1947 : A YEAR OF GLOBAL SIGHTINGS

SIGHTINGS OF 1947

[DATE – PLACE – OBJECT]

a collection of sightings garnered from newspapers, books, and records

Jan 16, 1947 – Norfolk, England, Project Sign Incident # 54 [will be classed as an aircraft]

April – France. Disk with cupola

April – Richmond, VA. Silver disc with dome

May 5 – Washington State. Silvery object fell from sky & disintegrated

May 17 – Oklahoma City, 8:30-9:00 pm Field Engineer Savage saw frosty white round and flat object with diameter/thickness ration of 10:1; size of a B-29 (140 ft), traveling N at 350 degrees at 10,000-18,000 ft.; 3x jet speed (or 1,800 mph); slight ‘swishing sound’ (Source was NICAP)

May 18 – Richmond, VA –flat white object cigar shaped moved N-W

May 19 – Manitou Springs, Colorado , Silvery object halted, danced, flew against the wind

June 10 – Douglas, AZ, a spherical light rose up to disappear into the sky 11 p.m.

June 10 – Hungary, silver balls

June 12- Weiser, ID, ‘chain of lights/ufo’s’

June 14- Over Bakersfield, CA at 2 pm triangular formation of saucer shapes (10 of them) (in plane)

June 21 – 11:50 am, 8 discs near Spokane, Washington. Fell with a ‘falling leaf motion” [note this term appears elsewhere in some reports – Landing Mich?]

June 21 – Yukon, OK. 6 objects like upside down was tubs (domed silver shape) high and moving fast

June24 – Arnold sighting in Washington state (Project Sign Incident # 17)  ; Fred John sighting in Cascade Mts of 6 discs; 3) light blue and purple lights performed aerobatics over Seattle. [Note the purple lights – very rare see 1965 Damon, TX]

June 27- Formation of discs, wavering, and changing formation over Cascade Mts.

June 28- Lake Mead, NV, 5-6 white discs seen 2 p.m. [Will be classed as a balloon]

June 28 – Rockfield, IS 3:45 p.m.

June28 – Montgomery Al, Maxwell AFB, 9:30 p.m. object observed and made a 90 degree turn

June 29- White Sands – Silver disk

June 29 – Des Moines, IA, 4:45 5 UFOs white, oval, N-W direction

June 30 – Portland, OR, 5 shiny silver disks like a hubcap

June 30 – White Sands, NM, Navy pilot, 9:10 am 2 gray spheres appeared to land south of Grand Canyon.

July 2 – Roswell, NM area – objects observed, oval, inverted saucer shapes [dating from UFO Crash at Roswell, 1991 by Randle and Schmitt]

July – Tempe, AZ (case file missing) ‘insufficiant data’

July 4 – Emmett, Idaho, United Airlines Capt reported 9 circular objects, merged, split and disappeared. Classed as Unidentified.

July 4 – Twin Falls, ID 35 discs, afternoon

July 4 – 800 sightings, by 400 people in 24 states. ½ single objects; ½ in formation; 2/3 daylight sighting; shapes round, spherical, disc.

July 6 – Clay Center, Ks. Later explained as a solar flare.

July 7 – Brighton, Sussex, UK

July 7 – Phoenix, AZ (Project Blue Book Incident # 40 in 1947-07-9669017). Gray, elliptical 20-30 ft moving NE to West, speed about 400-600 mph, altitudes est at 2000-5000 ft. sound like a jet approaching. The file is 55 pgs. “Probably a hoax” is penciled in but the file contained a photo of the object (Declassified photos Program No. 6-109) 12 June 1952; photos turned over to 4^th AF Intelligence July of 1947. Note in the file includes leads to investigate the photograph and a letter indicating the photos had not been returned to the person.

July 7 – Del Salton Observatory, Chile

July 7 – Naples, Italy

July 7 – Japan

July 7 – Holland

July 8 – Murdoc Field (now Edwards), 3 silver colored UFO’s heading W. At 9:20 am armed a Republic XP-84 Thunderjet when a yellow-white sphere was seen moving against the wind. Unidentified.

July 8 – White Sands, NM 11:50 a.m. white, clear, alum object

July 8 – South of Murdoc, 3:50 p.m. piloted sighted a wingless, light reflecting, object too high for his Mustang to close the gap and moving into the distance

July 8 – Ft. Worth photos with “Roswell Saucer”

July 23 – NJ , strange craft observed

July 23 – Brazil

Aug 4 – Bethel, Alaska (NW of there) (Incident # 68) Notation ‘no astronomical explanation. Similarity to Incident # 10, in which several objects silhouetted against the sunset, is striking.”

Aug 13 – Twin Falls, ID, sky blue plate object

Aug 13 – Raveo, Italy, disc and beings 3 feet tall with large heads, large eyes, and 8 taper like fingers.

September – the Air Force “forced to take official cognizance of the “flying discs…increasing demand from the public for an explanation”; begin using term “Unidentified Aerial Objects “ UAO. [from pBB documents]

IN 1948 - 'MIDGET HELICOPTER HERALDED AS BOON TO AERIAL STUDIES"

It had weighed only 15 pounds, carried a payload of 10 pounds,

1948 Aero Digest

and could be carried in a suitcase.

The U.P. story datelined Buffalo, New York told that two aviation engineers, John E. Duncan and W. Hewitt Bayley (some articles show it as Baylor) (Duncan and Bayley Research Labs) had developed a midget helicopter they named "Skyhook".  In June of 1948 there had been nine versions to date and the current model under development for the past year.

It reached altitudes of 500-100 feet, could travel 30 mph in high winds and had emerged from small prototypes and versions used for radar target work. It had applications for mirco wave shadow probing of antenna and early television development, photography survey applications, and as a scanning platform radar.  Plans were to develop a full scale rotorwinged craft utilizing auto pilot.

In essence the first drone?

If nine versions had been turned out - and tested - prior to the mid-year 1948 article could they account for a portion (only a portion) of some of the UFO stories of the 1947 to 1950 years?

There are some tales of small, darting, wobbling objects with 'swishing', 'whizzing' and 'whirring' sounds.  Their small size has often made them seem more outliers rather than part of a 'mainstream' group matching other descriptions as to size, movement, shape, and color.




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Some additional information can be found on this page along with a drawing of the 'Skyhook Midget Helicopter'. 

News articles supplying this fascinating story include:
Breckinridge American (TX), June 2, 1948, pg. 4
Sapulpa Herald (OK), July 15, 1948, pg. 9

BUILDING A SAUCER

https://declassification.blogs.archives.gov/2012/09/20/how-to-build-a-flying-saucer/

April 1950 - Notes are from an article labeled "Answers Still Lacking" found in an El Reno Oklahoma newspaper for this date.

U.S.Navy says "flying saucers" are real BUT they are revolutionary aircraft combining features of fast jet planes and helicopters.

[First jet helicopters emerge around 1951 - see https://todayincthistory.com/2018/12/11/__trashed-3/]

They are said to conform to known principles of flying. Some of the "flying saucers" reported one national magazine had been seen by "hundreds of competent observers", including Army and Air Force officers.

The unnamed magazine (which may have been a U.S. World) pointed out the NAVY is building advanced models of a flying saucer type craft "originally constructed and successfully test flown by U.S. engineers in 1942"

[No such test flight or craft has been identified to date. It does not seem to match later attempts such as the 1956 plans for a saucer, "USAF Project 1794" - an apparent outsourced project that just never got off the ground.

 and the resultant Avro VZ-9 project built in Canada see video below.

[Note the wobble - this could account for some reports of UFO's that showed this unstable aspect and the mild whirring sound.  This works ONLY if there was acknowledgement of working prototypes and subsequent testing - no records appear to show these further testing phases and no introduction of the saucer technology. There is a related development of helicopters and hovering aircraft... The video below dated 1959]

[Some have suggested ideas drawn from Operation Paperclip Nazi scientific studies but the time line is prior to that. Was this a case of the Navy blowing smoke to see what happened? They were actively engaged in research in New Mexico "Navy Air Force" and some sparring between Vandenberg and Pentagon Navy types creeps into some news accounts.]

According to "reliable sources" about saucers in flight, they are circular, diameter of 105 +/- feet, had apparent jet nozzles around outer rim, was 10 feet thick and built in layers, 200-600 mph, and could land at low speeds (such as 35 mph).

The 'magazine' pointed out White Sands had observed a saucer and tracked it for severa l minutes. The conclusion was the Navy was responsible.

[This may refer to the sighting in White Sands by a Navy Cmdr in 1949]

1949 - Odd Things Over New Mexico, Texas and Arizona

Around April 25 Albuquerque NM area.  A large selection of witnesses - all officers and military personal of good to excellent and above reproach reputations witnesses something odd.  A search of nearby White Sands and Holloman AFB with the suspicion the men had seen part of the "Skyhook Program", balloons 150 ft. diameter with instruments attached, balloons painted red and white, and had been launched the three days before the event, proved to not be responsible. None of the balloons had been actually been launched in any manner to account for the sighting.  A similar check of missile launches for the same window of time proved futile as well.

All the  (6) drew a sketch showing eerily similar oblong shapes all noting similarities in reflective surfaces, shine, brightness, All the objects reported were stationary for a time and when moved they moved east.

In the file a list of sightings for the time showed that two were listed as "Unexplained".  Oddly, the May 5, Ft. Bliss, Texas sighting was bookmarked by alleged explained sightings as 'balloons' but that date was different. The report could have been the template for the April 25 sighting, round to oblong shape, white, reflective aspect, no winds, clear sky. Two objects sighted. Most bizarre of all was that they passed right through the firing range field - thus stopping action and drawing the attention of all those involved in activities there that day.  Again, a search for released weather balloons - even as far away as New York proved futile. 

Again  April 15 and 25, 28 in Tuscan, Arizona a spate of balloon sightings crowd around one unexplained that sounds like the New Mexico report all over again. Flat,, formation of two, shiny, silver, stationary, no answers and no explanation.  Here those a refueling plane report two objects at 10,000 feet headed NE, size estimated about 25 feet across and moving in tandem with one another. They banked and headed NE

The University of Oklahoma Professor who "Solved" the Mystery of Flying Saucers

One has to hope that when noted educator Frank G. Tappan, David Ross Boyd Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Oklahoma remarked to the Norman Transcript he had a solution for the flying saucers, his tongue was firmly in his cheek.

He had quipped to the paper, and his words repeated across the land, that "I myself," he explained "have been seeing flying saucers for 40 years."  His theory was that they were not knew but rather that the ancient Romans had seen them 2,000 years earlier.  They were called "Muscae Volitantes" or flying flies. Basically, they were impurities in the vitreous humor of the human eyeball: small discs, dots, saucers, cylinders, beads and streams of beads. Mostly at the edges of the eye and seldom at the center.

 The famous Basel Broadsheet of 1566 showing some sort of celestial event  has been explained in a similar manner.  The text of the broadside has been variously translated but most commonly believed to read that [something] " happened in 1566 three times, on 27 and 28 of July, and on August 7, against the sunrise and sunset; we saw strange shapes in the sky above Basel.

During the year 1566, on the 27th of July, after the sun had shone warm on the clear, bright skies, and then around 9 pm, it suddenly took a different shape and color. First, the sun lost all its radiance and luster, and it was no bigger than the full moon, and finally it seemed to weep tears of blood and the air behind him went dark. And he was seen by all the people of the city and countryside. In much the same way also the moon, which has already been almost full and has shone through the night, assuming an almost blood-red color in the sky. The next day, Sunday, the sun rose at about six o'clock and slept with the same appearance it had when it was lying before. He lit the houses, streets and around as if everything was blood-red and fiery. At the dawn of August 7, we saw large black spheres coming..."

Others suggest that the Swiss event was one of many similar sky events of teh 15th and 16th centuries. The Event above is most often explained as a describing  (1) an unusual sunrise, (2) the second as a total eclipse of the moon with a red sun rising, and (3) the third like a cloud of black spheres in front of the sun.All being compressed into one wood cut illustration.

The "floaters" of which Dr. Tappan spoke are now usually believed to be ruptures of the cornea and are repaired by laser surgery and may be related to glaucoma and other vision illnesses.

The logical reasons why this eye explanation would not work are numerous and so it can be assumed Tappan was jesting - adding yet another layer to the unusual, even bizarre, rationales offered for the objects being seen in the skies over planet Earth.

What Was the Purpose?

Project Sign:

Responsible for the collection, investigation and interpretation of data relative to sightings of unidentified flying objects [Project Grudge, Aug. 1949].

Project Grudge:
"Recommendations"
1. That the investigations and study of reports of unidentified flying objects be reduced in scope.
    a. The current collection directives relative to  unidentified flying objects be revised to provide for the submission of only those reports clearly indicating realistic technical applications.
2. That conclusions 1 and 2 of this report, with sufficient supporting data, be declassified and mae public in the form of an official press release.
3. That psychological Warfare Division and other govermental agencies interested in psychological warfare be informed of the results of this study.
     a. That such  agencies coordinate in and provide further recommendations for public release of material as recommended in Para. 2 above." [1949 Aug 11885541 [ BLACK] August 1949. Project Grudge, 412 pg.]


Project Blue Book:

See earlier post on UFO Training Manual....

"United States Air Force interest in UFO's is three-fold:
1. To determine if UFO phenomena presents a threat to the security of the United States.
2. To determine if the UFO Phenomena exhibits any technology advances which could be channeled into research and development.
3. To explain and identify the stimulus which caused the observer to submit his report as an unidentified flying object."

Roswell, New Mexico - October 1949

The "Project Grudge" folder contains a folder (1949 08 1188 5541 [Blank]) that in 400+ pages covers cases, explanations, and scientific theories.

There is also in the file for 1949 - two folders on Roswell, New Mexico from October 1949 (October 21, 1949; File # 577 or Chron. 24-185-17-137).  ONe file contains 2 photos (the Chron. one; 1049 10-6982263) and the other contains 8 photos (1949 10-7273183).

Unfortunately, there is no file accompanying the photos. No story, no explanation, no nothing.