Captured Flying Saucers: Saybrook, IL, July 26, 1947

In Captured Flying Saucers: July 7, 1947, The Disk that Slipped by the FBI, we looked at how J. Edgar Hoover was upset that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was cut out of a UFO investigation. Along with previous disappointments dealing with the military, that caused the FBI to want nothing to do with flying saucers. Later the same month, the policy, if not the attitude, changed.

(Document on the FBI site: BUREAU BULLETIN No. 42)

The Bureau, at the request of the Army Air Forces Intelligence, has agreed to cooperate in the investigation of flying discs...

7-30-47
BUREAU BULLETIN No. 42
Series 1947

You should investigate each instance which is brought to your attention of a sighting of a flying disc in order to ascertain whether or not it is a bona fide sighting, an imaginary one or a prank. You should also bear in mind that individuals might report seeing flying discs for various reasons. It is conceivable that an individual might be desirous of seeking personal publicity, causing hysteria, or playing a prank.

The Bureau should be notified immediately by teletype of all reported sightings and the results of your inquiries. In instances where the report appears to have merit, the teletype should be followed by a letter to the Bureau containing in detail the results of your inquiries. The Army Air Forces have assured the Bureau complete cooperating in these matters and in any instances where they fail to make information available to you or make the recovered discs available for your examination, it should promptly be brought to the attention of the Bureau.

Any information you develop in connection with these discs should be promptly brought to the attention of the Army through your usual liaison channels.

They also noted that there was the potential for UFO hoaxes to be used to breed fear:

"The Army Air Forces Intelligence has also indicated some concern that the reported sightings might have been made by subversive individuals for the purpose of creating a mass hysteria."

The Springfield FBI Memo

One of the USA's greatest concerns about flying saucers were that they were a new weapon of some sort by the Soviet Union, therefore, investigating UFOs was a matter of national security. As a result, saucer sightings were taken seriously, and many FBI agents' reports were written in grave tones, though few cases were of genuine importance.

Shortly after the FBI saucer directive, a report came in from Illinois. Someone had recovered a small disc. The memorandum to headquarters for FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover:

TO: Director, FBI DATE: August 20, 1947

FROM: SAC, Springfield

SUBJECT: FLYING DISC 

Reference is made to Bureau Bulletin No. 42, Series 1947, dated 

July 30, 1947 re the above. 

For the Bureau's information a Mrs. xxxxxxxxxxxxx of Saybrook,  

Illinois reported to this office the finding of a flying disc 

in her front yard at 6:00 A.M. on July 26, 1947. 

It appears from investigation conducted by an Agent of this 

office that the stability of xxxxxxxxxxxxx is questionable. How- 

ever the alleged flying disc was obtained and it is apparently 

the concoction of some of the juveniles in the area. It is an

old wooden platter, which has assembled on it a silver plate, a 

spark plug, a timer, and some old brass tubing. Photographs 

were taken of the same and there are six views enclosed herewith. 

No doubt this was someone's idea of a prank. 

The disc is presently being retained by the Springfield Office and 

will be retained pending receipt of Bureau advice relative to its

destruction. The thought in retaining it was that perhaps the 

Bureau might desire to have it transmitted to Washington for any 

novel value it might have. 

JBP:hg 

62-0-1445 

Enc. (6) 

To view the FBI file on this case: 62-0-1445: Saybrook, Illinois, July 26, 1947

On Sept. 5, 1947, FBI headquarters replied: Nah, if the military doesn't want it, get rid of it.

The FBI site has a page on their site about the “Unusual Phenomena” files collection, “The FBI and UFOs: Flying Flapjacks, Saucers, and Saw Blades.” It featured a brief recap of the Saybrook saucer case and displayed two clear pictures of it:

The FBI and UFOs: Flying Flapjacks, Saucers, and Saw Blades

The FBI report failed to mention that the flying disc carried the brand of its purported country of origin: Russia. With the "timer, and some old brass tubing," it looked a bit like a bomb. Had the "Russia" label been published in the media, it might have led to just the kind of mass hysteria the authorities feared, hoax or not.

The Saybrook citizen's report seems to have gone directly to the local FBI, and was not covered by the newspapers like so many other flying saucers stories around the same time. Since the FBI's investigation was conclusive, nothing was passed on to the Air Force, therefore this incident is not found in the files of Project Blue Book. In a sense, the case is unsolved. Once the FBI decided it was just a prank by some kids, they were done with it. We'll never know who made the phony soviet saucer or just why.

The FBI was only in the UFO business for a short while. According to their site, a July 1950 FBI statement said that “the jurisdiction and responsibility for investigating flying saucers have been assumed by the United States Air Force... the FBI does not attempt to investigate these reports..."
There were a few exceptions though, but those generally were focused on saucer swindlers, not actual reported UFO sightings.

There were many other early cases of hoaxed captured flying saucers, and the FBI was involved in several of them. See our previous STTF articles, including: Captured Flying Saucers: The North Hollywood Disc, July 10, 1947

FBI UFO Files, 1947: The Harbinger Letter

The FBI got into the UFO business in 1947, but they wanted nothing to do with it. In many cases, the FBI was stuck doing the legwork for low-level cases, chasing down rumors and hoaxes for the Air Force. They continued to do so up until 1950, but after that they were still occasionally involved mostly in investigating the people involved in UFO cases, most often Contactees or frauds - or both.

FBI files contain many documents on UFO- related cases, often without any context. We’ve written about two such cases before. The most famous FBI document is the Hottel Memo:
Scientist Predicts ET Contact / FBI Crashed UFO Document. Another stir was caused by "A Memorandum of Importance" dated July 8, 1947 which seemed to show the FBI knew quite a bit about the nature of the saucers and the aliens who flew them:

1946, Before Saucers, Kareeta: UFO Contact in California

The problem comes from the FBI material not clearly identifying the source, and worse, by failing to note the solution. We recently discovered another case that follows this pattern, but with a bit of research have matched it to newspaper reports to resolve the mystery.

A Strange Flying Saucer Letter

July 11, 1947, less than a month after Kenneth Arnold’s newsmaking saucer sighting, people across the USA were receiving strange letters suggesting that the UFOs could be “harbingers of a better day,” and that “one of these startling discs is on its way to you.”

Many of the people who received the letter wrote to their local newspaper, and at least one citizen forwarded a copy to the FBI to see what they could make of it.

The mysterious letter itself, postmarked New York City:

Have you seen one of the mysterious "Saucers?" 

What did it look like? 

Do you think these strange celestial manifestations are harbingers of a better day? 

Do you believe it means a new and revolutionary advance is coming? 

Will it make your life brighter, happier, more useful? 

We believe one of these startling discs is on its way to you. Then the secret will be out. 

(Signed) The Combined and Amalgamated Committee of Sky-scanners, Disc Decipherers and New-Product Introducers. 

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover replied to the informant, but merely offered thanks, not an explanation, and no clarification is contained in the files.  

The original FBI files

The Silver Disc Appears

Below is a simulation of the follow-up to the mysterious letter, and the newspaper clippings that clarify the mystery.

The Decatur Herald, (Decatur, IL) July 18, 1947, The Call Leader, (Elwood, IN) July 16, 1947

It was an advertising stunt for Eversharp CA, perhaps the first major company to exploit the flying saucer craze. They were the biggest, but not the first. Many smaller local businesses had beat them to it by commercializing saucers to promote anything from radio stations to hamburger stands.

Here’s a look at the Eversharp CA, a pioneer in the ball point pen business. More on the company can be found in the article at Eversharp CA Ballpoint 1945-1947 at PenHero.com.

There are more FBI flying saucer cases, from the serious to the silly and we’ll continue to look at them here at STTF. We’ll also keep looking at other examples in the never-ending saga of saucer exploitation

Signs: Ezekiel, the Bible and UFOs

"It's God's truth — I will swear it on a Bible." 

- Kenneth Arnold, Oregon Journal, June 27, 1947

Kenneth Arnold received a warning shortly after his sighting of flying saucers in 1947. Some people were seeing the saucers as a sign from above.

Preacher Sees Doomsday "... getting his flock “ready for the end of this world.”

Spokane Daily Chronicle, page 1, June 27, 1947 

Biblical connections were being found:
Los Angeles Herald-Express, July 8, 1947, "Ezekiel the Prophet Foretold Flying Discs."

The Bible and Project Blue Book

Project Blue Book checked the Bible for such signs. General John A. Samford, from page three of the AF transcript of the July 29, 1952 press conference prompted by the Washington, D.C. UFO radar incidents.

“The volume of reporting is related to many things. We know that reports of this kind go back to Biblical times. There have been flurries of them in various centuries. 1846 seems to of been a time when there were quite a flurry of reporting of this card. Our current series of report goes back, generally, to 1946 in which things with this kind reported in Sweden."

Later handwritten notes added in margin, with an arrow pointing to Biblical times:

“Charles Fort has written on the subject of UFOs – his works published during the last century.”

https://www.fold3.com/image/1/12428060

Captain Edward J. Ruppelt of Project Blue Book in a 1952 document, “Draft of Article for August Air Intelligence Digest” had a section dealing with the Biblical UFOs, UAPs or UAOs:

"Ezekiel Saw de Wheel,"Zechariah saw a "roll"

The AIR INTELLIGENCE DIGEST will not quarrel with readers who dismiss as far-fetched any interpretation of the Biblical quotations below as references to 1) a disc-shaped UAO and 2) a cigar-shaped UAO. These quotations are presented solely for whatever significance, if any, that DIGEST readers read into them.
The wording of the well-known reference in Ezekiel is: " . . . a whirlwind came out of the north . . . a fire unfolding . . . and a brightness was about it, out of the midst thereof as the color of amber . . . it sparkled like the color of burnished brass . . . like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps . . . the appearance of the wheels was like unto the color of a beryl (greenish-blue) . . . as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel".

Less familiar is a passage in Zechariah: "Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and beheld a flying roll . . . the length thereof (was) twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof (was) ten cubits." "Roll," in Biblical terminology, usually meant the parchment rolls then used for books. In some translations, the phrase "flying book" is substituted for "flying roll" in the foregoing passage. Converting cubits into feet, Zechariah's "flying roll" measured 30 by 15 feet.

Ruppelt briefly touched on the topic in his 1956 book, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects:

“Did UFO reports actually start in 1947? We had spent a great deal of time trying to resolve this question. Old newspaper files, journals, and books that we found in the Library of Congress contained many reports of odd things being seen in the sky as far back as the Biblical times. The old Negro spiritual says, 'Ezekiel saw a wheel 'way up in the middle of the air.' We couldn't substantiate Ezekiel's sighting because many of the very old reports of odd things observed in the sky could be explained as natural phenomena that weren't fully understood in those days."

The Air Force wasn't going to accept the Biblical accounts on faith alone, but it was enough for many.

Flying Saucers, God's Last Sign of the Age

Certainly a bit of religion worked its way into UFO lore, such as with George Adamski's Space Brothers, "technological angels" from Venus. A bit of flying saucery worked its way into some churches as well. The Reverend R.D. Ingle included saucers in some of his sermons.

"Earthquakes and Flying Saucers, God's Last Sign of the Age."

Harrisonburg Daily News-Record (VA) March 21, 1953

"The United States Will be Invaded From the Air According to Bible Predictions"

Zanesville Signal (OH) April 1953 

Ezekiel's vision

 

Reverend Billy Graham was asked in his column about Ezekiel and flying saucers. Graham didn't know much about saucers, but didn't think they were part of Biblical prophecy. Still, he thought it prudent to get right with the Lord just in case, and also to "Watch..."

Charleston Daily Mail (WV) April 2, 1953

The topic of UFOs and religion is near infinite, so we'll let Rev. Graham have the last word for now.

First Flying Saucer Occupant Report, Published July 9, 1947

Little Green Men from Mars were not initially given any serious thought as being the answer to flying saucers. In 1947, most people thought that if flying saucers were real, they must be a secret military project- ours or by other countries spying on the USA. Space aliens were taken no more seriously than the earlier talk of mischievous gremlins sabotaging airplanes during World War II.

The first report of contact with alien beings from saucers was made in Nashville, Tennessee in early July 1947, and published in the day after the story of the "captured flying disc" story from Roswell, New Mexico:

The Nashville Tennessean, July 9, 1947, page one

All Over the Nation People Talk Saucers

The flying saucer furore has finally hit Nashville... One man, apparently sane and sober, wrote the editor of The Nashville Tennessean, a long interesting letter about his brush with a couple of Men from Mars on a nearby flying field. These strange little men, “all heads and arms and legs, glowing like fireflies,” landed and alighted from a flying saucer as he drove along a highway, the man wrote. The man from Nashville and the Men from Mars exchanged greetings (in sign language) and the saucer finally took off in a cloud of dust, so the letter says.

The Nashville Tennessean, July 9, 1947

Indistinguishable from a joke?

Describing the story, Jerome Clark in The UFO Encyclopedia Volume 2, 1992, said,

"The newspaper account characterizes the correspondent (whose letter was only paraphrased, not published) as 'apparently perfectly sane and sober,' but the story sounds more like a practical joke than a serious report."
The letter may not have been genuine, but the account is important for being the first published, and closely resembles many other that would eventually surface later, including a number of accounts told or published at the each year on April 1st.

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.

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

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

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!

Captured Flying Saucers: The North Hollywood Disc, July 10, 1947

July 10, 1947, The News-Palladium from Benton Harbor, Michigan reported an Associated Press wire story:

North Hollywood, Calif., July 10 - A saucer-shaped mechanical contraption, resembling a chicken-brooder top with a few gadgets added, was found in a geranium bed at the home of construction engineer Russell Long last night and the first official reaction was from Fire Battalion Chief

Wallace E. Newcombe, who looked at it skeptically, and said:
"It doesn't look to me like it could fly."
Long called the Van Nuys fire department and excitedly pointed to the metal saucer, 30 inches in diameter, which he said had been belching smoke from two exhaust pipes and emitting a blue-white glare.

The Southeast Missourian, July 10, 1947

The Federal Bureau of Investigation had a look at the device:

FBI file begins at page 60 of this PDF.

This news stories shows that Russell Long's discovery of a counterfeit disc was just one of many in the first few weeks of 1947's flying saucer fever.

San Bernardino Sun, July 11, 1947

"Among the many "hoax' saucers was this fraud found in a North Hollywood yard. It was made of galvanized iron, a radio tube, a piece of pipe."  Saturday Evening Post, May 7, 1949 

Fire Battalion Chief Wallace E. Newcombe, "It doesn't look to me like it could fly."

PROJECT 1947 - Saturday Evening Post - May 7, 1949 
"What You Can Believe About Flying Saucers" 

The object was determined to be of Earthly origin, but the identity of the hoaxer was not determined, so in that regard, the case remains unsolved.

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.