1947: The Unsolved Mystery of Discs Over America

A U.S. dollar in 1947 had some nice purchasing power. A buck could buy a couple of movie tickets, dinner out for one, or a sack of groceries. Another option was to spend it learning about the secret behind flying saucers.

(Photo borrowed from the unrelated Rhodes Photo Case of July 7, 1947.)

An item was widely circulated in newspapers in several states across the USA during August and September of 1947. It looked like a short news article about an organization located in Illinois, but was actually an advertisement.

DISCS OVER AMERICA

The most amazing event in history is the appearance of unexplained discs over America. Their explanation is necessary to every Man and Woman in this country. 

The amazing explanation involves not only the discs alone . . . but it answers the greatest and most potent of mysteries,— 

Why do anthropoid apes sit spellbound before two crossed sticks? 

Why do children draw an arc one third of the way up a sheet of paper when confronted with the idea of death? 

What is the meaning of the twenty eight fires that struck at the exact center of the American population? 

The answer to these questions is the most important information you have ever received. Send one dollar now for your copy of the survey “Discs Over America.” Mail to des Arc Foundation, Lake Forest, Ill.  

States where the advertisement is known to have been published.

After the run of that ad, there was nothing else. We were unable to locate a copy of the pamphlet or whatever “Discs Over America” was. The tone of the text sounded like it was from a New Age  religious organization. We’ve contacted UFO historians and religious scholars, but no information on  "des Arc Foundation" has been found anywhere, and there’s no mention of the publication anywhere else. However, some valuable information was located, thanks to TK of the Kook Science Research Hatch, material presented in our next section.

The FBI and the United States Post Office

While the ads were still circulating, Chicago Post Office Inspector T. H. Barkow sent a note to the FBI on September 19, 1947, asking for any information on “[Redacted], formerly of Lake Forest, Illinois, who may also have given a Chicago address at various times," in connection with an "Alleged violation of Section 2350, P. L. & R. by des Arc Foundation, sale of information on flying discs." 

The FBI responded saying they could not help without more data about the suspect. “You are advised that an effective search cannot be conducted... on the basis of the name only. If you are able to furnish the physical description of [Redacted ] or other means of identification... a search will be conducted in an effort to furnish you with the information desired.”

See the FBI file on pages 8-9 of this collection.

The FBI records show nothing else. Postal Statute Section 2350 related to schemes “to defraud or to obtain money by means of false or fraudulent representations.”  

It may be that the U.S. Postal Service stepped in and shut down the “Discs Over America” enterprise for fraud.  Hoping to the Post Office had files with further details, I submitted a FOIA request. Sadly, the response was unfavorable: 

“We regret to advise that any investigatory records which may have existed during the period 1947 regarding the individual in question would have been destroyed in accordance with the prescribed records retention schedule of the U.S. Postal Service.”

The Unsolved Mystery of des Arc Foundation

What was des Arc Foundation? The bit about “anthropoid apes sit spellbound before two crossed sticks” sounds like a dig at Christianity. The part about children drawing an arc “when confronted with the idea of death” sounds like it had a religious or metaphysical message. As for twenty-eight fires “that struck at the exact center of the American population,” we at least know what event was being described, one from June 21, 1940, at Odon, Indiana. The Buffalo Evening News, (New York) Dec. 6, 1941, carried a story on freak accidents, noted, “At Odon Ind., the farm home of William Hackler caught fire 28 distinct times in one day.”

The 2019 story, “The 28 Fires of Odon” by Dale M. Brumfield, has more details about the Hackler incident. Some newspapers reported on Fortean-type speculation that the fires were caused by the house's position in "the center of a strong magnetic field where static electricity prevailed.” The Hackler story was exploited in an advertising campaign by the Travelers Insurance Company, appearing in papers and Collier’s Magazine, April 19, 1941:

Was des Arc Foundation genuinely investigating the flying saucer mystery, and “silenced” by the government? Or was it a bogus organization by a charlatan to capitalize on UFOs to peddle some spiritual hokum? Without more information, we’re left guessing.

If you have any leads on des Arc Foundation, “Discs Over America,” or the person or organization behind it, please contact us at The Saucers That Time Forgot. 

A UFO (Book) Report

Flying Saucers Over America by Gordon Arnold, (2022)

McFarland, $29.95 softcover, $17.99 ebook. 

227 pages and 17 photos, including chapter notes, a bibliography, and index. 

 

When a scholar or journalist takes a serious look at UFO history, it’s always interesting to see how they approach the topic and present their views and conclusions. Before discussing this book, it’s important to know something about the author, his background, and perhaps his purpose for writing it. From the Montserrat College of Art site, “Gordon Arnold is Professor of liberal arts… He teaches courses in film history, animation history, and the social sciences. Arnold’s research has resulted in a series of books that explore the history and social contexts of U.S. film and culture.”

Professor Gordon Arnold

Subtitled, The UFO Craze of 1947, Flying Saucers Over America, contains a preface where Arnold tells the reader that the book takes no position or promotes any particular UFO belief or agenda. Instead, he states, “…something unusual happened in the [1947] skies… but the jury is still out on what it was. …perhaps it is time to revisit what we do and do not know about these initial events and rethink whatever conclusions we may have drawn.” The author respectfully sets out to do just that, focusing on the foundational events of 1947 and the subsequent UFO investigations and events of the early 1950s, and the evolution of beliefs that sprung up about them. 

 

Chapter one opens with a quote from Carl Jung’s 1958 book, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. My hunch is that Arnold’s book began as a college course and that Jung’s book was required reading for it. Luckily, for those who haven’t read it, Jung’s classic is freely available at the Internet Archive. Arnold follows Jung’s lead that while UFO sightings are not purely psychological, our attempts to understand them often are. “In very short order, then, the public interpreted UFO sightings in light of what people already knew, or thought they knew, based on previous reports.”

 

The strength of Flying Saucers Over America is that it provides excellent historical perspective on the early flying saucer events and documents how the media and public reacted as these series of events unfolded. Typically, UFO books neglect to present anything but the sensational highlights like Kenneth Arnold’s historic sighting and the Roswell incident. Arnold covers those but examines the events in between, the reaction of the public and press, as well as the incidents that followed. He also touches on an important issue that’s often overlooked, how UFO activity and public interest seems to come and go, pointing out that after a few weeks in the headlines, flying saucers faded “into the background for a time” but would be rekindled by further events or newspaper stories.

 

Most of the book’s chapters focus on a single case or topic, so it reads like a collection of short essays or classroom lectures that, while thematically connected, can stand alone. The essays are not always presented in chronological sequence; Chapter 20, “Life on Mars” seems far out of place, as it describes 19th century beliefs that paved the way for notions of little men in flying saucers. Arnold returns to the role of imagination in the UFO topic in the chapter “Going Hollywood,”  discussing how motion pictures featured tales of alien invaders in spaceships before 1947, but by 1950 Hollywood science fiction was rebranded as flying saucer thrillers. He says, “As time passed, it would sometimes be difficult to sort out which ideas about unidentified aerial phenomena referred to actual events versus those originating in fiction.”

 

In chapter 28, “The UFO Myth” Arnold discusses how decades after 1947, the narrative of the Roswell incident came to encapsulate flying saucer beliefs into a single package. Arnold again seems to turn to Jung for perspective, saying, “In their compelling stories, myths reveal much about the society in which they thrive. Thinking of things as right or wrong in absolute terms may be a mistake.” 

 

Several chapters focus on the US government’s attempts to wrestle with the UFO problem and examines several aspects of the approach such as in “National Security and the Culture of Secrecy,” “Unknown Knowns,” and “The Bureaucratic ­Merry-Go-Round.” In “Visitors from Mars,” Arnold reminds us that the Cold War with the Soviets had the US in a state of agitation and paranoia, fearful of aerial invasions and of security leaks about their own military aviation weapon developments. This real policy of secrecy fueled the belief in a government UFO cover-up.

 

The focus of chapter 14, “A Laughing Matter,” is on the toll of ridicule and “jeer pressure” from the press and public towards witnesses. Arnold states, “It surely seems likely that some unknown number of sightings was never reported officially to anyone. Whether any of those would significantly alter our understanding of the phenomenon remains unknown.” 

Readers may be disappointed in the lack of examination of the flying saucer photographs of 1947. The 17 photos and illustrations in the book provide a bit of historical flavor, but they are more decorative than evidentiary, mostly stock photos of locations, aircraft, sample documents, etc. In that sense, it was a poor choice for the publisher to use a UFO photo for the book’s cover rather than a more atmospheric illustration of the author’s exploration of the cultural aspect of the UFO enigma.

 

Is Flying Saucers Over America a good book? Yes, but not a perfect one. It would be a good choice to read and then share with friends and family who are unfamiliar but curious about the UFO topic and its history. You might bookmark it for them and suggest your own chapter order for optimal enjoyment. For example, if you know they’d be more interested in the US government’s involvement, have them read the chapters on Project Sign, Grudge, Blue Book before some of the other "lectures."

 

Even a UFO scholar is likely to benefit from Arnold’s perspective as he presents a mosaic of the flying saucer age, the big picture of how UFOs affected our culture, prompted governments to react, and stirred belief in many people.

The First UFO Pictures... & Cartoons

UFO Scrapbook: Artistic Depictions from the First Month of Flying Saucers

The first flying saucer picture? It may have been the one shown below, a drawing in the Idaho Statesman, June 28, 1947, based on the testimony of Kenneth Arnold.

 

Idaho Statesman, June 28, 1947

Arnold later wrote up an account of his sighting sent it to the Air Force, who acknowledged receipt of it on July 10, 1947. The report included Arnold’s own illustration of the objects he saw.

Newspaper UFO Illustrations 

In the early rush to cover the saucer mystery, you’d expect that newspaper articles would have featured witness sketches or artists’ renderings, but those were rare. Most of the artwork was by cartoonists and published on the editorial pages, frequently using the topic to satirize economic or political issues. Very few of the cartoons or illustrations dealt with theories of the origin of the UFOs, but there were a few interesting exceptions. Here’s our sampling of about twenty UFO drawings from the first month of saucers.

The Miami News, July 6, 1947, a gag about the economy.

 

Denver Post, July 6, 1947, featured an imaginative illustration of the interior of a flying saucer by Charles Schneeman, who had a long career before and after UFOs as a science fiction artist.

Caption:

“If you're one of the unimaginative people who haven’t yet seen a flying disc, this artist’s drawing might help you see one the next time you're outdoors. The drawing, by Post staff artist Charles Schneeman, shows his conception of the interior of a flying disc, always providing that there are such things, and that they are man-made. Part of the problematic crew is shown peering through a porthole at another of the sailing saucers. The disc jockeys at the controls, from left to right, are NOT Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Superman.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 7, 1947, a gag suggesting the sightings were the product of imagination, "intoxication" due to the fear of atomic war. 

Daily News, July 7, 1947: One legend eyes a new one invading its territory.

July 7, 1947: the International News Service sent out an illustration in connection with sightings in Idaho. It was signed by “CP” and the text stated, “Above is an artist's conception of what the now-you-see-them-now-you-don't discs might look like if they turn out to be man-made devices.”

Shortly afterwards, it was circulated as a general illustration in many papers: 

“HERE'S FLYING SAUCER as envisioned by artist after hearing latest ‘eyewitness’ reports. This saucer has everything but the cup and a man from Mars in the cockpit.”

These three address the economy, business, and politics.

Des Moines Tribune, July 8, 1947

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 8, 1947

Hartford Courant, July 8, 1947

At the time, few people were mentioning aliens in connections with saucers, and most of them were kooks or jokers. Denver Post, July 8, 1947, was one of the many newspapers featuring the satirical column by Hal Boyle, who claimed to have gone on a saucer voyage into space with a Martian cyclops. The Post’s version of the column included the illustration below, artist unknown.

The economy again and again:

Asbury Park Press, July 9, 1947

The Burlington Free Press, July 9, 1947

Crockery - literal flying saucers was a frequent theme.

Press and Sun Bulletin (Binghamton, NY) July 10, 1947

The Morning News (Wilmington, DE) July 10, 1947

The Times Record (Troy, NY) July 10, 1947

The cost of living...

The Gazette (Montreal, CA) July 12, 1947

The Marysville Advocate (KS) July 17, 1947

Arizona Republic, July 26, 1947

Now for something different, a collection showcasing the overuse of saucers in cartoons.

Florence Morning News (SC) July 20, 1947

In Life magazine July 21, 1947, “Speaking of Pictures” was a light-hearted illustrated article that compared the saucers to ancient apparitions and follies. The caption stated:   

“The explanation of the flying disks drawn by Boris Artzybasheff shows residents of the planet Neptune gleefully bombarding the universe with stacks of crockery fired by atomic saucer-launchers. Neptunians thus far have aimed only saucers at the earth (top) but more favored planets have been shelled with teapots and dinner plates.”

Muggs and Skeeter by Wally Bishop may have been the first daily comic strip to use a flying saucer gag.

The Press Democrat, July 27, 1947.

There's no date on this 1947 cartoon, but it’s worth including due to the ET Expedition gag. From the aviation cartoon series, “Plane Nonsense” by Floyd E. Hill.

We’ve saved this picture for last, a flying saucer that appeared in an advertisement one month before people were supposed to be seeing UFOs. It was a plug for the paper's comic strip section featuring a space ship "of tomorrow." The art was from Buck Rogers, where such things had been featured since 1929.

The Long Beach Independent, May 9, 1947.

Flying Saucer Clickbait from 1947

In the internet age we're familiar with "clickbait," but the concept was practiced in newspaper headlines and advertising long before the digital era. The collection below is of newspaper items published between July and September 1947, all using the popularity of UFOs as bait.

Flying saucers were frequently the topic of gags in editorial cartoons.

Newspapers would use any flying saucer element as a reason to print a novelty photo.

Also, see our previous article focusing on the exploitation of flying saucers and females for photos, The Saucer Pin-up Girls of 1947

Advertising is where things really wet wild. The words "Flying Saucers" would appear in an ad just to attract attention, no matter if they were selling shoes, insurance, or liquor. 

 Miscellaneous Classified Ads

Bicycles and Children's Shoes

Car Loans, Grocery Stores, Furniture, Underwear...

 Insurance

Restaurants and Liquor Stores

This advertiser was an early adopter of the consciousness movement in UFOs. Uncle Mike proposed that contact might be initiated by reaching an altered state.

Our earlier article on 1947 UFO exploitation featured a look at  promotional stunts where airplanes dropped paper plate "flying saucers" with advertising. In many of those campaigns the captured saucer had a message telling the finder to go to the business to claim a discount or prize. Be sure to read, When Flying Saucers Dropped on the USA

Right from the start, UFOs were commercialized, and it's not much different today. Merchandise, celebrities, and hucksters often command more attention than the mysteries over our heads. We need to stop, tale a breath and...

Watch the skies!