The Day Before Roswell, July 7, 1947: Between Something and Nothing

The day before the news about a recovered flying disc in Roswell, New Mexico, the newspapers were chock full of saucer stories, and many papers featured a cover photo of Jane Campbell displaying a Rawin target, scooping Mac Brazel and Jesse Marcel.

Madison Wisconsin State Journal, July 7, 1947

May Be "'Saucers' -- Near and Afar

Jane Campbell, 17, of Chillicothe, Ohio, exhibits an unidentified mechanism which fell from a balloon and landed on her father's farm. The father, Sherman Campbell, said the vaned object, through optical illusion, may have caused some of the reports of "flying discs." 

An Estimate of the Situation

The Fort Madison Evening Democrat from July 7, is a great example of early UFO news coverage. The UP story combines wire reports of the real and unreal, in an attempt to cover the emerging phenomenon. The confused position of the newspapers seemed to echo that of the military.

"We're not dismissing the possibility that there's something to it, and we're not dismissing the possibility that it's all a hoax."- Captain Tom Brown, Army Air Force spokesman, Washington, DC. 

Carnival searchlights, Ghost Rockets, the Loch Ness Monster and much more:

Fort Madison Evening Democrat, July 7, 1947

The barrage of conflicting stories in the news kept the public interested- and confused. In the absence of facts, speculation and rumor were king, and in those days, many UFO legends were born.

Real Life Comics #55, Jan. 1951

High Alert! UFO over Oak Ridge National Laboratory, circa 1951

Professor Alan D. Conger is the key player in this case, and we'll begin by introducing him thorough a few key quotes from his obituary:

Alan Conger, a pioneer in genetic effects of radiation, died 22 Dec 1995... He was 78 years old. Alan was born 23 Mar 1917, in Muskegon, Michigan. He attended Harvard as both an undergraduate and a graduate student, and received the Ph.D. degree in biology in 1947.

After (working in the weather service for the Army during WWII), Alan returned to Harvard to pursue his graduate work.. Alan had become interested in the genetic effects of radiation... He began his research career in this field at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1947 and had a major role in the early bomb tests in the Pacific.

 

Only small part of the following plays a role in the UFO case, but it's too valuable not too repeat.

Alan was well known for his puckish sense of humor... One tangible artifact to have survived his Florida period is associated with Alan's service on the Radiation Study Section of the National Institutes of Health. He donated to that body an alligator coprolite that he had collected in the Florida swamps, which he had mounted on an impressive plaque for presentation annually to the member chosen by his colleagues to have propagated during his study section tenure the greatest quantity of the material of which the coprolite was composed.

( We had to look it up. Coprolite means fossilized excrement.)

Flying Saucers over Oak Ridge National Laboratory

First, we need to introduce the location.
"Established during World War II by the Manhattan District, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) occupied the X-10 site on the fifty-six-thousand-acre reservation between Clinch River and Black Oak Ridge purchased by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1942. Initially called Clinton Laboratories after the nearest town, it began as a top-secret installation to produce plutonium for the first nuclear weapons." For further details, see The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture: Oak Ridge National Laboratory.


In The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, ex-head of Project Blue Book said, "...UFO's were habitually reported from areas around 'technically interesting' places like our atomic energy installations, harbors, and critical manufacturing areas." He cited a notable UFO case from Oak Ridge, where an object was sighted by ground observers, confirmed by radar, and pursued by an Air Force plane:  

On June 21, 1952, at 10:58P.M., a Ground Observer Corps spotter reported that a slow-moving craft was nearing the AEC's Oak Ridge Laboratory, an area so secret that it is prohibited to aircraft. The spotter called the light into his filter center and the filter center relayed the message to the ground control intercept radar. They had a target. But before they could do more than confirm the GOC spotter's report, the target faded from the radarscope. An F-47 aircraft on combat air patrol in the area was vectored in visually, spotted a light, and closed on it. They "fought" from 10,000 to 27,000 feet, and several times the object made what seemed to be ramming attacks. The light was described as white, 6 to 8 inches in diameter, and blinking until it put on power. The pilot could see no silhouette around the light.

Ruppelt's story was just one of many from the facility. It's an old question: Are there more UFOs reported around sensitive government facilities because the objects are attracted to them, or is it just that the heightened security produces more false alarms? Fran Ridge's site has a page, NICAP: The Oak Ridge Sightings, featuring several similar events of this kind from around 1950, other Radar-Visual cases where planes were sent out to pursue UFOs reported over ORNL. 

1976: Alan Conger's UFO Disclosure

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Review's Fall 1976 issue featured a look back at the organizations history: "this special issue of the Review contains a skeleton history of the Laboratory's first 25 years, interspersed with reminiscences, anecdotes, funny pictures, and a few expansions on particular aspects of importance to the Laboratory." There was only one reminiscence about a UFO.

Alan Conger Remembers... 

     Old-timers in the Biology Division may remember the overhang roof facing the highway outside my second floor lab in 9207 -our lunch patio where we dined on balmy days under the morning glories. At the height of the UFO scares (ca. 1951 ?), coming across some balloons and a helium tank left over from our first lab Open House, I filled six or so balloons with helium, tied them together with string, and attached a 6-ft strip of aluminum foil beneath as a radar target. With Kim Atwood's help, I got it out of the lab and launched from our roof patio, admiring its stately ascent as it drifted down Bear Creek Valley, rapidly transforming from a recognizable bundle of balloons and foil into an unidentifiable flying object. We then ran down the hall, calling out to Jack Von Borstel, Bill Arnold, Shelly Wolff, and others, "See the UFO!"
     It caused great excitement and much speculation about what it was, its size, velocity, and height; and soon, even more excitement when it was detected by the nearby radar station on Pilot Mountain, and the fighter-interceptor squadron then stationed at Knoxville was scrambled to intercept the intruder. With planes buzzing around, and our scientist friends seriously considering the object, the situation had rapidly become so very imposing that neither Kim nor I had the guts to confess to our hoax. We kept quiet and hoped the Air Force or AEC would be unable to identify us.
     A few years ago, my son, reading a book on UFOs, came across this incident as one of the case histories of UFO sightings from Air Force records. He recognized it as a hoax, and surmised that some unknown Oak Ridge scientists probably perpetrated it.
-Alan D. Conger, Professor of Radiobiology, School of Medicine, Temple University 

Conger's accomplice was Dr. Kimball C. Atwood III, senior biologist at the ORNL. Most UFO balloon hoaxes are perpetrated by mischievous kids, not Ph.D.s working at US government facilities.
 Up close, the UFO must have looked something like this.

But at a distance, the sun's reflection from metal foil would have been the most visible feature. The foil also provided something for the radar to find, serving as an improvised radar wind target of RAWIN. On radar, the foil strip registered as a solid object, and it was due to this the hoax worked well enough for the Air Force to scramble planes to catch the UFO.

Radar operator, circa 1950.

Dr. Congers did not remember the precise date of the incident, so it's difficult to match Air Force records. There is a possible match in Project Blue Book's files in this one from December of 1950:  18 Dec. 1950, Oak Ridge, Tenn. 

This episode and its exposure seems to have been the extent of Professor Conger's involvement in the UFO controversy.

In an interesting trivial footnote to the story, Conger's hoaxing accomplice, Kim Atwood, had a son who has written articles on medical quackery for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry's Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

"Kimball C. Atwood IV, M.D. is an anesthesiologist at the Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts. He is Assistant Clinical Professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine and Contributing Editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine." 

CSI is the den for UFO debunkers like Robert Sheaffer, James Oberg, Joe Nickell, and the late Phil Klass.

Thanks to Roger Glassel for locating the magazine article with Dr. Conger's confession.

Flying Saucer Ambush: Brush Creek, CA, 1953

Gail Sprague, illustration for The Saucerian #2, 1953

This case cannot truly be considered forgotten because Gray Barker devoted an entire chapter to it in his classic 1956 book,  They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.

John Black and John Van Allen told authorities they had been mining "fissionable material" in the Marble Creek area near Brush Creek, California. On at least two occasions, they witnessed a flying saucer land and a small man get out, fill a pail with water, then fly away. There seemed to be a pattern to the visits, so the miners intended to be ready to shoot at the saucer when it returned. They consulted the local law enforcement asking for permission to fire at it. The Brush Creek incident raised some ethical and legal challenges. Can aliens be shot for trespassing? Captain Fred Preston of the County Sheriff's Department, said no.

Idaho State Journal June 25, 1953

Long Beach Independent, June 25, 1953

Gray Barker, author of They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. 

Gray Barker reported on the case in the first issue of The Saucerian, and followed up in the second issue, "Report on the Brush Creek Saucer," which was the basis for his coverage in They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.

To me the story somehow smacked of truth, and I felt I should try to get to the bottom of it. Paul Spade, an amateur astronomer of California, who had volunteered his services to saucer investigation in his area, also volunteered to go to Brush Creek and look into the matter.

Spade provided the most detailed description of the saucer argument: 

The little man wore green trousers, a jacket and a tie. His shoes were particularly strange in that they seem to be so remarkably flexible. Although they were distinctly recognizable issues, they seemed almost to be a part of the man's feet. The outfit was topped off with a green cab over black hair. He seem like a normal person and except for his small stature and somewhat odd dress.

They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers

300 people were ready for the saucer's return, but apparently a much smaller number was ready at the alleged landing site.

Long Beach Independent, July 20, 1953

The Chico Enterprise-Record, July 21, 1953

The saucer did not return. Among the puzzles in this case is why the miners would have wanted to shoot their visitor. In the trespasses on their camp, the little man only took a bucket of water on each visit. That's hardly a crime worth punishing if it risks starting an interplanetary war.

We were unable to find much on John Q. Black, but the obituary for John J. Van Allen indicates that he was a veteran of World War I, and died on June 3, 1957, at the age of 64.

This Brush Creek incident is not forgotten, and is cited in many UFO databases and prominent books like Passport to Magonia by Jacques Vallée. However, considering the absence of tangible evidence, it would seem to be fit only for a discussion of folklore.  For further reading, see the entry by Patrick Gross at UFOs at Close Sight:

MAY 20, JUNE 20, 1953, BRUSH CREEK, CALIFORNIA, USA, JOHN B. BLACK AND JOHN J. VAN ALLEN

Project Blue Book Case does have a 12-page file: 20 May 1953, Brush Creek, California. The Air Force closed the case on the Brush Creek incident, and it was classified a hoax.

. . .

A special thanks to Louis Taylor of Information Dispersal for the original UP photo of Black and Van Allen.

Captured Flying Saucers: Twin Falls, Idaho, July 11, 1947

Mrs. Fred Easterbrook

July 11, 1947
A crashed flying saucer with glistening sides of silver and gold was discovered by Mrs. Fred Easterbrook in the yard of her next-door neighbor T.H. Thompson in Twin Falls, Idaho. Two narrow strips of turf on the Thompson lawn were torn up, apparently from when the disc had crashed into the earth. Mrs. Easterbrook reported it to the the police, and both the military and FBI participated in investigating the incident. In a day's time, it was determined that the saucer was a counterfeit.

Twin Falls, Idaho, July 11, --AP-- Four teen age boys skimmed a "flying saucer" into this town today and before the turmoil died down tonight with their admission it was "all a joke," the FBI, army intelligence and local police spent a dizzy day trying to figure out their gadget. Lewiston, Idaho Daily Tribune - 12 July, 1947 Army, FBI, Police in Circles

The Lewiston Daily Sun July12, 1947

From the PROJECT 1947 web site.

Government Cover-Up?

An editorial from the July 15 Idaho Times-News showed how the military's insistence for secrecy was fueling rumors of a government conspiracy or cover-up.

The Idaho Times News July 15, 1947

The object was determined to be of earthly origin, and the identity of the hoaxers was determined, so this is one of the few cases definitively closed as solved.

As with so many of the most interesting UFO cases featured here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, Project Blue Book has no file on this incident


For further reading on the case, see the reprints of more original news articles:
Twin Falls, Idaho, 1947 and...

Saturday Night Uforia, Flying Disc Reported Found in Idaho; Now in Army Hands

Unidentified Lights in the Ohio Sky, Sept. 1952

 "...deep red streaks which met with a scarlet flash." (Reconstruction)

1952 was an explosive year for UFOs, and the Air Force was unable to investigate all the reports. Here's one they missed from Ohio.

Points mentioned in the story, Lockbourne Air Force Base, Ashville and Circleville. Ohio.

Mrs. Gail Wolf and her sons spotted some strange lights in the sky over Lockbourne, Ohio. Previously she'd been skeptical of saucers, "most people are, until they see something like we did."

The Circleville Herald, Sept. 6, 1952.

 The news story prompted another independent witness to come forward with testimony a few days later.

The Circleville Herald, Sept. 11 1952.

The Air Base that Link Brown was referring to was the former Lockbourne Air Force Base near Columbus, OH, known today as Rickenbacker International Airport.

As with so many of the most interesting UFO cases featured here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, Project Blue Book has no file on this incident.

Abbott, Costello and Flying Saucers

August 8, 1952: An offer of employment for aliens. 

First, a non-show business Abbott in a flying saucer story:

Three Idaho men reported having observed a six feet wide flying sphere doing maneuvers unbecoming of a balloon. As reported in the Twin Falls Times News, Dec. 15, 1950:

Twin Falls Times News, Dec. 15, 1950.

It's interesting that Abbott had a prior belief in flying saucers, but did not accept the premise promoted by Donald Keyhoe that, "The Flying Saucers are Real." Unlike so many of the most interesting UFO cases featured here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, Project Blue Book does have a file on this incident, but it's a skimpy one: https://www.fold3.com/image/1/7004359


Abbott and Costello

The Saucer Crash of August 1952

With a case involving a witness named Abbott, we wondered what involvement Lou Costello had with flying saucers. Costello was involved in a flying saucer crash in 1952:

A flying saucer crashed into a rocket ship at UI and temporarily halted production on "Abbott & Costello Go to Mars"

Berkshire Evening Eagle,  Aug. 26, 1952

The 1st UFO book? Forgotten Mysteries by R. DeWitt Miller

Forgotten Mysteries, promoted by Walter Winchell as the UFO solution

Today, we forget the incredible influence radio once had. Radio commentators such as Walter Winchell (and Frank Edwards) had their finger on America’s pulse, sometimes reporting the news, other times making it. They also did a lot to introduce and propel the UFO story. Winchell’s sensational show was printed as a newspaper column, and in this story from the July 7, 1947 San Jose News, he said, “The mystery of the ‘Flying Saucers’ is not new.” He went on to cite a recent book by R. DeWitt Miller, Forgotten Mysteries.

San Jose News July 7, 1947

Some important people noticed, including the legendary Kenneth Arnold, who mentioned Miller's book in one of his early lectures in mid-July, 1947.

East Oregonian, July 17, 1947

In his 1955 book, You Do Take It with You: An Adventure into the Vaster Reality, Miller discussed his entry into the saucer scene.

Forgotten Mysteries was chiefly a collection of articles on phenomenon from Coronet magazine. From a 1947 book review by Geoffrey Giles in Fantasy Review,

"fantastic facts... presenting them in mystifying array, much as Mr. Fort used to do. He is, in fact, a Fortean, and has been dogging the Great Doubter's footsteps for 15 years or more, accumulating a mass of pallid data on such things as the Devil's Footprints, death fogs, sea serpents and missing ships"

The chapter, "Enigmas Out of Space," focused on strange aerial objects. Miller noted that there had been speculation strange sights in the sky might be the vehicles of interplanetary visitors: 

"That conscious beings from other worlds have actually reached this earth and navigated our skies in space ships." 

The publicity gave R. Dewitt Miller's career a boost, and he enjoyed a brief moment in the sun as the world's only flying saucer expert. Here are two versions of the same story by Miller:

The Oregonian, July 8, 1947

The Coos Bay Times, July 7, 1947 

The Founding Father

Miller's book enjoyed the flying saucer spotlight, but only for a short while. Someone finally noticed that he cited Charles Fort as his inspiration. Loren Gross described the rediscovery of Fort:

It wasn't long before Walter Winchell was quoting R. DeWitt Miller but we know he could have done better than that. As it turned out an Associated Press reporter made the discovery in Chicago's Newberry Library. There the reporter claimed to have discovered a "rare unknown” book, the scarlet colored volume titled The Book of the Damned.

 Thayer howled with laughter when he read about the “great discovery.” Awhile after this "discovery” the news agencies tracked Thayer and the Forteans to their lair to ask: "Who was this guy Fort?" And: "Can we quote such and such?" This was the high- point of the whole history of the Fortean Society and it was sad Fort himself was not alive to take a well-earned bow.  (From UFOs: A History Vol. 1: 1947 by Loren Gross)

Snazzy modern edition

Fort had collected accounts of strange flying things and speculated that they were interplanetary, leading the way for Miller, Vincent Gaddis, Ray Palmer, Meade Layne and others. Fort died in 1932, and had little to do with the Fortean Society, which Tiffany Thayer created in his honor. Thayer kept the torch burning by publishing the Fortean Society’s Doubt magazine.

The Chiles-Whitted encounter on July 24, 1948 had many speculating the pilots had seen a rocket or space ship, and once again, R. DeWitt Miller was questioned about flying saucers.

United Press, July 27, 1948

A more detailed article by R. Dewitt Miller himself, Knoxville Journal, July 26, 1948, where he was billed as an authority on psychic phenomena and mysterious occurrences." Miller gave his top four choices to explain UFOs.

The First UFO Book - Sorta

Fort provided the backstory!

Major Donald Keyhoe built upon the Fort foundation for his article and 1950 book, The Flying Saucers are Real. However, in 1947, when saucer fever broke out, Miller's book was already in print.  After Walter Winchell connected it to the flying saucers, the publisher and author capitalized on the publicity.  This in effect makes Forgotten Mysteries the first UFO book, at least from a marketing standpoint.

WALTER WINCHELL says: "The mystery of the flying saucers is not new, In Forgotten Mysteries R. Dewitt Miller offers two cases which perhaps will clear up the mystery."

Weird Tales, May, 1950.

But without Fort, there would have been no Forgotten Mysteries to promote. The press has a short memory, always fixated on the new, so forgot about Miller. But every so often, a reporter “discovers” Charles Fort's extraterrestrial speculation, and reports that, “The flying saucer story, you know, is by no means a new one.”

Star News, Aug. 7, 1952

Miller Radio Recording from July 1947

The ABC radio special broadcast on July 10, 1947, "The Search for the Flying Saucers" was hosted by Walter Kiernon, and was perhaps the first program exclusively devoted to the topic. It ran in a 15-minute time slot and interviewed various witnesses and figures commenting on the saucer phenomenon, among them, Dewitt Miller.

Miller thought that the earliest flying saucer sightings by Kenneth Arnold and other pilots were genuine, but that many of the stories that followed were hoaxes. The leading candidates to explain saucers were new military aviation projects, Miller said. But he had another idea, that saucers might be related to things seen in the sky for hundreds of years, and that "the discs may actually be from Mars or somewhere else in outer space.

R. Dewitt Miller appears 5 minutes and 17 seconds into the recording of the radio program linked below:

The Search For The Flying Saucers with Walter Kiernon

Epilogue: Project Blue Book

The Air Force's Project Blue Book files have nothing of substance on R. Dewitt Miller's book, but it turns out that Miller had a UFO experience of his own, 1 Feb 1954, Puente California, an "Angel Hair-type case, and it includes a photo of the physical evidence. The file does mention Miller's book in passing.

The PBB files have more of substance on Charles Fort, indicating his books "were examined."

https://www.fold3.com/image/1/11885611

R. DeWitt Miller’s Forgotten Mysteries was also published under the title, Impossible Yet it Happened!