Triangular UFO Formation in Idaho, July 24, 1949

The U.S. Air Force admitted in 1952 that while most UFOs could be explained, others remained unidentified, including some “reports that have been made by credible observers of relatively incredible things.” This is one of those cases.

It happened just after noon on July 24, 1949, and involved a credible observer who was not seeking publicity. He reported a daylight encounter with a formation of unknown triangular aircraft demonstrating extraordinary maneuvers and performance. As they blew past his plane, electromagnetic interference affected his engine.

 

Piper Clipper, type of plane flown by the witness.

The news was published in The Idaho Statesman, July 25, 1949, written by Dave Johnson, Aviation Editor. The lone witness spoke to authorities but insisted his name be kept out of the press.

Here's a slightly condensed version, from the paper’s evening edition:

Strange Flying Objects Leave Boise…

Investigation By Air Force To Be Started
Mysterious Craft Pass
Frightened Flyer
At Very Close Range

 A Boise valley pilot told Sunday of seeing seven V-shaped flying objects at close range over the Mountain Home desert, and said the experience left him “frightened and shaken.”

The strange craft, he said, were not United States aircraft, as far as he could determine, and they had no visible means of propulsion, yet traveled at what he said was a “tremendous rate of speed.”

It has been learned that the Air Force's intelligence division is sending an operative to investigate the incident.  The Boise valley pilot released the information only on the condition that his name not be used.  He is the manager of one of the valley's major airports.

The pilot said the seven objects, or aircraft, came within 1000 or 2000 feet of his plane as he was flying toward Boise, about 10 miles west of Mountain Home.

No Pilot Discernible

They looked like a V, he said, with a circular body within the V and a belly-like object sitting under the nose of the V.  He said that he could see no sign of a pilot or “anything like a human being” in the aircraft.

The color, he said, was not the metallic color one usually associates with military aircraft.  He said it was “neither white nor gray” but a shade that he had never seen before.

A circular portion of the body just behind the nose of the V appeared to change in color from time to time, he said, and the outer edges of the V seemed to [oscillate] once or twice during the two minutes he had the craft under observation.

The pilot saw the objects at 12:05 p.m. yesterday while he was at an altitude of 10,000 feet on the right hand side of the highway from Mountain Home to Boise.

No Markings on Craft 

He said the objects came up from his left side at about 9000 feet and crossed in front of his plane to the right, and disappeared on an easterly heading at “tremendous speed.”

There were no visible markings on the craft, he said. Their formation was unlike any ordinary military formation flying. He said they were in two “tight lines of three each, with the seventh object either in the middle of the lines or slightly above.”

He said he could not see a propeller or any smoke trail indicating jet or rocket power in the objects.

The pilot said the objects departed between the mountains and the town of Mountain Home. The Mountain Home air base, informed of the occurrence, said it had “no experimental aircraft on the field.”

And, the Air Force's flight center at McChord Field, Wash., said no formation of aircraft had been cleared through this area. The pilot said the experience left him with a “funny, ghostly feeling.”

The Associated Press and United Press news agencies picked up the story and it spread nationwide.

Associated Press story - Tyler Morning Telegraph, July 25, 1949

The Air Force File

At the time, Unidentified Aerial Objects were being investigated by the U.S. Air Force under Project Grudge, and they were on this case immediately. The information that follows is chiefly based upon the file held in the records of Project Blue Book and contains details far beyond what appeared in the press.

 

Clark’s sketches of the UFO made for the Air Force

Harry Frank Clark leased the small Ritchey Field Airport from the city of Nampa, Idaho in 1939, serving as its manager. He also opened Clark’s Flying Service there with his wife Vivienne, the business including crop dusting and a flight school. During World War II, he was a commander in the local Civil Air Patrol, a flight instructor training pilots for the U.S. Army and Navy. (For further biographical details, see the 1940s entry from Who’s Who for Idaho.)

Harry Frank Clark (1899–1988)

At the time of his sighting, Harry Clark was 49 years old, with 21 years of flying experience. He was flying his new Piper Clipper in a nearly cloudless sky, visibility excellent. Clark initially thought he was seeing F-51 Mustangs in an unusual formation until he got a closer look and saw the shape was all wrong. These objects had a and they had a larger wingspan than a Mustang and were flying at about twice its top speed. He assumed the objects were metal airframes, but their color was, “Darker than normal aluminum skin and not shiny. …seemed to be between a light gray and a dirty white with no markings…” They had no visible means of propulsion, no windows or portholes, and the flat triangles scarcely had room for a person or an engine as we know it.

 

F-51 Mustang compared to the UFO.

The description of the UFOs from the Project Grudge interviews: 

“…Clark said they were delta shaped flying wings. He estimated their span as being between that of an F-51 and an A-26 aircraft (35 to 55 feet), their length (nose to trailing edge) at about 20 to 30 feet, and their thickness at 2 to 5 feet. Clark said that the objects were a light color except for a circle of dark color of approximately 12 feet in diameter… and that the bottom of the object was flat except for a shallow dome-like protrusion of approximately 10-12 feet in diameter, with a depth of approximately 2 to 5 feet.”

 

The report by Lt. Col. Earl J. Liversay report described the maneuvers in the aerial encounter:

“Mr. Clark was enroute from Burley, Idaho, to Nampa, Idaho, in a Cub Cruiser when the objects were sighted. When the formation was first sighted they were going in approximately the same direction as Mr. Clark and were approximately one-fourth (1/4) of a mile to his left and below. Mr. Clark was cruising at ten (10) thousand feet at the time. He observed the formation until it made the one hundred and eighty (180) degree turn at which time Mr. Clark descended in his aircraft and made a ninety (90) degree turn to the left in an effort to intercept the formation. He was able to get below the level of the formation at eight (8) thousand five (5) hundred feet at which time he noticed the dark circular bulge on the bottom side of the objects. Because of their speed the flying objects soon became lost from the sight of Mr. Clark who proceeded on to his destination. Mr. Clark is known personally by Captain [redacted] of this organization who states that in his opinion Mr. Clark is a reliable witness.” 

Simulated approximation of the UFO formation.

When the objects made their 180-degree turn, Clark thought they were attacking his plane. The extraordinary maneuver was made in unison by the formation of objects, “without a bank or skid.” Clark originally observed the objects from above but as they changed course, got a good look at them from the front and in profile. As they flew past him, he expected great turbulence but there was nothing, not even a sound. However, his plane engine began running rough. The objects flew away from him at 600 mph or so, but they did not gradually fade from view as expected, they suddenly “disappeared from sight.”

 

After a few minutes’ thought, Clark made an emergency radio transmission to Gowen Field (Boise, Idaho) asking them to check for aircraft in the area. The results were negative, and a subsequent Air Force inquiry found no records of any military aircraft flying in the area.

 

Once he landed back at his airfield in Nampa, Clark had a mechanic inspect the engine. All eight of his spark plugs were found to have “been shorted and burned out,” and were discarded and replaced. When the Air Force investigator asked for them, only seven were found in the waste can. They were examined at the lab at Wright-Patterson AFB. “A test of the spark plugs from Clark’s plane failed to show any evidence of having broken down and were found to be entirely serviceable." The files provide no insight into the conflicting information.

 

Unidentified

 

The Air Force investigated into September, but were unable to locate any additional witnesses, or anything to either prove or disprove Clark’s report, eventually the case was closed as “Unidentified.”

The 30-page file can be read at Fold3, 24 July 1949, Mt Home, Idaho. Or at NICAP’s site in a single PDF.

Harry Clark did not seek fame as a UFO witness and as far as is known, his life was not disrupted by the sighting. He continued to operate his flying service until his retirement in 1975. He died Jan. 4, 1988, and was buried in Caldwell, Canyon, Idaho. No mention of the UFO sighting was made in his obituary, which can be found at the Find a Grave site.

Noah Clubb and the UFO Crash Retrieval Case

There’s a UFO crash retrieval case that’s been forgotten. In April 1949, newspapers reported that fragments from a flying saucer had been recovered, and were being examined by the Air Force. 

The story begins like another you may have heard, with a rancher finding some strange metal debris from the crash of an unidentified flying object. While riding on horseback in late April 1946, rancher Noah L. Clubb was in an open, rocky treeless terrain 6 miles south-southwest of Delta Colorado when he made a discovery, but it wasn’t made public until three years later. Clubb was 55 years old at the time, a respected citizen and family man, not prone to foolishness. After seeing the constant news coverage about flying saucers, he came forward with what he’d found, and dutifully reported it to the authorities. The story as disclosed in the United Press article from April 7, 1949: 

Flying Disc Segments Recovered in Colorado 

MONTROSE, Colo. (UP) Air force intelligence men have recovered two segments of what may have been one of the flying discs that caused widespread speculation during the summer of 1947, and have supposedly been seen during the last few days. One of the segments was in the possession of Noah L. Clubb of Montrose, until he was requested Tuesday to turn it over to the intelligence men. The intelligence men were reported to have spent two days scouring a mile square section of rugged country about 15 miles west of Delta, where a second and longer segment was reported found. Pieced together the segments evidently were part of a wheel-shaped instrument about four feet in diameter, the rim being of aluminum construction. It was slightly less than two inches across and one inch thick. On the inner edge of the wheel, at intervals of about three inches, were tube-like wicks about two inches long and of brass construction. Each wick, which witnesses said might have been fuel feeders, bore an even number.

 Another version from the Santa Cruz Sentinel, April 7, 1949.

It seems too close in time for it to be coincidence, but the same month, the FBI was also being questioned about the recovery of a flying saucer, one said to be made in Japan.

Believe It or Not!

Robert Ripley was the creator of the famous Ripley's Believe It or Not! newspaper panel series, then brought the franchise to radio, then as an NBC television show in March 1949. 

On April 13, 1949, Ripley sent a Western Union telegram to radio commentator Walter Winchell: 

“Have the only authentic Japanese flying saucer ever recovered in this country. … Would like very much to have you join me on the Believe it or Not television show next Tuesday April 19th NBC network 9:30 to 10:00 PM and give your comments on the flying disc and your exclusive knowledge…”

Winchell forwarded the telegram to the FBI with the handwritten note:

“To J. Edgar Hoover – True?” 

FBI files contain an Office Memorandum. Subject: Flying Discs. To: Mr. [Redacted], From: [Redacted] 26 May 49. An FBI agent consulted Colonel [Redacted] of USAF Office of Special Investigations (OSI) about a recovered saucer. For whatever reason, the results were negative:

“He advised he would check with the authorities at right field to determine if any information is available concerning the recovery of a Japanese flying saucer. Colonel [Redacted] has now advised that there is no information available in any arm of the Air Force to the effect that any flying saucers of any kind have been recovered in the United States.”

FBI “Unexplained Phenomenon” files pages 26 and 27 of, “UFO Part 6”
https://vault.fbi.gov/UFO/UFO%20Part%206%20of%2016/view#document/p26
https://vault.fbi.gov/UFO/UFO%20Part%206%20of%2016/view#document/p27

Robert Ripley died weeks later of a heart attack at the age of 59, on May 27, 1949. We found no mention elsewhere of Ripley presenting a Japanese flying saucer anywhere, so apparently his plans did not come together. Read on to see how his claims may have been connected to the UFO parts discovered by Noah Clubb.

Back to the Saucer Debris Investigation

Like with the Roswell flying disc story, the mystery of Clubb’s saucer was solved in one day. 

Project Blue Book file: 4 April 1949, X Delta, Colorado 

From page 5 of the April 8, 1949, Phoenix, Arizona Republic:

Relic Is Identified As Jap War Gadget 

DENVER, Apr. 7 (AP) That "whazzit" found in Southwestern Colorado wasn't a forerunner of a new war. It was a relic of the old one part of a Japanese incendiary balloon. So said Maj. Lester J. Seibert of the Lowry Air Force Base office of special investigation Thursday. Noah Clubb found the curved, hollow piece of metal near Montrose Wednesday. Knobs protruded from the inside of what looked like a small portion of a wagon wheel.

As is often the case, the hype gets the newspaper front page, but the disappointing correction that follows gets lost deep inside. Far more people saw the initial story than the news it was solved.

Project Blue Book files state that the Air Force investigators recovered about half of the device and shipped them to Wright Field to be photographed and examined. The fragments were determined to be: “Definitely identified as ballast ring from a Japanese incendiary balloon.” 

Noah Clubb was named, but his discovery was discussed in “Something in the Sky,” for Daniel Lang's “A Reporter at Large” column for the Sept. 6, 1952, New Yorker Magazine. (Later collected in his 1954 book, The Man in the Thick Lead Suit.)

For a time in the spring of 1949, it looked as though a Colorado rancher had been harboring a piece of a flying saucer for three years. Back in April, 1946, the rancher, riding his horse on a high, rocky mesa, had come across a bit of tattered rigging attached to a steel ring. He took it back to his house, tossed it into a closet, and forgot about it. Then, belatedly reflecting on the wave of saucer sightings, he recalled the contraption in his closet. He showed it to two friends, one of whom, an omniscient type, stated definitely that it was part of a flying saucer. ‘I've seen too many saucers not to know one when I'm holding one in my own hand,'’ he said. The rancher forwarded his find to Wright Field, where it was identified as a remnant of one of the incendiary balloons the hopeful Japanese dispatched across the Pacific during the war in an effort to start forest fires.

The Pre-Saucer US Government Cover-Up

In 1944-5, over 9,000 incendiary balloons were launched from Japan’s island of Honshu. The balloons travelled at a high-altitude across the over the Pacific Ocean carried by the high-speed currents of the jet stream. Fu-go: The Curious History of Japan's Balloon Bomb Attack on America by Ross Coen provides more information. The balloons were fusen bakudan (balloon bombs), but the Japanese Imperial Army gave them the code name fu-go. 

“Measuring over 30 feet in diameter and filled with hydrogen… Each balloon carried four incendiary bombs and one thirty-pound high explosive bomb, all designed to drop in a timed sequence once the vehicle had completed its transoceanic voyage…” 

These balloon flights resemble later UFO events in a few ways. There was a government policy of secrecy, and it had two goals, prevent the Japanese military from getting valuable targeting information, and to avoid a public panic. Western Air Command held meetings with civilian pilots who were asked to report sightings to the military while remaining silent to the general public. Many confirmed sightings were reported, but there were also many false ones, the most common cause for which was the planet Venus. One report not made public at the time, was from a credible witness reported a relatively incredible thing. A woman in Selawik, Alaska claimed to have seen a balloon in the middle of the night from which “Little Men came down a ladder to the earth.” The local Alaska Territory Guard searched the area but found nothing.

Of the thousands of fu-gos launched, only about 300 were known to make it to North America, most in the U.S., some seen or discovered in Canada and Mexico. Most of them caused no harm, with one notable exception. On May 5, 1945, Bly, Oregon, minister Archie Mitchell, his pregnant wife Elsie, and five children from their Sunday school class were on a morning picnic. As Mitchell parked the car, the others found a strange balloon on the ground. The bomb it carried exploding and all six people were killed. The site of the tragedy is now marked by the Mitchell Monument to honor the only Americans killed by enemy action during World War II in the continental United States. 

Noah’s discovery has been forgotten for the most part by ufologists, but Rick Hilberg included a partial account of his story in “Saucer Fragments” in Flying Saucer Digest, Fall 1970.

As far as we can tell, Noah Clubb lived a full life thereafter away from the flying saucer business. He died on the morning of Nov. 15, 1970, at the age of 76.

. . .

Months after Noah Clubb's discovery, a few miles south of Baltimore, Maryland, the Air Force was called out to investigate the remains of  flying saucer discovered in a barn.

The OTHER Air Force Captured Flying Saucer Retraction

The OTHER Air Force Captured Flying Saucer Retraction

UFOs are nothing more than misidentified conventional objects with a few hoaxes in the mix. That was the message of the notorious anti-saucer article in the April 30, 1949 issue of  The Saturday Evening Post, “What You Can Believe About Flying Saucers” by Sidney Shalett, written with the support and cooperation of the US Air Force. 

The article prompted an interesting response that led to an official investigation. In May Stewart Smith of Baltimore, Maryland, wrote to the Air Force saying he believed that inventor Jonathan E. Caldwell's company was making the flying saucers. The AF's Office of Special Investigations assigned the job to Captain Claudius Belk, and with the help of the Maryland State Police, he made a discovery in an old tobacco barn in Glen Burnie. The news broke on August 20, 1949.

The Air Force made the hasty statement that they'd discovered the origin of the flying saucers. The press went wild. After they had a chance to examine what was actually found, the Air Force issued a retraction, a bit like what had happened two years earlier with the Roswell debris.

An early photo of a Caldwell plane in pristine condition.

UFX is the site of ufologist Joel Carpenter, who passed away in 2014. It hosts Carpenter's 1996 article which is the definitive examination of the case, linked from the home page as, "Roswell: The Sequel." 

Flying Saucers Found In Maryland!

The Glen Burnie Incident: the Air Force's Second Officially Announced Flying Saucer Capture

Part 1: Flying Saucers Found In Maryland!

Part 2: Caldwell's Saucers 

Part 3: The OSI Discovery

Part 4: Glen Burnie's Aftermath 

In Joel Carpenter’s article, he likened the case to the reporting of the 1947 Roswell saucer story, and said:

“The Glen Burnie Incident offers a different perspective on the Air Force's handling of the flying saucer phenomenon circa 1949… The Glen Burnie fiasco also reveals that the problems the Air Force faced regarding flying saucer press relations remained unsolved. Twice within little more than two years senior Air Force officers were forced to issue strong statements denying hasty claims by lower levels that genuine flying saucers had been retrieved.”

That chaotic press coverage is perhaps the most interesting, particularly since we are still dealing with the same kind of problem today. We’ve collected a few examples of the sensational and often misleading newspaper headlines. 

The news coverage from Aug. 20:

An Air Force  spokesman stated: "It Is apparent that both ships would give the appearance of flying discs. They could well be the prototype of what have been reported as flying saucers."

A day later, the Air Force put on the brakes. On Aug. 21, the retraction:

"The Air Force states that the two experimental aircraft found near Baltimore, Md. yesterday have absolutely no connection with the reported phenomenon of flying saucers. Neither its configuration nor its reported characteristics of flight would qualify it to be related to the reports of flying saucers."

Even with the facts in hand, some newspapers continued to spread confusion. The same United Press  story as packaged by two different editors.

A few days late, one editorial tried to take it all in stride, as part of the cost of searching for the truth.

Jonathan E. Caldwell, the "missing" inventor had just moved from Maryland to Nevada. He was still developing aircraft, but he said none of his machines had anything to do with the flying saucers. 

The Project Sign Investigation

Project Blue Book files contain 14 pages of photos on the case and a 53-pages of documents on their investigation, including copies of some of the original newspaper stories. Failing to have a classification for "embarrassing mistake and public relations fiasco," the Air Force designated the case a hoax.

Project Sign: August 17, 1949, Glen Burnie, Maryland 

Operation Hush-Hush: The UFO Crash and ET Bodies Cover-Up

Frank Scully was a Hollywood gossip columnist, with "Scully's Scrapbook" dishing up tinseltown gab for Variety magazine. Scully was also a respected reviewer of literature and wrote a few books of his own. In 1949, he published two Variety columns on the discovery of flying saucers (Aztec) and a follow-up piece Jan. 11, 1950 with 20 questions he thought the Air Force should answer, accusing the US Government of covering things up.

https://archive.org/stream/variety177-1950-01#page/n351/mode/2up

Those columns laid the foundation for what is arguably, the most influential book in UFO history, Behind the Flying Saucers, the original story of the cover-up of small alien bodies retrieved from captured UFOs in New Mexico. The tale also featured other elements that would later resurface in the resurrection and expansion of the story of the saucer debris taken to Roswell, such as the recovery and scientific examination of the spaceship's strange light metal, advanced technology and the dead aliens it contained.

The saucer story itself was thin, barely fleshed out from Scully's sketchy columns, but he added details about how oilman Silas Newton had heard about the discs from the mysterious magnetic research scientist Scully called "Dr. Gee," and there was extensive discussion of how the saucers were constructed on the "System of Nines," and flew using magnetic propulsion. Newton was interested in using that alien magnetic technology to detect oil, and that would come to play an important role in his future.

Silas Newton and Frank Scully

There were no verifiable details or evidence presented to prove the saucer tale, but then Scully said the Pentagon had it all, concealed by "Operation Hush-Hush." The book also featured a lot of padding or filler, including quotes from early news flying saucer stories, titled, "The Post-Fortean File 1947-1950," ironically, ultimately the most genuine and valuable part of the volume.

Scully secured a lucrative deal with major hardcover book publisher, Henry Holt and Co., whereas Donald Keyhoe's book was merely a paperback by Fawcett's Gold Medal Books. Behind the Flying Saucers became an international bestseller, a hit in hardcover and in paperback reprints. Here's a collection of items by (and on) Scully that didn't make it into his book.

Toledo Blade, Sept. 25, 1950

Variety: Scully’s Scrapbook, May 10, 1950

Frank Scully claimed he was surprised by being asked to make a premature disclosure about his UFO book. It was on May 6, 1950, at a banquet hosted by Hollywood screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewcz was at Ciro’s in Los Angeles:

Then Mank threw me to the Lions... grabbed the mike and said I was writing a book on flying saucers and he was sure the Columbia alumni would rather hear about that more than anything else.  

So l had to violate my oath of office and talk for 15 minutes, striving desperately not to tell these diners anything of the sort. Surely Mank must have known that the first rule of a hep literati is, “Don’t tell it, sell it!” In the second place, why should I go to jail for Telling All before I get the book out? And in the third place, I’ve noticed only too often that people who get it through their ears never bother to get it through their eyes. Besides, if Henry Holt & Co. knew I was going around talking about this book instead of writing it; they’d slug me with a flying saucer, magnetically directed to hit me right where it would hurt most; which at this moment, due to millions of units of penicillin injections that read like a Truman budget, Would be right where I’d like it least. 

So these are some of the reasons I dummied up and wouldn’t talk about “Behind the Flying Saucers” (July, 1950, $2.75 all bookstores).

Variety, Nov. 22, 1950

Variety: Scully's Scrapbook, Nov. 22, 1950
Scully toots his own horn by reprinting an interview he'd given with a local paper.
(Full text below clipping.)

Scully's Scrapbook, Variety, Nov. 22, 1950

Scully’s Scrapbook

By Frank Scully

College Inn, Nov. 17. 

Among the sea of letters, clippings and exhibits, which have all but swamped Bedside Manor since I became the Saucerian ambassador (without portfolio) to the Pentagon, 98% have been favorable. Some of the best have come from those between the ages of 14 and 30. In fact in a coming issue of Pageant I am printing one from a 14-year-old 

amateur astronomer. But the best has just come from a 20-year-old student specializing in music at DePaul University, Chicago. 

His name is Richard Wyszynski. I realize that such a name more properly belongs in a Notre Dame backfield but this boy was fast, too. He chased me over half of Chicago and cornered me at the Bismarck hotel just when I was trying to get away from it all by catching a revival of vaude at the RKO Palace. I even offered to settle by taking him to the show and shelve the interview. But he said he could catch the show any time and wouldn’t take long to get his story because he had his questions all typed out. 

He was true to his word, and later we caught Belle Baker, whose son I understand is a nut on flying saucers; Smith and Dale, Frank Paris and others— a grand bill and a full house. 

Frankly I never expected to hear from Richard the Lion Hearted again but in the current DePaulia his piece is printed, and if Readers Digest can reprint the cream of the crop, why can’t I? Here then is the Scully Award for the Best Reporting of 1950: 

Frank Scully’s Theories on Flying Saucers 

By Richard Wyszynski 

Last year about this time, a man named Frank Scully wrote in his column in Variety that flying saucer had been dismantled and investigated. Since that time, Scully, an elderly gray-haired man who moves along at a spirited clip and talks in a low strong voice, has had his book “Behind The Flying Saucers” (On which he has been working since 1947) published and brought before the public. The book has risen from 13th to 4th place among the nation’s reading, but several areas in the country remain aloof from the book, and that’s why Scully was shuffled into Chicago, a few weeks ago, which also provided the fortunate opportunity for this private interview, coincidentally exactly a year after his first saucer article appeared in Variety. 

For those unacquainted with the lore of the airborne ovals, I might explain that Scully, along with Donald Keyhoe, Commander Robert McLaughlin U.S.N. (now serving sea duty) and 5% of the nation’s populace (according to Gallup, May 22, 1950) thoroughly believes that saucers are guided interplanetary space ships. 

Scully differs from his contemporaries in favoring Venus as the home planet of the discs and embracing magnetic force as the means of the ships’ propulsion. According to this theory, these ships ride on or across magnetic lines of force of which there are 1,257 to the square centimeter throughout the universe. In his book, Scully explained the instances of the mysterious lecturer at the University of Denver who amazed the students with his information on saucers, and also proclaimed that of all the saucers which landed here, none remain intact, although various parts of these missiles were hurriedly recalled by Washington from official personnel who had ransacked the saucers. The book also contained a detailed explanation of magnetic forces and a history of the antagonistic struggle between the Air Force and saucer-writers. 

When the book came out, it caused a lot of “backstage screaming” and one friend of Scully’s said: “Somebody in the Pentagon is going to have a hemorrhage.” When Scully wrote that valuable parts of the grounded saucers had been carelessly taken by personnel as souvenirs, the Air Force made a hasty summons for all disc equipment not in their possession. The Pentagonians, however, still ignored the twenty direct questions Which Scully fired at them in Variety and in his book (and in several newspapers which reprinted the article), although the Rosenwald Museum in this city took the trouble to refute any reports of an exhibit of a Venusian corpse in its display dealing with the growth of the human body. 

The Airforce fears 1) panic 2) revelation of military secrets if they let out all their data on saucers, they could reveal only that information which would not endanger national security, but Scully doesn’t accredit them with the necessary intelligence to do this. He also believes that secrecy-for-security-s’il-vous-plait requests from Washington have stifled any available reports from men stationed at Palomar, world’s most powerful telescope. 

Venusians Curious 

Scully’s train of thought on our global neighbors runs along these lines: the Venusians, maintaining the quality of curiosity, sent their reconnaissance force to investigate the atomic detonations of the past five years. There have been only two instances of hostility: the scattering of Captain Mantell’s body and F-51 over the Fort Knox countryside after a high and hot pursuit of a flying saucer, and the head-on crash challenge offered to Lt. George Gorman after his 27-minute dogfight with a disc above Fargo, North Dakota. (At the last moment, Gorman decided not to risk his skull on something so weird and relinquished the chase) Scully believes that the Venusians of the grounded saucer died not because they couldn’t maintain level flight over our magnetic fault zones, but because they hadn’t mastered the means of safe disembarkation into the atmosphere of this planet. The difference in gravitation between Venus' and Terra may account for the Venusian’s small, but proportionally accurate, sizes. 

Scully also affirmed three statements, to the effect that: 1, The mysterious lights sighted over Sweden for such a long period of time shortly after World War II were probably caused by fractures of magnetic forces of flying saucers. (The Aurora Borealis is an example of resplendent light caused by “fractures” of magnetic disturbances). 2. The United States of America has a defense weapon utilizing magnetic force. 3. Scientists, in their highly developed work with this secretive power of destruction, are actually defending the country more effectively than the Air Force, which should be considerably distressing to Major Alexander P. DeSeversky. 

States Disgust for National Officials 

Frank Scully is thoroughly disgusted with the foibles of inefficient officials stationed in the nation’s capital throughout past several decades; he stated that if he would’ve been president at Woodrow Wilson’s time, this country would’ve been saved a lot of trouble.

Scully likes to to “work out in the open” and that is just what he is doing in his book. He compares himself to a writer in the 15th century revealing the facts of modern civilization and being subject to the condemnation of the people of the time. His work is not that of a theorist, nor of a scientist, nor even of a witness, of a flying saucer; he is strictly a reporter trying to do his job as he sees fit and finding it to be a pretty rough task.

And in trying to separate the fact from the fantasy, if what Scully reports is all wet, why is the Pentagon so perturbed ... why has Scully’s phone been tapped for the last three years? And if this data turns out to be completely authentic, cannot the American people extend their concept of existence past the barriers of this globe and into the universe? Perhaps it is as Mr. and Mrs. Scully both said to me: “They don’t believe in them because they're scared. We seem to be scared of practically everything these days.

- - -

De Flygande Tefaten and The Journal of a Flying Saucerian

In 1952, Billboard magazine reported that Frank Scully's book was being circulated all over the world, and he was working on a second UFO volume, to be titled, "The Journal of a Flying Saucerian."

Billboard Aug. 6, 1952

Billboard Aug. 20, 1952

Billboard makes a mention of the debunking of Scully's Behind the Flying Saucers. It was published in True magazine's September, 1952 issue, an article by J.P. Cahn titled, "'The Flying Saucers and the Mysterious Little Men." It exposed the story as a hoax and ultimately put crashed saucer stories out of business until the 1970s. For more on J.P. Cahn's article and the follow up, see debunker Robert Sheaffer's page, The Frank Scully "Crashed Saucer" Hoax (1950).

The influence of Silas Newton's saucer tale and Scully's book is incredibly far-reaching, and we'll return to other facets of the story in future installments here at The Saucers That Time Forgot.