Flying Saucers Foiled Again

Three days before the saucer news broke from Roswell, New Mexico, a flying disc crashed on a farm in Ohio. In the following weeks (and years) other objects were found, some of them photographed and printed in newspapers.

July 7, 1947, Associated Press

Our Captured Flying Saucer Scrapbook begins with an item from The Circleville Herald, July 5, 1947: 

'Flying Disc' Believed Found On Pickaway Farm 

One of the "flying discs" which have been puzzling aviators all over the United States was believed Saturday to have been found on a Pickaway county farm. Sherman Campbell, who lives on the Westfall road in Wayne township, near the Pickaway-Ross county line, reported the finding of a star-shaped silver foil covered object which he believes is one of the mysterious "flying saucers."

While working in the field he spotted a strange object. He described his find as 50 inches high, 48 inches wide and weighing about two pounds. He said the silver foil was stretched over a wooden frame. The star-shaped object had six points. He said there was a balloon attached which had deflated and there was no way of knowing how big it was.

Discovery of the object was the first reported in the country. A Coast Guardsman on the west coast reported photographing one from a distance, but no one has seen one of the "flying discs" close. 

Another photo:

The Wisconsin State Journal, July 7, 1947

Yet another “flying saucer” was found in Oxford, Ohio, on Monday July 7, 1947, as reported in The Palladium-Item (Richmond, IN), July 9, 1947.

Saucers were everywhere. Amazingly, another strange object fell close to Circleville, Ohio. 

“The second such find was reported to Sheriff Charles Radcliff Tuesday afternoon by David C. Heffner, who said he discovered it on a line fence on his farm on the old Tarlton road four and one half miles east of Circleville. ... The gadgets found by Mr. Campbell and Mr. Heffner were … constructed of a light wood frame. Only a remnant of the thin rubber balloon remained attached to the Campbell find, but the other contraption discovered on the Heffner farm includes most of the remains of the balloon which must have measured more than 15 feet in diameter when it was inflated."

The Circleville Herald, July 5, 1947

The Roswell Debris

The now-famous headline, "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region," appeared in the Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947. However they stated, “no details of the saucer's construction or its appearance had been revealed.” Newspapers the next day began revealing the disappointing details.

The Durant Daily Democrat, July 10, 1947

The Minneapolis Star, Minneapolis, July 9, 1947

The Roswell Daily Record, July 9, 1947, reported that Mac Brazel had been hounded by the press over his discovery, "Harassed Rancher who Located 'Saucer' Sorry He Told About It." The paper summarized Brazel’s description of what’d he’d found and shown Maj. Jesse A. Marcel from Roswell Army Air Field:

“Brazel related that on June 14 he and 8-year-old son, Vernon were about 7 or 8 miles from the ranch house of the J.B. Foster ranch, which he operates, when they came upon a large area of bright wreckage made up on rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks. … There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine and no sign of any propellers of any kind, although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil.”

The debris was matched to other discoveries and military projects still in flight. The Kansas City Times, July 9, 1947, reported on a Rawin target recovered on an Adrian, Missouri farm.

The Kansas City Times, July 9, 1947

The Corpus Cristi Caller, July 10, 1947, reported:

Like New Mexico Saucer – The “rawin” – radar wind – reflector attached to the Navy weather balloon above, is the same type of apparatus which a New Mexico rancher picked up earlier this week, believing he had found one of the much-publicized flying discs which have been plaguing 44 states of the nation. Miss Mary belle Kuegle, Wave aerologist first class, holds the device which normally rises to a height of 50,000 feet before the balloon bursts and the rawin falls to the earth, aided by a parachute. (Official U.S. Navy photograph.)

The Corpus Cristi Caller, July 10, 1947

What is a Rawin? From Captain Joseph A. Pechman’s article in Air Corps, from The Coast Artillery Journal, May/June 1946:

“Radar made possible the determination of upper winds under most conditions of clouds or poor visibility. Wind data are obtained by an SCR-584 [radar unit] tracking the flight of a free balloon to which is attached a metal, foil-covered paper reflector capable of reflecting the radar signals back to the radar. Direction and speeds of the winds for various altitudes are evaluated on the basis of the horizontal projection of the flight of the balloon. This procedure is called ‘RAWIN’, a term combining the two words, ‘radar’ and ‘wind’.” 

Launching and tracking a rawin target.

Civilians were not only mistaking Rawin targets for flying saucers on the ground, but also in the sky. The United Press story in the Press and Sun Bulletin (Binghamton, NY), July 10, 1947, the US Navy disclosed that their  balloon launches had led to saucer reports. 

Disc? Tsk, Says Navy

Saucy Soaring Saucers Sinking

Practical jokers continued to have a high time with flying saucers today as the navy advised the more serious-minded "eyewitnesses" that what they saw in the sky was only weather observation devices. It cost the navy $25 to assure itself. Lt. Rell Zelle Moore, naval air station aerology officer, launched a "ray winds" weather device is a $25 "operations saucer" at Atlanta, Ga. As the helium-filled balloon carrying a tin-foil screen soared over Stone Mountains, calls poured into Atlanta newspapers reporting "flying discs." The 4-by-10 foot screen looked like a round aluminum disc at a high altitude. "People are only just beginning to see these things aloft," said Lt. Comndr. Thomas H. Rentz. 

The Gastionia Gazette (NC), July 10, 1947 feature more from the Naval officer: 

HAS OPINION ON FLYING SAUCERS

Naval Officer Believes Flying Discs Are Tinfoil Screen Used In Weather Balloons To Reflect Radar Rays And Detect Wind's Velocity

ATLANTA, July 10 -- UP -- Lieut. Commander Thomas H. Rentz of the Atlanta Naval Air Station said today he believed the "flying saucers" reported over the country were tinfoil screens used in weather balloons. 

The Roswell tinfoil episode was forgotten, but the International News Service (INS) article from April 10, 1949, published under such titles as “Secrecy Shrouds ‘Saucers’ Probe,” mentioned Roswell in passing:

“… the USAF has sorted out the vast number of fantastic and imaginative reports received... Another incident resulted in ‘exile’ for an Air Force public relations officer in the West. This enthusiastic gentleman, without prior reference to Washington, announced to local newsmen that he had found a ‘flying saucer’.” 

Saturday Evening Post, April 30, 1949, featured the first of two parts of a skeptical article by Sidney Shallet, “What You Can Believe About Flying Saucers.” It included a section on rawin targets as UFOs:

In addition to the 25 per cent or more bona fide cases of mistaken identification that can be blamed on astronomical phenomena, a large percentage can be accounted for by weather-observation and radar-target balloons.  . . . The most common sources of innocent deception in the balloon field are the so-called RAWIN (radar-wind) target balloons.  The balloons generally are white, and at 40,000 to 60,000 feet where they usually operate, they are invisible to persons on the ground.  Dangling below each balloon, however, is a six-cornered "target" of aluminum foil, strung out on kitelike sticks.  Radar operators on the ground track these aluminum targets for weather information. The targets oscillate and gyrate in the wind, and sunlight glinting from these shiny, wind-tossed objects can create a perfect illusion of a flying saucer.  Movies of airborne RAWINs were taken for me, and in some shots the oscillating aluminum targets appeared perfectly round. 

Further Sightings in the Fifties 

Around the USA, saucer reports kept being reported and sometimes, physical evidence was found. Here’s our two last entries that made the papers. 

The Captured Saucer of Concord, Pennsylvania

On March 28, 1950, an unnamed farmer spotted a UFO descending and land in his field. He reported the object, and it was subsequently carried to the Concord School where it was on display for the 300 students there and the general public. The Chester Times, March 29, 1950, reported the mysterious object was: 

“Four feet across at its maximum width, it was constructed of white and silver paper, on a thin wooden frame. Only identifying features on the strange-looking star shaped object with the numerals 1040. Obviously severed heavy strings were attached to a metallic ring on the object, indicating that a balloon had been hooked up to the ‘What-is-it.’ The balloon apparently broke loose when the strings gave away and it continued its flight. The farmer who first sighted the object reported this morning that spinning in the late afternoon sunlight, it gave every appearance of being a huge disk as rays were reflected from the white and silver body of the object.” 

Local Weather Bureau, Army officials, and scientists were consulted, but they could not initially identify the object’s origin. 

Chester Times, March 29, 1950

The next day continued the drama, “Concord’s ‘Flying Disc’ Subject of Much Speculation”

Chester Times, March 30, 1950

A subsequent story in the Chester Times, April 8, 1950, reported that the “kite-like affair” had been identified, “investigation disclosed [it] to be a corner reflector radar target.” 

The Horton Disc of 1953 

A UFO was seen in the skies of Atlanta, Georgia on July 6, 1953. The next morning, near the Fulton County Airport, Ralph Horton recovered an unusual flying object that had crashed on his lawn. From The Atlanta Constitution, July 8, 1953: 

“Experts Tuesday were as baffled as ever about the multi-colored, cone-shaped ''thing" that dozens of Atlantans saw moving across the twilight sky around supper-time Mondav. The experts didn't think the ‘thing’ was the kite-shaped, balloon-bearing apparatus Ralph Horton found Tuesday morning in his front yard near the County Airport. U. S. Weather Bureau officials said Horton's find apparently is a ‘ra-wind,’ an instrument used to plot wind currents in the upper air. Such an instrument, they explained, would have been released by the Air Force at 4 p.m. and would not have remained aloft as long as 7:15 p.m. when Atlantans all over the city reported they saw the ‘thing.’”

The Atlanta Constitution, July 8, 1953

By this time, such discoveries were common. Once the Weather Bureau identified it as a rawin target, no investigation by Project Blue Book – or anyone was conducted. Until… 

Working on a proposed flying saucer book, James Moseley made a cross-country trip in 1953-54 tracking down UFO witnesses. In Georgia, he found the Ralph Horton article in the files of the Atlanta Constitution. Moseley with Karl Pflock described what he did next in his 2002 book, Shockingly Close to the Truth!: Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist: 

“Of course, I lost no time getting out to see Horton, who obligingly hauled the saucer out of the woods behind his house, where he tossed it after the excitement had died down. ... I photographed Horton with the saucer which he then offered to me. I took it with thanks. Unfortunately, it got lost in the shuffle over the years.” 

Ralph Horton and his discovery. Photo by Jim Moseley 

Crashes of other military or meteorological balloon packages have resulted in other “crash-retrieval” cases, from the famous to the forgotten. While no single answer has been found for the flying saucer mystery, sightings and discovery of rawin targets added to the confusion, becoming part of UFO legends and history.

. . .

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)