UFO'S THROUGH ARTISTIC EYES

Dave Pate's sketch for the newspaper (Pate, Dave. [Photograph 2012.201.B1320.0340], photograph, February 28, 1971; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc650707/m1/1/?q=Laxson: accessed April 20, 2022), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society) 

W. "Eddie" Laxon sketch from Project Blue Book of the craft he saw near Temple, Cotton County, Oklahoma in March of 1966.  Laxon would share his story in the early 1970's at a UFO conference produced by Hayden C. Hewes and others associated with the IUFOB (International UFO Bureau) in Oklahoma City. Hynek's book on the UFO Experience will mis-identify the location as "Temple, Texas" but the event was in Oklahoma. Laxon at the time worked as an engineer at the Air Base in Wichita Falls, Texas. 

Laxson provided some detailed measurement estimates, and as can be seen, the artist took some liberties changing the squat, "perch fish" shape into a sleeker craft. 

The same thing happened with Kenneth Arnold and his story as it appeared in Ray Palmer's publications.  Arnold's original sketch (found in both FBI files and Project Blue Book files) was shoe heel shaped (that wide flat disc or fat triangle with a flat back noted in early military estimates of the situation reports for investigators to be on the look out for...).  As the objects appeared after with their artist renditions the craft were sleek, different in shape and had details lacking from Arnold's account. The artistic rendering was cover copy to attract the fantasy and science fiction audience of Palmer's readership.