This article was published in the daily newspaper The Washington Post, USA, on November 7, 1957.
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Associated Press
The North American Air Defense Command at Colorado Springs, Colo., reported yesterday it had received 46 reports of unidentified objects throughout the Nation, but only three, including one from Kearney, Neb., "deserved further study."
Capt. Andy Bessley, public information officer, said two Air Force investigators were sent to Kearney after a Californian, R. O. Schmidt, told of sighting a cigar-shaped object on a Nebraska prairie and chatting with four men and two women in it.
Bessley said the command has not yet decided whether to assign inspectors to the two other reported sightings. He did not say where these reports came from.
Florida sightings
A dazzling fiery object flashed across southern skies an hour before sunup yesterday and some observers reported it zoomed close to them at treetop level. Reports of sightings came from albany, Ga., to Miami. The majority described the brilliantly lighted thing as blue or green.
At Tallahassee, a Florida State University department of meteorology professor said that from descriptions of the objects it appeared to be a meteor which came unusually close to the earth.
N. E. Lasuer, the professor, said the meteors appeared to give off a bluish green light, particularly at night.
The navigator of the Coast Guard cutter Sebago estimated that a flying object sighted over the Gulf of Mexico Tuesday had a speed between 1000 and 3300 miles per hour.
Time figured
Lt (jg) Donald Shaffer of Greensburg, Pa., said he based the estimate on elapsed time and distance traveled between the first and the second sightings on the cutter's radar screen.
The cutter refueled at the Pensacola Naval Air Station dock during the morning yesterday and then departed for its home port at Mobile, Ala.
Ensign Wayne Scokley of Redlands, Calif., who was officer of the desck when the object was sighted, and radar man James Moore, Carlton, Tex, left the ship to fly to New York to appear today on a national television program Today.
Crewmen said they have not yet been questioned by Air Force investgators.
The Air Force said Tuesday its radar network of the Air Defense Command had been alerted to watch for the object.
