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The article below was published in the newspaper The Abilene Reporter, Abilene, Texas, USA, page 1, on July 8, 1947.
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By the ASSOCIATED PRESS
Two flying disks were reported found in Texas and at least one is being investigated by military officials as the total number of Texans claiming to have seen the mysterious objects passed the 50 mark yesterday.
The disks were reported found on a beach at Trinity Bay, bear Houston, and near Hillsboro.
The Houston Chronicle said a great deal of mystery surrounded the one found near there by Norman Hargrave, a jeweler, Sunday.
He first reported that he had found the aluminum disc floating near the beach while he and his wife were walking. He described it minutely, even giving an inscription that it carried.
Today he said it was all a joke, but the Chronicle, after extensive checking, said "there are some mysterious facts contained in his (Hargrave) first report that give credence to his tale."
Hargrave first said the disk bore this wording: "Military secret of the United States of America, Army Ai Force M4339658. Anyone damaging or revealing description or whereabouts of this missile subject of prosecution by the U. S. government. Call collect at once, LD446, Army Air Forces Depot, Spokane, Wash." He said the words "non-explosive" also were carried.
(In Spokane Col. Frank D. Hackell, commanding office of the Spokane Air Depot, told the Associated Press that he "knew nothing about" the reported finding of a flying disk on the Texas Gulf coast other than that his public relations office had received a call from the Houston Chronicle.)
The second flying disk was reported found by Bob Scott, a farmer living two and a half mile west of Hillsboro. He said the disk fell on his place Friday, and that it resembled a saucer. He said it was so bright he could not look at it very long.
He said he was afraid people might believe he was "going to extremes in imagining things" and he told no one but his family until yesterday.
Then he notified O. F. Kissick and Joe Gerick, Hillsboro, who went to the field and investigated. Most of it had melted, they said. Gerick said one piece looked like tin foil, but when he picked it up, it appeared to be celluloid.
The game of spotting "flying saucers" broadened yesterday to include Massachusetts and Vermont as stories about the disks continued to swirl as rapidly as the objects themselves.
Explanations of the phenomena ranges from the theory that they were radio controlled flying missiles sent aloft by U. S. military scientists to the suggestion that they might be merely sun light relected on wing tanks of jet propelled planes.
A. B. Cross of Chattanooga, Tenn., a 34-year-old watchmaker, announced he invented the "flying saucer" and submitted it to the war department in 1943 but his idea was rejected as not practical "in the present time."
A Spokane, Wash., woman insisted the objects she saw were "about the size of a five-room house" but a Clearwater, Fla., woman said the disks she observed resembled "pie pans."
Massachusetts and Vermont reports brought to 40 the number of states in which the objects have been observed.
Reports persisted that the Army was looking into the phenomena but Gen. Carl Spaatz, 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.
DETROIT, July 7 -- (UP) -- Police Sgt. Arthur Smiths phoned headquarters today and shouted "My setter dog just pointed at four of those flying disks."
"Yeah, what's ya do about it?" asked Charles Martin.
"I pulled out my gun and fired," cried Smith, "and by golly there was only three of them left."
Mysterious flying objects were reported seen in skies over Abilene, Winters and Snyder Monday.
Mrs. Cap Newman and her grandson, James Williams, 1534 Grape, said they sighted a "flying disk" at 7:10 p.m., speeding eastward at an altitude estimated at 2.000 feet.
"My grandson was on the front walk when he sighted the 'disk'," Mrs. Newman said. "He alled my attention and I saw it for a few seconds before it went out of sight."
Mrs. Newman said it was oblong "like a meat platter." The sun was just going down and instead of the object being silvery in color, as reported in many instances, it had a dark appearance.
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At Winters, H. L. Crowe, local pilot and manager of the Winters airport, said he saw a silver object resembling an oblong ball suspended motionless in the sky over his home at 12:45 p.m. It appeared several thousand feet high, and its diameter seemed as wide as the wingspread of a good-sized plane.
What Crowe saw was substantiated by his cousin, Eugene Wright of Frederick, Okla. Crowe called Wright outside and without suggesting what he had seen, asked him if he saw anything unusual in the sky.
Crowe said that after hanging motionless for two or three minutes, the object moved slowly northeast and vanished. He said it moved into the wind. He was certain it was not a plane, bird or cloud.
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J. E. Hardee, who lives three miles southwest of Snyder on the Ira road, observed nine saucers going in a southwest direction at fast speed. He said one disintegrated south of his home, breaking into five or six pieces and melting.
