The Two Arizona UFOs and Lester Bannick

Lester J. Bannick is best remembered for his one-man autogyro, the “Model T of the Air,” but he also experimented with other forms of aircraft. Two models had circular aerodynamic shapes. In other words, he built flying saucers.

Herald and Review (Decatur, IL) Oct. 10, 2007

He built a 17-foot diameter flying saucer, then a much larger hot air balloon in the same shape. At least two UFO sightings were reported due to his inventions.

Arizona Republic Dec. 8, 1969

Great suffering saucers! (Republic Photos by Nvle Leaflham)

Seen against the background of the Superstition Mountains, the silver object at left bears enough resemblance to the classic flying saucer to start a brand new outer-space invasion scare.  

That was exactly the shape Lester Bannick, center, had in mind when he designed his 66-foot-diameter balloon of mylar, silver foil-covered and lifted by hot air generated by a butane torch. Bannick was a Phoenix resident, known for his "flying lawnchair" gyrocopter, but now lives in California.

He built the balloon at Newport Beach but returned here for test flights at an abandoned airfield 10 miles east of Mesa. Even in the desert, the sight attracted a small crowd, including the Republic photographer.
 

The Engine-Powered Flying Saucer

 Lester Bannick’s first saucer was powered by a "souped-up auto engine. It had flown imperfectly about 17 times up until 1972 when he retired it. 

New Times Weekly (Phoenix, AZ) circa 1980.

 The story from the  Yuma Sun June 13, 1982:

The Arizona Republic, July 14, 1982, reported that Bannick’s low-flying saucer had ended up as part of a nightclub sign, but it was removed due to code violations. After that, Bannick gave it to David Farrington, president of the Scottsdale, Arizona chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association. Farrington kept the grounded saucer alongside his airplanes in his hangar at Falcon Field.

 

The Mesa UFO Sighting of 1972

Lee Bannick's silver hot air balloon seems to have caused some excitement in the early 1970s. The APRO Bulletin, July 1977 featured a picture of a UFO on its cover, a classic flying saucer. Ufologist Wendelle C. Stevens (promoter of the Billy Meier hoax, and later sentenced for child molestation) wrote a story about the UFO sighting of Lee Elders. “Four color photographs were taken of [a domed cone-shaped object] in the skies over Mesa, Arizona, …on 11 November 1972.”

"The object was originally noticed by two kids who alerted Elders, “He thought that the object was immobile, or at best moving very slowly. …The children continued watching it for another 30 to 40 minutes until it went out of sight. …Mr. Skip Bryant, Ms. Harriet Hineman and 3 other friends… at the Arizona State – Oklahoma State football game, watched a strange pear-shaped bright silver object in the sky to the southeast with binoculars. It appeared to be more of a flat finish… shaped like a fat ice-cream-cone with the large end up… moved very steadily, with no bobble or wobble, and they didn't notice any rotation."

APRO Bulletin & Elders’ color photo from Open Minds: 1972 Mesa UFO Sighting

Stevens wrote there had been “a hot air balloon contest held at Mesa on the two weekends preceding the date…but all of the balloons were gone a week before the day of the sighting and photographs.” One had been flown by a Mr. Marvin Cooley, a silver balloon built by Lester Bannick. Stevens insisted the object photographed could not possibly have been one made by Bannick. “Whether we have a case of UFO mimicry here is difficult to say…. The mystery remains unsolved.”

UFOs: Confusing the Public

   

Dr. Leon Davidson was a zealous early advocate for UFO transparency, and the author of the 1956 book, Flying Saucers: An Analysis of the Air Force Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14. Davidson was obsessed with the notion that UFOs were US military secret weapons, and he had strong objections to the Air Force’s 1952 statement:

“None of the three military departments nor any other agency in the government is conducting experiments, classified or otherwise, with flying objects which could be a basis for the reported phenomena.”

Davidson noted that the Air Force subsequently “stopped denying that saucers might be American devices, by dropping from its 1954 (and later) press releases the denial paragraph which it had used up through 1953.”  The military was developing technology and aircraft that might be mistaken for flying saucers. This is the story of one such project.

It Came from Windsor Locks...

From 1951 to 1953, brilliant UFOs were reported in the skies of Connecticut, then later in Ohio and other states. The descriptions were all similar, a bright fiery light leaving a trail as it streaked across the sky, and guesses ranged from a plane crashing to a flying saucer. One possible sighting match from the Connecticut Meriden Record, Nov. 12, 1951: “Second Fireball Is Sighted.”

This was during Captain Edward Ruppelt’s time as head of Project Blue Book, and these sightings never made it to his office, or if they did, were unsolved, or blamed on the planet Venus. These UFOs were no illusions, but sightings of a new technological aerial device flown by the US military. It was quietly developed and tested from in Bradley Field, Connecticut in October and November 1951, then given test runs over the next few months at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and for the Army at Langley, Virginia. When it was decided to be used in a highly publicized war game, officials decided the citizens should be notified. 

In April 1952 during Operation Longhorn, a massive U.S. Army training exercise based out of Fort Hood, Texas, there was a USAF press release circulated and used in newspaper stories, announcing the use of a new flare, and warning it could look like a UFO. An Associated Press story carried across the US on April 5, 1952, partially disclosed details of the “UFO” without naming it: 

LIGHT MAKES BOMBER RESEMBLE BALL OF FIRE

FORT HOOD. Tex. AP The latest development in the big Central Texas war games is the unveiling of a new aerial light that makes an attacking bomber look like a ball of fire in the sky. Ground observers read news papers in the glare of the light as a B-26 bomber made simulated bombing and strafing runs on Ninth Air Force Headquarters last night from an altitude of 1,500 feet. Air Force officials withheld details of the light other than to say it was entirely new and that it was attached to the plane not dropped like standard aerial flare.

The plane carrying the light flew directly to the maneuver area from Wright Patterson Air Force Base Dayton. O. “It looked like a tremendous bright ball of fire going over,” said Capt. Irving Rappaport, public information officer,” and if get any reports of flying saucers in this area, this probably is what they saw.” 

The plane used was originally called the McDonnell A-26, the B-26, then re-designated in 1947, adding a “R” for reconnaissance, as the RB-26.

Air Force history records that, “During Operation LONGHORN over Camp Hood, Texas, in early 1952, the system, beamed from an aircraft flying at 4,000 feet, allowed fighters to dive into the light from the surrounding darkness, attack their targets, and return to the safety of darkness.” But that’s not what the project was originally designed to do. It was built to provide light for night reconnaissance photography. That worked, but other unexpected applications were discovered. The device could illuminate a battlefield, or even be used to put on a light show.

In late 1952, the Air Force released the name of the project “the Hell Roarer,” and even used it to provide fireworks for a public exhibition to support the United Foundation Torch Drive in Detroit, Michigan.

Detroit Free Press, Oct. 26, 1952

Camerica, the Sunday magazine for the Dayton Daily News, Nov. 8, 1952, carried the full story of the Hell Roarer with photos, “It’s No Saucer!” An air force engineer disclosed: “We aren’t responsible for all the strange lights in the sky, but we do make some of them.” The article went on to describe the non-saucer: 

“The Hell-Roarer is simply a continuous-burning flare being tested for night photographic use by the Wright Air Development Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force base. In local tests the continuous flare has been attached to a B-26 airplane... The flare itself is an intensely brilliant light, so brilliant, in fact, that it blots out the plane from the vision of those on the ground. All that can be seen is the fast-moving fire ball accompanied by the roar of the twin engines. It is a fairly awesome sight, but definitely not a mechanism manned by Martian midgets.” 

The Dayton Daily News, Nov. 8, 1952

US citizens were informed during exercises to prevent excitement, but when used in a military setting abroad, there was no warning or explanation afterwards. Operation Longstep was a ten-day NATO naval exercise held in the Mediterranean Sea during November 1952. During the exercise, the Hell Roarer was mistaken by some of the Italian locals for a flying saucer.

Tactical Reconnaissance in the Cold War by Doug Gordon, 2005.

Project Blue Book was the Last to Know

Somehow, despite the UFO confusion it was causing, Project Blue Book remained unaware of the Hell Roarer project until 1953. That mistake may have caused them to fail in solving the cases reported early in the year by USAF pilots in Germany. “Unidentified Flying Objects near Rhein Main, Germany, 30 January 1953” (page 27).

They finally got a clue in July, when reporter Damon Runyan, Jr, asked Project Blue Book if a Hell Roarer could have been responsible for the “Florida Scoutmaster” saucer case of Sonny DesVergers on Aug. 19, 1952. It wasn’t a match, but they looked into the project, opened a file and collected photos and issued a press release which mentioned that instances of the Hell Roarer being sighted and mistaken for a flying saucer. 

Hell Roarer Press Release as reproduced in Leon Davidson’s Flying Saucers: An Analysis of the Air Force Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14

PBB Hell Roarer photos, “Wright-Patterson AFB Ohio, July 1953”

Captain Edward Ruppelt was probably responsible for the handwritten note on a July 16, 1953, clipping mentioning the 1951 Hell Roarer sightings at Dayton, Detroit, and Windsor Locks stating:

“Saucer reports mentioned were solved by the various base ops. & Intelligence officers, thense – no FLYOBRPT received on these sightings by P.B.B.”

The Hell Roarer file is pages 56 – 70 of this folder, and includes documents, newspaper clippings, and AF photos. Project Blue Book file: Hell Roarer

Following the press release, many newspapers and magazines carried photos and stories on the Hell Roarer and it’s sightings as UFOs. 

Science News Letter, July 25, 1953

The Rocky Mount Evening Telegram July 31, 1953

Newsweek, July 1953: "Hell Roarer" Susceptible citizens sighted spaceships

Aerial Flashlight

"Persons who reported a flying saucer over Windsor Locks, Conn., one October night in 1951 were pardonably deluded. What they actually saw (see cut) was the first test of an aerial flashlight developed at nearby Wesleyan University. Last week, after scaring susceptible citizens of Dayton and Detroit, as well as Windsor Locks, the Air Force's Air Research and Development Command released a description of the new device. It is a 300-pound 12-foot cylinder packed with fine magnesium powder, the gray stuff old-time photographers used to ignite for flash pictures. The tube is attached, like a bomb, to the wing of a reconnaissance plane.

Because of the noise, the flashlight has been dubbed the 'Hell Roarer.') There is enough magnesium to give four minutes of light so intense, according to the project director, Dr. Richard G. Clarke of Wesleyan, that 'you can read a newspaper by the glare about half a mile away.' The pilot can turn the flashlight on and off as he needs it. The Hell Roarer has one big advantage over the older type of magnesium flare which was parachuted to illuminate a photographic target area. With the new light, a reconnaissance plane can dash in low and fast over enemy territory take pictures of military activity, and escape before anti-aircraft gunners can open effective fire.

All Hands (the Bureau of Naval Personnel Information Bulletin) Dec. 1953

Popular Mechanics, March 1954

Project Blue Botch

Flying Saucers: An Analysis of the Air Force Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14

In his book on Project Blue Book, Dr. Leon Davidson pointed to the Hell Roarer as an example of the US government confusing the public on UFOs: 

“The 1953 release about the ‘Hell Roarer’ flare shows a typical cause of some flying saucer reports, and furthermore shows how legitimate secret military activities have led to flying saucer reports. These usually receive immediate perfunctory denials that U.S. activities or aircraft had had anything to do with causing the reports. Such denials are properly justified because of the secret nature of the activities at the time. The later admissions tend not to catch up with the original denials, so that such events get established in the saucer literature as ‘authentic’ cases.”

A big part of the problem was that the US military routinely operates in secrecy. Although the Hell Roarer was not classified, it was often used without notifying local police, or even other military operations, whether used in domestic test flights or in actual missions abroad. As a result, the US had their own people seeing flying saucers.

The Hell Roarer was valuable military tool for nighttime aerial photography and battlefield illumination, but new technology quickly made it obsolete. Shortly after the Korean War, the Ohio Wesleyan University Ordnance Research Laboratory moved away from pyrotechnical systems in favor of safer mercury arc lamps. The new generations of aerial illumination platforms were also responsible for causing UFO reports, but their history is less transparent. Some of the reports caused by the Hell Roarer’s successors have undoubtedly been booked among the UFO unknowns.

. . .

 

For Further Study

On The Front Line Of R&D: Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in the Korean War, 1950-1953 by Lori S. Tagg of the ASC History Office, “Studying the Enemy’s Backyard: Aerial Reconnaissance and Photographic Equipment”

Around the time of the Hell Roarer, the US military was actually trying to build flying saucers. See our previous article for details: UFO Study Programs and US Military Technology

 List from PBB of Hell Roarer Flights, 1951 – 1952

Oct 5l Bradley Fld., Connecticut

Dec 51 Dayton, Ohio (Possible sighting: Dec. 22, Columbus, Ohio)

Feb 52 Dayton, Ohio

Mar 52 Langley, Virginia

Mar 52 Operation '’Longhorn", Texas (Possible sighting: April 2, Brownwood, Texas)

Jul 52 Egland, Florida  

Sep 52 Bradley Fld., Connecticut

Oct 52 Detroit, Michigan (exhibition for the United Foundation Torch Drive)

SKYLITE: The Project to Mimic UFOs

 

The US government asked the McDonnell Douglas aerospace company to research the construction of an imitation flying saucer in 1970. At the time, the United States was led by President Richard Nixon, and Richard Helms served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Cold War with Russia  was hot. The US was mired in the Vietnam war and facing an expansion of the Soviet Union’s military forces in Cuba.

The UFO project may have been an offshoot of a prior contract with the CIA. In 1967 the CIA was doing business with McDonnell Douglas Company, and Project AQUILINE was to develop expendable unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicles. According to CIA files, “Concentrated study was performed on a wide range of aerodynamic lift devices including balloons, ballistic glider, powered glider and helicopter types for this application. The powered glider was selected...” Aquiline was a small bird-like drone, test flown at Area 51.

From CIA files on Project AQUILINE

Meanwhile, McDonnell Douglas had a study project from 1967 to 1970 led by Dr. Robert M. Wood with the goal of duplicating the performance and propulsion reported in UFOs. Dr. Joseph M. Brown talked about working on the Advanced Propulsion Research Group in his 2004 book, The Grand Unified Theory of Physics.

“Dr. Robert M. Wood (was) the deputy director of Research at Douglas Aircraft Company, in Santa Monica, California… Wood believed that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) were spacecraft built and manned by extra-terrestrials… Furthermore, he had great confidence in his ability. ‘If extraterrestrials can build a flying saucer, so can I.’”

Describing the team, Dr. Brown said,

“Dr. Darell B. Harmon, Jr… held beliefs about UFO’s similar to Dr. Wood... that UFO’s were powered by anti-gravity propulsion and I was researching gravity so he hired me in spite of my disbelief in extraterrestrials. Thus the Wood-Harmon-Brown team was formed to invent a new propulsion system… In addition to the mathematical physicist, Leon (A. Steinert), we hired an experimentalist Harvey Bjornlie, a retired Los Angeles, California police detective Paul Wilson, a UFO ‘buff” Stan Friedman, and a psychic Chan P. Thomas... Our budget was less than $100,000.00 per year."

Dr. Wood described the group’s origin in his article for the October 2008 issue of the MUFON Journal, "McDonnell Douglas studied UFOs in 1960s," saying, “we opened up an account with an insipid title (Advanced Concepts) and internally called it the BITBR project (for Boys In The Back Room).”  Wood said he managed a team saying he devoted only about 10% of his time to the project, “Only Brown, Thomas and Wilson were full time (and later, Friedman).” During its four years of operation and $500,000 expended, the group conducted research including everything from lab experiments to field studies, investigating haunted houses, ESP and interviewing UFO Contactees.

In BITBR’s 59-page “Advanced Vehicle Concepts Research” presentation, May 2, 1968, the team summarized the goals of the project for management and stated what they had achieved to date. Page 50 mentioned the goal of building a UFO-like spacecraft, a DFO, (possibly for Douglas Flying Object). 

“A DFO can be built within our scientific limits.” It also mentioned, “analysis and duplication of UFO data.” The presentation closed by asking for another year’s funding, and stated, “Bring in DoD at end of year if results warrant.”

The company hoped to build flying saucers for the US government. That almost happened. In a section near the end of Wood’s MUFON article he revealed:

"Covert Applications
The only contact with the government about the Project came towards the end of the spring of 1970 when there was interest expressed by one of the intelligence agencies. This resulted in a draft proposal to ‘mimic, imitate or duplicate the observables associated with UFOs.’ We called this potential opportunity Project Skylite, and prepared a good deal of technical information in anticipation of contract work. It never materialized with McDonnell Douglas to my knowledge."

MUFON UFO Journal, Oct. 2008

The footnote for the passage cited: "Wilson, P. ‘Charts Defining Parameters of Design.’ Six pages, dated June 2, 1970."

The timing for Skylite was strange. The US government shut down Project Blue Book at  the end of 1969, so this would seem to have been unrelated to any study of UFOs. They must have been working towards some other goal. Earlier Project Aquiline CIA documents stated that “The obvious risk is loss of an unmanned aircraft over denied territory and the resulting political implications therefrom.” They thought that since the aircraft was small and unarmed, the risk was minimal. However, it’s possible the CIA considered developing another spy platform, something that would be unrecoverable, vanish like something unearthly.

 

The Project Skylite Documents

BITBR hired W. Paul Wilson, Jr. for his detective skills to be used in interviewing UFO witnesses, but he was also an engineer, and he also assisted the team in technical research. Files on the McDonnell Douglas UFO study and Project Skylite surfaced when UFO archivist Louis Taylor purchased them from the owner of a house previously occupied by Paul Wilson's widow. “The documents were found rotting away out in the barn.”  Material on the BITR study was published online back in 2007. The Project Skylite material was finally published online by Louis Taylor in October 2020, documents and parametric studies, all hand written by Paul Wilson between April and June of 1970.

Paul Wilson’s first page of an outline of the Project Skyline objectives, dated 4/5/70.

Electrical & Mechanical Systems to Produce Simulated UFO Observables

1. Illusion of physical objects with three-dimensional positivity in space - long & short term affects.

A. Sensed by visual, acoustical, photographic, radio and other EM instrumentation.

B. Large, very light, transparent bags inflatable with ionizable combustible gases. Spherical or saucer shaped.

(1) Bag should be constructed of highly combustible materials that completely vaporize or disintegrate without residue when contain gases or plasma is ignited.

 (2) Ionize contained gas is by means of high energy radar beams (local or objective operated).

(a). The geometric configuration of inflated bags are held to those dimensions that would resonate with the frequencies of exciting radiation.

(b) Parabolic umbrellas for maximum energy concentration.

(c) Spherical resonate cavities for maximum energy absorption.

 (3) Gas mixture and/or system may contain, short half-life high energy radioactive materials to initiate ionizations & emit particle radiation signals.

 (4) Combustible gases at critical mixtures and/or temperatures may be ignited by radio controlled igniters, laser beams, or by spontaneous combustion at predetermined times.

 

Electrical & Mechanical Systems to Produce Simulated UFO Observables

Proposed shape and structure for the Skylite UFO simulators

“UFO simulator” is how the project was referred to in early internal documents. BITBR went well beyond just spoofing the appearance of a UFO in flight, they also wanted to duplicate other “UFO observables” such as the shape, illumination, sounds, that were reported. Apparently for this project duplicating high speed flight was not a goal except perhaps in the “vanishing” of the balloon when it disintegrated. As for the radar cross-section and electromagnetic signature they desired, that would be accomplished with a “metallic coating for maximum reflectivity.” 

Skylite Parametric Studies, 5/18/70

The aerial platform was intended to be built around Edmund Scientific “Giant Weather Balloons” in the 8 and 16-foot sizes.

Edmund Scientific Weather Balloon ad and product, circa 1968

It was determined that an airborne platform alone was insufficient for generating the spectrum of desired effects and a ground based would be required to generate some of the electromagnetic properties and secondary characteristics.

The timing of shortly the US government’s interest in the BITBR project is strange. It came shortly after the Condon Study’s conclusion was published in 1969 that there was no scientific benefit to studying UFOs. The closure of Project Blue Book followed, so it would seem the US government’s interest here was not scientific. Various notes throughout the Skylite documents give a clue as to the purpose of the project. “Significant information as to an observer’s observational capabilities – with decoy & confusion features.”

Illustrations from Using a Giant Weather Balloon to Create Artificial Moonlight

There’s no clear documentation that any Project Skylite flight experiments took place, but some of the parametric studies suggest there may have at least been a few balloon tests. Describing the overall BITBR experiments to duplicate UFO characteristics, Dr. Wood said they tried to see “whether the speed of light could be influenced by a large magnetic field,” and a later “a second attempt to use magnetic fields… measured whether there was any change in forces… with respect to gravity. Again the result was null.”

The lack of results from the UFO study prompted McDonnell Douglas to spend the money elsewhere, and Wood said, “the consensus was that we should cancel the BITBR project.” Skylite died with it. If the US government pursued the simulated UFO project, it was without Wood’s McDonnell Douglas team. The CIA responded to our FOIA request for records relating to Project Skylite with a form letter about UFO document requests.

Further Sources and Recommended Reading

For other US government attempts to duplicate UFO characteristics and performance, see our article from May 6, 2020, UFO Study Programs and US Military Technology. For more on deception and exploitation of the UFOs by military intelligence, see the 2010 book by Mark Pilkington and John Lundberg, Mirage Men: A Journey into Disinformation, Paranoia and UFOs. 

The McDonnell Douglas UFO Study

Douglas Aircraft – UFO Research Documents (1967 – 1969)

Keith Basterfield has written extensively on McDonnell Douglas’ BITBR project: The McDonnell Douglas UAP study. See also, Project Skylite papers uploaded.

Information Dispersal by Louis Taylor: Project Skylite Documents

Project Aquiline

CIA Documents: Project Aquiline

John Meierdierck was in charge of the CIA’s Project Aquiline operations at Area 51, and wrote an account of why the project was scrapped in 1971. See Flying Stories: Project Aquiline

The CIA's Bird-Shaped Aquiline Drones Could Still Be Caged Up At Area 51 by Brett Tingley

 

 

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