The First UFO Documentary: The Flying Saucer Mystery

The Flying Saucer Mystery, 1950

Telenews Theater and advertisement 

Telenews Theater opened Sept. 1, 1939, in San Francisco, but instead of feature films, it was exclusively devoted to screening non-stop newsreel footage. With its success, they opened a chain of 13 theaters in major cities across the USA, and as Telenews Productions, Inc., began making their own newsreels. In late 1950, Telenews released a 9½ minute film made with Hoffberg Productions, Inc., The Flying Saucer Mystery.

Motion Picture Daily, Jan. 8, 1951

Oakland Tribune, Nov. 17, 1950, Detroit Free Press, Feb. 22, 1951

At the time it was made, the Air Force said it had disbanded “Project Saucer,” the government’s study of the UFO problem, but the problem hadn’t gone away. The short film did not try to cover the history of UFOs up to that point, just discussed the controversy that was underway. It does not mention Kenneth Arnold, but he can be seen among the pilots pictured in the July 1950 issue of Flying magazine, in the article "Flying Saucers — Fact or Fiction?" Another magazine article discussed was U.S. News & World Report, April 7, 1950, “Flying Saucers: The Real Story," an article that stated the UFOs were real aircraft, most likely, experimental craft developed by the U.S. Navy. In response to such claims, Navy admiral Calvin Bolster appears, making a statement denying the allegations.

See the sources section for links to these articles.

The film's main focus was on the best new evidence of 1950, the alleged first authentic photographs and motion picture film of flying saucers, the two snapshots by farmer Paul Trent, and the film shot by television cameraman Al Hixenbaugh. It also featured UFO witness, Arthur Weisberger of Tucson, Arizona, describing his sighting, apparently the only record of the event.

Trent, photos, Al Hixenbaugh film, Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, NY June, 29, 1950

The credits for the production are apparently lost, but the film featured the following people discussing UFOs: 

• Admiral Calvin Bolster, USN
• Commander Robert McLaughlin, USN (quoted, but not shown)
• Arthur Weisberger, witness
• Sid Mautner, executive editor of International News Photos
• Donald E. Keyhoe, author, “The Flying Saucers are Real”

The film was apparently only shown for a few months, and rotated among the Telenews Theaters across the nation. While many thousands of people must have seen it, it didn’t reach to millions at their homes like radio broadcasts and daily newspapers. Still, it was important.

The documentary was very much prompted by Donald Keyhoe’s work, and it’s fitting that they saved him as the final speaker. Admiral Bolster was an Annapolis classmate and friend of Keyhoe’s, and one of his military sources on flying saucers as well.

The Flying Saucer Mystery owes much to the controversy stirred up by Donald Keyhoe’s article in the Jan. 1950 issue of True magazine, and serves as a valuable document to the public’s evolving beliefs about UFOs. It addressed the popular notion promoted at the time that saucers were a secret weapon by the US military, and the statement by Navy Admiral Bolster can be taken as a gentle acknowledgment that flying saucers are real. The public’s attitude at the time seemed to be, that some of the saucer reports were true - and just maybe, the things came from outer space.

Some Notes on the Saucer Simulation

The flying saucer simulation that opens and closes the film was taken from the March 3, 1950 episode of the television show, “We the People,” where Commander Robert McLaughlin was a guest. McLaughlin was the author of an article in True magazine, titled “How Scientists Tracked a Flying Saucer.” In the story, he described the April 24, 1949 sighting by Professor Charles B. Moore, and theorized about the design and performance of the kind of  spaceship he thought it might be. It was an flattened oval shape, with a grid-like rear that housed it’s interplanetary propulsion system. The TV show made a faithful model, but then botched the job by having it spin through space like a lopsided pancake. Nevertheless, McLaughlin’s design became one of the most famous UFOs in history when it was used as the basis for Donald Keyhoe’s famous paperback cover.  

Thanks to Luis Taylor the UFO researcher behind Information Dispersal, who sent of scans of the flyer advertising the movie for exhibitors in the UK.

Below is the transcript for the 1950 documentary. 

Transcript: The Flying Saucer Mystery, 1950 

The Flying Saucer Mystery, 1950 on YouTube

Narrator:

The Flying Saucer: a twentieth-century mystery that cannot be ignored. The strange disks have been reported by hundreds of sober Americans since 1947. Just what did these see? Man has dreamt a flight of, conquering gravity from ancient times to the present. In imagination, he has travelled the skies in fantastic machines. Fifty years ago, this flying saucer was an illustration for H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. Are the flying saucers things of fantasy? 

Some say they're natural objects, meteors or bright stars transformed by imagination into discs of mystery. Others say the saucers are weather balloons, common enough in the sky and easily mistaken for a disk. These theories were checked when the Armed Forces investigated the flying saucers. Admiral Calvin Bolster of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics gives his conclusions. 

Admiral Calvin Bolster:

“These balloons might explain isolated cases of circular-shaped unidentified objects flying at altitudes, extreme altitudes that have been reported. However, I do not feel that these balloons explain the majority of the so-called flying saucer sightings that have appeared in the press.”

Narrator:

People saw something, something not a balloon, not a meteor, not a hallucination. Reliable witnesses have sighted them over nearly every major city, along our airlines over secret research areas. In True magazine, Commander Robert McLaughlin a Navy guided missiles expert told the flying saucers detected by radar over White Sands, New Mexico. Scientists were try rocket suddenly detected a saucer at 56 miles altitude over 100 feet in diameter. The disc was traveling at 1,800 miles per hour, rapidly out-ranged their instruments. But there had been time for precise accurate measurements, says McLaughlin, That saucer could not have been made on earth.”

Airline pilots with thousands of hours experience have reported saucers coming within a few hundred feet of their planes matching speed briefly and then darting off at supersonic speed leaving a glowing exhaust trail. Student pilot Arthur Weisberger reports on his experience. 

Arthur Weisberger:

“My name is Arthur Weisberger. On July 21st Tucson, Arizona, while out on my backyard, three shiny objects in the sky attracted my attention. I glanced up and there were three flying saucers in a V, approximately a half a mile away from me at an altitude of 350 feet. They appeared to be hovering in midair with that I believe to be a spinning action. The saucers stayed still for approximately 40 seconds, and then took off due north horizontally. From a dead stop, these saucers exceeded a rate of 500 miles an hour for approximately five seconds, still going horizontally due north towards the Santa Catalina Mountains. At the end of five seconds, they went at approximately 45 degrees straight, well, up. They exceeded a thousand miles an hour until they vanished from sight. They appeared to be 50 feet in diameter, with what appeared to be a dome on the top with, I can't be sure but, I believe I saw the sun glinting off of, well, windows or observation portholes of a sort.”

(3:50 Trent photos)

Narrator:

What people saw is reveal clearly by this remarkable International News photo, the first ever taken of a flying saucer. It's one of two pictures made early this year by farmer Paul Trent of McMinnville, Oregon. Enlarged, the photo reveals clearly the familiar disc shape. Trent was able to snap only two photos of the saucer. He estimates the size at about 20 or 30 feet, says that from a near hovering position when first seen, it accelerated rapidly and vanished from sight in no time at all. Note the control tower in the center referred to by Weisberger. This enlargement shows it to be vertical compared with the saucer’s angle of flight. Sid Mautner, executive editor of International News Photos comments on these unusual pictures. 

Sid Mautner:

“Our agency refused to release photographs of the purported flying saucer to the newspapers of the country until we could inspect the original negatives. We now have the the negatives in hand, and I can vouch for the fact that they have not been retouched or faked in any way, and that they are indeed actual photographs of a so-called flying saucer.”

(5:24 Al Hixenbaugh film)

Narrator:

Latest evidence in the saucer mystery are these exclusive motion picture films from Louisville, Kentucky, the first scenes ever made of a flying saucer. Note the white halo around the saucer, an effect reported by some observers. Slightly irregular in shape, the disk appears to be rotating and to possess a dancing motion against the background. A staff cameraman of TV station WHAS was on routine assignment when he heard a loud whooshing sound overhead. Looking up, he saw the saucer hovering in the sky. After two minutes the disc accelerated and vanished directly upwards. An investigation revealed no weather balloons aloft at the time.

Are the saucers a U.S. secret weapon? This is officially denied. Here, Admiral Bolster speaks for the Navy.

Admiral Calvin Bolster:

“In my position in the research and development organization of the Bureau of Aeronautics and of the Navy Department, I am thoroughly familiar with both our aircraft and our guided missiles programs, and can state without reservation that the Navy has no saucer-shaped aircraft or missile in any of these programs.”

Narrator:

(6:59 U.S. News & World Report cover: “Flying Saucers: The Real Story.”)

Many authoritative sources, including U.S. News & World Report, have declared otherwise. 

(7:11 Photo: Vought XF5U-1, the "Flying Flapjack)

These sources say the discs are jet craft developed from an experimental Navy fighter of 1945, but only one model of this plane ever flew, says the Navy. Some experts point out that only thirty years ago, rocket development was in this crude stage. (Clip of pocket sled crashing going off the rails and crashing.) In two decades, German scientists developed these primitive rockets into the fearsome V-2. No major improvement on the V-2 has been made public since the war, despite intensive research by U.S. engineers in cooperation with German rocket specialists. Are the saucers the secret descendants of the V-2?

(8:00 paperback, The Flying Saucers Are Real.)

The author of this book, Annapolis-trained ex-Marine, major Donald Keyhoe, says, the saucers are not from this earth, that they far off perform any craft that man can build today. 

Donald E. Keyhoe:

“After a one year’s investigation, I believe that the flying saucers seen by veteran airline and Air Force pilots are objects from another planet. The Air Force itself has officially admitted that flying saucers exist. This statement appears in Project Saucer case number 75. Not only that, the Air Force has officially analyzed the motives of possible visitors from space. Here is a direct quotation from the official report: 

‘Such a civilization might observe that on earth we now have atomic bombs and are fast developing rockets. In the past history of mankind, they should be alarmed. We should therefore expect at this time, above all, to behold such visitations.’”

(8:57 Saucer simulation clip)

Narrator:
Agreeing with Keyhoe is Commander McLaughlin. From his observations, “We the People” constructed this model of a flying saucer as it might appear in interplanetary space. 

(Clip of earth from high altitude.)

Are eyes from another world looking at this scene? A saucer’s eye view of our planet, filmed at a height of 57 miles. These scenes were made from a remote-controlled Army rocket, but today, visitors from space may be studying us from similar heights.

(End)

. . .

In the next STTF article, the story continues and we look how a new version of the film was created in response to the big UFO news of 1952.

The Flying Saucer Mystery and the 1952 UFO Flap

For Further Information on the UFO Cases Featured

Commander Robert McLaughlin, USN and the White Sands, NM, sightings of 1949

"How Scientists Tracked A Flying Saucer," True magazine, 1950

U.S. News & World Report, April 7, 1950, “Flying Saucers: The Real Story"
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yitITDpznrC44o3M-44EY6yrFRzphGnDTsjjAbDr-g0/edit?usp=sharing

Flying magazine, July 1950, "Flying Saucers — Fact or Fiction?" by Curtis Fuller
http://www.project1947.com/articles/flying750.htm

Arthur Weisberger, sighting, Tucson, Arizona,  July 21, 1950

Nothing Found

Paul Trent’s UFO photos:

The Trent UFO Photos, McMinnville, Oregon - May 11, 1950

Al Hixenbaugh’s UFO film from WHAS (Red flag: He was also a stage magician.)

Al Hixenbaugh Movie Film, June 27, 1950, Louisville, Kentucky

A special thanks to Isaac Koi for his help in obtaining the transcripts of the two versions of this documentary. Isaac has been working to preserve and share UFO literature and history for many years, and has several projects underway with the AFU in Sweden. Check the AFU site for a wealth of rare UFO documents and literature. http://files.afu.se/Downloads/

The 1950 UFO Landing at Amarillo, Texas

A nationally syndicated news story by United Press reported on May 13, 1950 that a flying saucer had landed at a Texas airport, The witness was B. G. Hunter (probably Bobby Gene Hunter), age 21, the night service man for Tradewind Airport, which at the time was about a 640-acre airfield. While it was a single-witness case, there was trace evidence from the landing.

The story appeared in papers under various titles:

The Baytown Sun, May 13, 1950
“‘Saucer’ Lands at Airport”

The Shreveport Times, May 13, 1950
“Amarillo Worker Claims Saucer Landed at Field”

The Victoria Advocate, May 14, 1950
"Saucer Lands at Airport, Burns Grass"

The Shreveport Times, May 13, 1950

The Associated Press also ran a version of the story with several additional details including a direct quote from the witness describing the shape of the UFO.

In Loren Gross’ UFOs: A History, Volume 6: April- July 1950, he introduces the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations report collected from the witness:

The District Commander of the 11th OSI unit stationed at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, immediately ordered agents to Amarillo, Texas to question the night serviceman at the Tradewinds Airport. It took something special to lure OSI investigators all the way to Amarillo but in this case the trip seemed worth the trouble.

Gross quotes the OSI report, which redacts the name of B. G. Hunter and the sleeping pilots:

I glanced aloft, and saw what appeared to be an exhaust flame approaching from the West-Southwest. I watched the approach of the flame until it passed overhead, and judged it's altitude to have been approximately 500 to 700 feet . I was mainly interested in it because it did not have any navigation lights and until then supposed it to be a plane.

After the object passed overhead, immediately returned to the main hangar, went inside and tried to awaken--- (deleted), a pilot employed by Tradewinds Airport, who was sleeping in the hangar. Being unable to awaken --- (deleted), I then returned to the front of the hangar, and saw the object approaching 200 to 300 miles per hour. I again went inside to try and awaken--- (deleted), and being unable to do so, returned to the front of the hangar. By that time the object had swerved to the right and was headed in the direction of English Field, North-East. Approximately five minutes later, I was going from the office, in the front of the hangar into the main hangar itself, and saw this brilliant light approaching from the West-North-West. I switched on the flood lights in the front of the hangar, and saw the object come to rest approximately three hundred feet in front of the hangar, on a grassy area . The approach of the object was accompanied by a slight swishing sound. By the time the object had landed, I had the flood lights on, and stepped outside the hangar to get a better view of the object.

It appeared to be flat on the bottom, but otherwise elliptical in shape, with a sharp cut off section toward the rear. The rear of the object was sharply cut away. It had a bubble setting forward on the top of the object, which appeared to be about the size of a football helmet. Toward the rear of the object was what appeared to be a pipe or tube protruding from the body of the craft, approximately one foot high. The object seemed to be sitting on the ground, and small exhaust flames were coming from the rear of the craft. While it sat on the ground, it seemed to be idling.

I again went inside the hangar to try and awaken --- (deleted), but being unable to do so, returned to the front of the hangar. The object remained on the ground for a period of three to five minutes, and after returning to the front of the hangar, I noticed the grass beneath the object beginning to smolder and burn. While watching the object, it suddenly raised, a whining sound was heard, accompanied by white flames, approximately three feet in length, shooting from the rear. After reaching a level of four feet, it then took off in a Southeasterly direction, with a terrific roar. The take-off was gradual, and it started off in a shallow climb until reaching the far side of the field, when it started a steep climb. It then leveled off, and seemed to turn, but without the bank of a conventional aircraft. It appeared to remain on an even keel while making the turn, and then proceeded to gain speed and momentum; headed in a Westerly direction, and with a sudden burst of speed was soon lost to sight.

I would estimate the size of the object to be approximately six to eight feet in length; from one and one-half to three feet tall at the highest point.

After taking off I noticed the grass where the object had been sitting was still burning. I took a fire extinguisher from the hangar, and used almost all of the contents in putting out the fire.

(Gross cites the source as: "Special Inquiry," by S/A Dale W. Dawson. DO #11 Tinker AFB, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 18 May 50. Blue Book Files, OSI records.)

Tradewind Airport, circa 1955

What the OSI document fails to disclose is the extent of the examination, if the burned grass from the landing spot was tested, there’s no record of it. All we have is the testimony of Hunter, the lone witness.

A few years later, the excitement of the Levelland, Texas, sightings prompted a review of earlier cases in the Amarillo News-Globe, Nov. 10, 1957. B. G. Hunter told his story once again with a few additional details.

Hunter's sighting remains just as mysterious today. While the UFO doesn't sound particularly unearthly, the object described would have been too small to hold a human pilot. At the time, unmanned aircraft development was in its infancy; a remotely controlled jet landing and take off at night as described, is to say the least, improbable. The landing spot of the UFO may offer a clue, though. It was close to the airport offices where it could be seen. That would seem to indicate that the intelligence behind it was attempting to put on a show.

Astronomer Arthur L. Draper on The UFO Mystery

Arthur L. Draper (R) and two Buhl Planetarium visitors

Arthur L. Draper was an astronomer and the the director of the Buhl Planetarium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1940 until the time of his death in 1967. In that role, he was often asked to comment about UFOs, and was quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 2, 1947. His professional opinion was that people were misidentifying things in the sky due to the contagion of excitement over flying saucers. 

"From our experience, we have found that one person can claim to have seen a phenomenon and countless other people will immediately 'see' it also. It is the power of suggestion."

Nevertheless, Draper  encouraged people to keep looking, and to be interested in what could be discovered in the night sky. In 1950, Draper put together a program put for the planetarium, "The Mystery of the Flying Saucers," and a short article appeared in The Pittsburgh Press accompanied by a stunning UFO illustration by Nat Youngblood.

The Pittsburgh Press July 2, 1950

Thanks to Luis Taylor the UFO researcher behind Information Dispersal, who sent of scans of the planetarium's flyer for Arthur Draper's presentation, "The Mystery of the Flying Saucers."

Draper's program was a big success and ran weekly from July to September of 1950.

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.

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

Gen. Curtis LeMay on UFOs over Ancient Egypt

General Curtis LeMay was a larger than life figure who rose to prominence through his command of bombers in the second World War, and and afterwards for his development of the United States’ armed warfare during the Cold War. For an overview of his military career, see the biography at the Air Force’s site. 

Time, Sept 4, 1950

To UFO buffs, Gen. LeMay is best known for his role in the anecdote that Senator Barry Goldwater told. Here’s a version of it in a Goldwater letter from April 22, 1980. 

Many years ago when I first heard that the Air Force was putting together what materials they could on the on a unidentified flying objects, I asked General Curtis Lemay if I might visit the room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where these items are stored. He told me in no uncertain terms that I could not visit it and, furthermore, that he could not visit it either. After that I just left it alone and forgot about it. However, I believe that the material has now been spread around into different archives of the Air Force.   (File 1980-3 at PresidentialUFO.com) 

By 1994, the story was expanded to include Goldwater wanting to know about a captured alien spaceship.

“I called Curtis LeMay and I said, ‘General, I know we have a room at Wright-Patterson where you put all this secret stuff. Could I go in there?’ I’ve never heard him get mad, but he got madder’n Hell at me, cussed me out, and said, ‘Don’t ever ask me that question again!’” Larry King show, 19994, CNN

The Horse's Mouth

Second-hand stories are not as good as direct quotes, but over his many years of service, Gen. LeMay didn't say much about UFOs. What little he did say is worth looking at carefully. An indirect, but on-the-record passage from Saturday Evening Post,  May 7, 1949 “What You Can Believe About Flying Saucers” (Conclusion) by Sidney Shalett:

“Lt. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, now the tough-minded Strategic Air Command boss, was particularly rough on saucer reports when he headed up the Air Force's research-and-development program at the height of the scare. He put his weather expert on the trail, and substantial proof was uncovered that one out of six of the then current crop of reports could be traced to a certain type of aluminum-covered radar-target balloon then in wide use. LeMay said nothing for publication, but soon thereafter, when a certain lieutenant colonel gave out a lulu of a story on how he, too, had seen flying saucers, the general rebuked him blisteringly by telegram ... and sent, it collect.”

Remarks at a Rodeo

Two military celebrities were invited as guest of honor to festivities in Tucson, Arizona, Curtis LeMay and General Roger Ramey, famous in ufology for being involved in a 1947 New Mexico flying saucer misidentification case.

LeMay, (L) and Ramey

Tucson Daily Citizen, Saturday, February 25, 1950 Page 7, 
Top Officers Of Air Force Tucson Guests 

Two of the U. S. air force's top officers, Lt. Gen. Curtis E, LeMay and Maj. Gen. Roger M. Ramey, fly into Tucson today for a week end as special guests of Davis-Monthan base and the Tucson Chamber of Commerce... High lights of their visit include... a box of honor at La' Fiesta de los Vaqueros (Tucson Rodeo) Sunday afternoon.” 

La' Fiesta de los Vaqueros 

Eight years later, a comment made that weekend by Gen. LeMay on flying saucers was resurrected, in a story titled, "Maybe There Is A Santa Claus?" Summarized here from Loren Gross' UFOs: A History 1958 March - April:

The Arizona Daily Star printed: "When, in an interview here in Tucson, Sen. Barry Goldwater said he believed in flying saucers, he presumed something that his boss in the Air Force, Deputy Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis Le May, former chief of the Strategic Air Force, once denied in an interview in Tucson a few years ago. At that time, when General Le May was asked if he thought there was such a thing as flying saucers, his answer to the Arizona Daily Star was: 'Of course I do, they were first discovered by the Egyptians more than 2,000 years ago.' He then went on to explain that every incident of flying saucers had been investigated by the Air Force, and that in each case a reasonable explanation was found that discredited completely the existence of any such things as flying saucers." (Arizona Daily Star, April 11, 1958)

That is one of the most confusing articles we’ve ever seen on UFOs, but further research reveals it to be a seriously mangled misquote of what LeMay had said. Closer to the truth is the Associated Press story run at the time in the Arizona Republic, Monday, February 27, 1950, Page 4, and rerun the next day, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 1950,  Page 12

 Gen. Curtis LeMay, asked what he thought about flying saucers, replied: 

"The best information in my opinion on them is to be found in a book written by an Englishman explaining numerous such mysteries. He says that the first flying saucers were seen in Egypt about the year 3,000 B. C."

The article closes with some more of his comments, clarifying his position:

LeMay said the air force took the matter seriously enough to make a thorough scientific investigation at Wright Field, Dayton, O. This investigation, he said, showed that there was some other explanation, like a weather balloon or a meteor, where the witnesses were telling the truth. "And," he added, "some other witnesses were just lying in giving their testimony.”

Arizona Republic, Feb. 28, 1950

Interesting quote, but despite the fact that almost any mention of saucers was newsworthy, it didn’t catch on at the time. 

LeMay wasn’t prepared for a press conference, and may have just been speaking of the top of his head. There were no (non-fiction) books published on flying saucers until later in 1950, and it was even later before skeptical ones appeared. It’s most likely he used he used the phrase “flying saucer” in the generic context as an aerial anomaly. However, the “explaining such mysteries” part is odd, too, since most books on weird things were more about exploitation than explanation.

Major Donald Keyhoe's famous article "The Flying Saucers are Real" in TRUE Magazine dated January 1950 suggested that saucers had been coming here for centuries, and that was evidence they were real, spacecraft here to observe us.

"... True found that such reports have been recorded for more than 175 years... Advocates of the 'long observation' theory believe that only a few round trips by space visitors have been made in the past, because of the travel time required."

LeMay's quote seems intended to say just the opposite, that people have been seeing unknown things in the sky since at least as far back as 3,000 B.C., meteors, comets and other natural occurrences. LeMay was saying, the flying saucers are not real.

Whose Book did LeMay cite?

The last part of LeMay's remarks about the Air Force saying there was standard policy, but not the part about Egypt. There's no reference in the Project Blue Book files to anything similar. What book? “ ... written by an Englishman explaining numerous such mysteries.”

There was a piece in a 1947 science fiction magazine published by Ray Palmer that connected Egypt with saucers. It's an interesting footnote, but not connected to LeMay's comment. The artwork for the story carried the blurb, "Will the ancient gods of Egypt and other lost civilizations come back in time to avert an atom war?" From "Son of the Sun." by Millen Cooke (as Alexander Blade) illustrated by James Settles.

Fantastic Adventures Vol.9. No.7. November 1947. 

Egypt? Many early flying saucer articles looked back a few centuries comparing other aerial mysteries to saucers, and a few even connected them to the Bible, like the wheel described in the Book of Ezekiel. In fact, that's the only reference to ancient times in Edward J. Ruppelt,'s 1956 on the AF's investigation, 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."

Asking around, I've gotten a number of suspects, but most authors didn't fit the timing; only books published prior to Feb. 1950 could work. What follows are the best candidates located that remain as possibilities.

Rupert T. Gould, author of Oddities and Enigmas is a strong candidate. He's British, the topic and time fits, and it's plausible that LeMay would actually have read this author. There seems to be nothing on Egyptian "saucers," though. Gould writes about the “Canals on Mars,” but otherwise about the closest he gets to UFOs is a discussion of the Tunguska event in the chapter, “The Siberian Meteorite,” of his book, The Stargazer Talks.

R. DeWitt Miller's Forgotten Mysteries was out in early 1947, and can almost be considered the first UFO book, with its chapter “Enigmas Out of Space.” It told of aerial apparitions from centuries past, but it featured none over Egypt, and Miller was an American. The book was cited in the media in connection with the flying saucer mystery and helped lay the foundation for the ancient astronaut notions.

Charles Fort? Not English, not explaining mysteries, but a good possibility. Fort’s books contain many accounts of UFO-type stories, but most of those were collected from newspaper accounts, not ancient history or legends. LeMay could have been familiar with Fort, though, even if it was second-hand. We know the Air Force examined Fort’s works, even though their astronomer, J. Allen Hynek, regarded them as "highly dubious."

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

Gould, Miller, and Fort are the top three candidates for the "Englishman" with Egyptian saucers, but none quite match.  Searching for the book has stumped the experts so far. Besides searching individual volumes, databases and newspaper archives and the project published in 1969 to assist the government's Condon Committee's UFO studies was also consulted. UFOs and Related Subjects: An Annotated Bibliography, which the Library of Congress describes as "Compiled by Lynn E. Catoe of the Library's Science and Technology Division, the bibliography was produced with support provided by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, a unit of the Office of Aerospace Research, the research agency of the U. S. Air Force." It's a great source to locate early saucer literature, but no matches were found. (Link to the PDF of Catoe's bibliography.

Joshua Blu Buhs of the Fortean history blog From an Oblique Angle suggests Rupert T. Gould as the best fit, but with a dash of imagination from LeMay: "...I'll bet that LeMay conflated what Gould wrote with other stuff in the papers--there had been a number of articles mentioning flying saucers that might date back for centuries." That's possible, or LeMay may have been confusing the writings of Rupert T. Gould and Charles Fort. 

Saucers in ancient Egypt would later enter ufology in 1953 by way of a hoax, a fleet of “fire circles” described in the “Tulli Papyrus.” The tale surfaced in the Fortean journal, Doubt, and was assimilated into saucer lore, included in Desmond Leslie and George Adamski’s Flying Saucers Have Landed.

Conclusively identifying Gen. LeMay’s source may not bring us any closer to solving the UFO mystery, but it’s interesting to know what literature influenced the thinking of the leaders in charge of the US Air Force. 

If this unidentified volume is not already included in the bibliography of important Fortean and UFO books, it deserves to be. If you can help clear up the identity of LeMay's the mystery book, please send us a note at The Saucers That Time Forgot.

https://www.fold3.com/image/1/12427804

 Epilogue

Popular Science, January 1966 article, “Why I Believe In Flying Saucers” by MacKinlay Kantor. It contains an excerpt from the book he co-authored with Gen. LeMay, Mission with LeMay: My Story. Comparing it with his 1950 comments, it seems clear that while he may not have believed in the reality of flying saucers, he didn't think all the people who reported seeing them were kooks.

Popular Science, Jan. 1966
http://www.nicap.org/waves/1966PSWhyIBelieve.pdf

For more history and speculation on the role of General Curtis E. LeMay in the UFO story, see the 2012 book, UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry.

A big STTF thanks to all that offered help and suggestions in fielding suspects, especially researchers Barry Greenwood, Martin Kottmeyer, Clas Svahn , Jason Colavito, and Joshua Blu Buhs.

P.S.  Some early suspects that have been eliminated:

The Flying Saucer by Benard Newman, 1948. n Englishman, and the topic is right, but the book is fiction and there's nothing about ancient UAPs. Notable for being the first flying saucer book, however, it's a thriller about a hoaxed invasion by scientists manipulating peace on Earth.

Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky. This crackpot book does mention as the planet Venus as a comet in ancient Egypt, but it's unlikely reading material for LeMay, and eliminated for being published in April 1950, two months after his comments.

The Riddle of the Flying Saucers: is Another World Watching? by Gerald Heard was published in the UK in 1950, but not in the US until 1951.  It's also missing the crucial Egypt material.

Harold T. Wilkins was English, wrote several sensational "non-fiction" about pirate treasures, lost civilizations and Atlantis (before turning to saucers in 1954). He would be just the sort to connect Egypt to aerial wonders like flying saucers, but no contemporary text doing so has been located.