The article below was published in the daily newspaper Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg, Canada, on July 7, 1947.
BOZEMAN, Mont., July 7 (BUP) -- 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."
Flying discs apparently were all over North America Monday as reports kept flooding in from persons who claimed they had seen the strange, airborne "saucers." Reports of discs being sighted Sunday came from Wallaceburg, in southwestern Ontario, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Rochester, N.Y., Long Island, Idaho and Chicago. However, an Oregon national guard officer said that aerial patrols Sunday failed to sight any of the objects. A Spokane, Wash., woman said that 10 persons saw eight discs land near St. Maries, Idaho, July 3, "fluttering like leaves."
She said the objects resembled wash-tubs more than discs. She described them as about the size of a five-room house.
The United Stales army air forces put jet and conventional fighters on the alert in Pacific coast areas in the hope of catching and identifying the mysterious objects but nothing in an official way has been reported.
In Syracuse, N.Y., Dr. Harry A. Steckel, psychiatric consultant, discounted the element of mass hysteria in connection with the reports. "They have been seen by too many people in too many different places to be dismissed so lightly," he said in a radio broadcast.
What appeared to be six of the "flying saucers" were seen flying north over Mount Royal, P.Q., Saturday by J. Duffield of Montrose, N.J., visiting Montreal. "They were quite visible and the sun glinted off their shiny surfaces," Mr. Duffield said. "They were going northwards and were flying in formation, like ducks."
And, speaking of ducks, Mrs. Amy Herdiska of Palmdale, Cal., says she saw a "parent flying disc" leading five smaller saucers over the mountains. The smaller ones, she said, seemed to fly away from the larger disc, then return and seemed to be absorbed by it, like baby chicks hiding under a mother hen's wings.
In one of the earliest reports, about a month ago a trapper at Bruno, Sask., reported seeing a mysterious object which he was convinced was a meteor. He said it crashed.
A flying saucer was reported at Port Hope, Ont., Sunday night by a railway employee. He said it had a slight reddish tinge but was not a shooting star. He said it sailed high over Port Hope at three o'clock in the morning, "against a clear sky."
All three Canadian maritime provinces reported discs during the week-end. Ewer McNeill of Village Green, P.E.I., said his attention was attracted to a "very bright light in the sky -- it was brighter than the sun." He added that the light seemed "to come from a black object immediately ahead of the light." He also added that the black object resembled a rocket or wingless plane.
At Annapolis Royal, N.S., Mrs. Marion Harris and Mrs. Stanley Cochrane reported seeing a so-called flying saucer, "zooming high in the heavens," for a few seconds last night. It was round and bright they said, and looked like a small full moon.
At Economy, another community on Nova Scotia's Minas Basin, Miss Mable Berry said she saw a flying missile over the week-end.
Other reports from persons who either saw -- or think they saw -- the saucers have come from Paul Falkja of Saint John, N.B., and four different groups of people in the Summerside, Prince Edward Island area.
