said today:

"Much of what has been described about the flying saucers reported from nearly all parts of the country may be explained be certain laws of eyesight.

"All the objects appear round or nearly so at any distance which is close to the limit of how far a person can see.

"Descriptions of virtually all the saucers as round and flat fit exactly with the tricks that eyes play.

"This writer has seen flying saucers over Long island Sound near his home, not only this year but in previous years.

"They were round, bright and moving fast. But they were no mystery because they were light reflected from the bodies of airplanes that soon identified themselves by changing course and coming near enough to be seen distinctly."

Lester Barlow, internationally known explosives inventor and holder of numerous patents, many dealing with military affairs, advanced the theory the flying saucers were probably radio controlled flying missiles being experimented by the military.

The Peninsula Airport at Newport news, Va., was taking no chances with the saucers. Pilots reporting Sunday to take out planes found this notice on the bulletin board:

"Two thousand feet vertical and horizontal clearance required between aircraft operating from this field and any 'flying saucers'."

"Flying Saucers" Elude Air Patrol

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people in the universe might be more on the ball than we are in establishing interplanetary travel, but it seems if they are, why should they be afraid to land," the aviation experts observed. The airport superintendent said that he would assume the job of "flying saucer" watcher today.

Vernon Baird, former Bakersfield commercial pilot, not with the Fairchild Photographic Engineers company, told of a first-hand air encounter with a "flying saucer" today in an interview at Bozemann, Mont., according to a United Press story. Later, however, Baird admitted the story was a hoax.

Flying Yo-Yo Is Admitted Prop-Wash

Mystery of at least one "flying saucer" was solved last night by an apologetic vice-president of the Fairchild Photogrammetric Engineers Co., Los Angeles, who took just two minutes by long-distance telephone to explode employee Pilot Vernon Baird's story of the "flying yo-yo" that came apart in his prop wash.

L. T. Eilel, the Los Angeles executive who killed the latest, and best, flying saucer story, didn't know anything about those seen in other sections of the hemisphere, but he had the low-down one the one that "overtook" Baird's P-38 near the Tobacco Root Mountain in Western Montana.

"There's not a word of truth in it," said Eliel. He explained that Baird's dramatic tale of adventure 32,400 feet up had been simply a case of imaginative pilots "shooting the breeze."

(Pilot Baird's story told of a "pearly-grey, clam-shaped airplane, with a plexiglas dome on top... about 15 feet in diameter and about four feet thick" which had overtaken him during a photographic flight. He had, said Baird, taken evasive action and the yo-yo "came apart like a clamshell, the two pieces spiralling down some place in the Madison Range.")

Eliel explained that the pilots at Belgrade Field, near Bozeman, Mont., had been in the habit of kidding each other, letting their imaginations run wild when they gathered for a couple of cool ones at the end of the day. Baird, with photographer George Suttin, had been mapping the area between Helena and Yellowstone Park for the Reclamation Bureau.

"it's most unfortunate this got out," said Eliel. "It was never intended to go beyond the circle of pilots at the field. This chap, trying to tell a better one than the others, was telling his story when some outsider apparently overheard it. After that the story spread very rapidly and in no time it was in the newspapers. I don't know whether any apologies are needed, but if they are I'm ready to make them.

Discs Spotted In 40 States; Hysteria Seen

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sighting the discs on June 24 while flying his own plane over southwestern Washington, made a second try. He went up with a movie camera and flew over western Idaho, northwestern Oregon and southwestern Washington without finding a disc.

Pilot Vernon Baird admitted that his report of being chased by a disc which disintegrated in his plane backwash over Montana was strictly a wild tale. He said he wouldn't do it again.

Today's batch of opinions from scientists all over the world indicated that they were thinking of the whole story in terms of tricks played upon the eye and mass hypnosis.

But witnesses from forty states and Canada stoutly maintained that they saw what they saw. Exactly what they saw still is in doubt. The discs have been likened to saucers, balloon, frying pans, globes, coffee can tops and mayonnaise jars.

Their color has been reported variously as gray, silver, black, red, white, rainbow-hued and colorless.

Explanations of it all were a dime a dozen. The sky-is-faster-than-the-eye theory is upheld by William Dodds, New York scientist, and an Australian professor of psychology, F. S. Cotton.

They said that if you stare at the sky long enough, the red corpuscles moving across the retina will cause images not unlike discs or saucers. Professor Cotton said he proved it by having 22 students stare at a fixed point in the sky. They saw saucers.

Mars [sic!] Hysteria

Dr. Henry E. Garell of Columbia University thinks it's mass hypnosis. His colleague. Dr. J. Zubin, says it is a mass hysteria caused by the anxiety over the atom bomb and other deadly present-day miracles.

A view closer to that of the eyewitnesses was advanced by Gen. H. H. "Hap" Arnold, wartime head of the Army Air Forces and now a Sonoma County, Cal., rancher. Gen Arnold said:

"They might be a development of American scientists that is not yet perfected. Thy might be a development by foreign scientists that got out of control. They might be just plain jet fighting planes."

A new version of the "flying discs"

A PIECE OF METAL FALLEN FROM ONE FROM THE MACHINES IS ANALYZED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

The University of Chicago received Monday, a parcel containing a piece of "metal" which is said to have fallen from one of the "flying discs" which were seen on June 25 in the area of Puget Sound (State of Washington).

A certain Harold Dahl, which sent these fragments to the University for purposes of analysis, states that he was that day, on board a boat in company of two other people, when six huge objects of circular shape appeared through the clouds. In his opinion, five of these objects, of a diameter of approximately 60 meters turned around the sixth. Each one of these discs seemed to have a central hole surrounded by a line of points which resembled port-holes. These objects stabilized at a height of approximately five hundred meters, then suddenly started to rise. It is at the time when they arrived at an altitude of 1.500 meters that a "material" seemed to emerge from the central disc and that a kind of "metallic rain" started to fall. It is one of these fragments, collected by Mr. Dahl, that arrived at the University of Chicago [a famous hoax].

LANDINGS OF APPARATUSES!

It is reported that eight flying saucers are said to have landed on the side of a mountain, within ten kilometers from Sainte-Marie in Idaho. This fact is not yet officially confirmed.

The American army sent a team to investigate on location.

A "STORY" LIKE MANY OTHERS?

According to the "New York Times", these are "stories" that the aviators tell between themselves in the airports which would be at the origin of the affair of the "flying discs" one of these aerial monsters that pilot Vernon Laird, on board his Lightning 38, would have shot down in flight.

"Indeed, reports the newspaper, Baird is said to have declared: We were four in a hangar, chattering, and we imagined this story of "flying saucers". Somebody must have heard it and propagated it. I cannot grasp how anyone could have believed it."

Hangar Jest At Gallatin Field Burned Up Wires

A hangar jest, rising from friendly competition in story telling, got out of bound 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-distances 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.

The story gained in proportions and fantasy 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 non-sensical conversation was overheard by other parties and was relayed thought swift communications to the nations.

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.

LOS ANGELES HOAX (?) --- Vernon Baird, L.A. pilot for the Fairchild Photogrammetric Engineers Co,, told a vivid story of how he tangled with a "flying yo-yo" while piloting his P-38 for the company, while mapping the area between Helena and Yellowstone Park.

However, L.J. Archer, Fairchild superintendent, of L.A., said after the story was published that he talked with Baird by telephone, and that the pilot admitted making the whole story up while "blowing the breeze around the hangar."

MORE ABOUT THE LOS ANGELES "FLYING YO-YO" HOAX

From the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, Tuesday, July 8th. BOZEMAN, MONTANA. (AP). The crew of a commercial plane told today how they destroyed a "flying saucer." Vernon Baird, pilot, and George Cuttin, photographer, both of Los Angeles, were flying a P-38 over western Montana's rugged Tobacco Root Mountains yesterday, taking pictures for the Federal Reclaimation Bureau.

Baird said they were flying a t360 miles per hour, at 32, 400 feet, when the "yo-yo" appeared about one hundred yards behind them. It was pearl gray, a clam-shaped airplane with a plexi-glas dome on top, according to Baird. "It was about fifteen feet in diameter and about four feet thick."

"It overhauled our P-38, so we took evasive action. The 'yo-yo' got caught in my propwash and the thing came apart like a clam-shell. The two pieces spiralled down somewhere ln the Madison Range."

Baird said that he looked around when the pursuing craft disintegrated and saw several others "darting around like a batch of molecules doing the rhumba." Baird couldn't say whether or not there was a man inside the "yo-yo"'s dome. "I was too busy flying my plane." (This story was presently denied by Baird's boss, the superintendent, who claims that the pilot was just "blowing the breeze." "Nevertheless, the story made front-page headlines in newspapers across the nation... ED.)

This is a good science-fiction story if we ever heard one! We wonder if, by any chance, Mr. Baird could be a fan? Did he ever hear of the Los Angeles Science Fanfasy Society? Should we write and tell him about it, perhaps?

It seems that these Angelenos will do almost anything (the fans I mean). What will come next? (I should say what won't!) Where's Ackerman?

Numerous minor hoaxes occurred as well [in 1947 in the US]. Vernon Baird, a pilot, reported seeing a bunch of "yo-yo's" while flying over Montana. A Los Angeles newspaper printed the story on July 6, 1947, and other newspapers around the country quickly picked it up. Baird later said it was all a joke he had cooked up while shooting the breeze with the boys around the hangar.

In Los Angeles, California, pilot Vernon Baird, while flying a war surplus P-38 fighter for the Fairchild Photogrammetric Engineers Company, told of a very close aerial encounter he had with a UFO. Baird and an assistant, George Suttin, were mapping the region between Helena and Yellowstone Park for the Reclamation Bureau. They were at 32,400 feet traveling at 360 miles per hour when a flying disc appeared 100 yards behind their aircraft. It had a pearl gray color and looked to be around fifteen feet in diameter and four feet thick with a type of plexiglass canopy or dome on top. When the disc started to overtake the P-38, Baird took evasive action, causing it to be suddenly buffeted with strong air currents or propwash. Baird believed the saucer may have broken up during the maneuver because after the encounter it appeared to split into two clamshell-like sections and lose altitude over the Tobacco Root Mountains of western Montana. 111 Although unheard of at the time, many UFO reports in later years would describe similar aerial separations. Often appearing as if an aircraft had broken-up in flight—rather, they seem to indicate some sort of complex change or maneuver. Interestingly, after this sighting made headlines, the Fairchild Company became so inundated with phone calls that a plant spokesman soon stated the incident had never really happened and was just the result of some wild talk. But it was JJ. Archer, Baird's boss, who branded it a hoax, not Baird or Suttin. 112

That is not an infrequent problem with UFO reports. After the fact, some witnesses, or their friends, will make a similar claim simply to put an end to the nuisance of public interest. Sorting out the actual reports from the hoaxes in such a case, especially after so many years, is often impossible.

1947, July 6

USA, Bozemont

(United Press) A P-38 pilot reported on July 7 that he had shot down a flying saucer on the 6th over the Root Mountains in western Alabama. The pilot, Vernon Baird, of Los Angeles, called the saucer a "flying yo-yo." Baird, flying for the Fairchild Photogrammetric Engineers Company, said he spotted the "yo-yo" while aboard his company's P-38. The flight was part of an aerial photography mission between Helena and Yellowstone Park. Vernon Baird and his photographer George Suttin of Los Angeles were flying at 360 mph at 32,400 feet when they experienced engine trouble. "About 100 yards behind us, the yo-yo was there. It was a kind of small round aircraft, nicely built, pearl gray in color, with a Plexiglas dome. It measured 15 feet in diameter and nearly 4 feet thick." The "yo-yo" came over the P-38 and Baird made an evasive maneuver in which the propeller struck the "yo-yo," splitting it into two parts like a shell. The two halves spiraled down somewhere toward the Madison Range. Baird adds that after the fall of the two halves of the "yo-yo," he saw many more of these objects around, circling "like a bunch of molecules dancing the rumba." Baird said he was far too busy with his maneuvers to notice whether there was a pilot in the craft. His photographer did not even think to take a picture. (note by vog: does this not resemble a journalistic hoax?) (Internet, May 1997)

Montana:

Source: Waukesha Daily Freeman, Wisc. - 7 Jul 47

Waukesha Daily Freeman Headline

Plane Strikes Saucer At 32,400 Feet, Pilot Says
Clam-Shape Disc Had Glass Dome, Overtook Plane

BOZEMAN, Mont. (UP) -- A pilot reported today that his plane knocked down a "flying saucer," which he described as a "pearl gray, clam-shaped airplane with a plexiglass dome on top."

The pilot said the object, which he called a "flying yo-yo," crashed in the Tobacco Root mountains in western Montana yesterday after being torn to pieces by the propwash of his plane.

Vernon Baird, Los Angeles, pilot for the Fairchild Photogrammetric Engineers co., said he tangled with the "yo-yo" while flying a P-38 for the firm. The company is mapping the area between Helena and Yellowstone park for the reclamation bureau.

Baird said he and his photographer, George Sutton, Los Angeles, were flying 360 mph at 32,400 feet when he turned to check an oil distributing mechanism.

"There about 100 yards behind me was the yo-yo," Baird said. "It was a pearl-gray clam-shaped airplane, with a plexiglass dome on top. It was about 15 feet in diameter and about four feet thick."

The curious craft overhauled the P-38 and Baird said he took evasive action.

Saw Several Others

"The yo-yo got caught in my propwash and the thing came apart like a clamshell. The two pieces spiralled down some place in the Madison range."

Baird said that after the yo-yo fell apart he looked around and saw several of them darting around "like a batch of molecules doing the rhumba."

Baird said he was too busy handling his plane to notice if there was a man inside the gadget.

Also on July 7 [1947], press reported the account of Vernon Baird, who claimed to have seen a 'Flying Yo-Yo' over Montana. (101) Baird, a civilian pilot working work for a mapping firm, reported the object "came apart like a clamshell. The two pieces spiraled down somewhere in the Madison Range". Baird described seeing similar objects darting around "like a batch of molecules doing the rumba." Later that day, it was reported that Baird had admitted the entire story was false. (102)