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.

The Day Before Roswell, July 7, 1947: Between Something and Nothing

The day before the news about a recovered flying disc in Roswell, New Mexico, the newspapers were chock full of saucer stories, and many papers featured a cover photo of Jane Campbell displaying a Rawin target, scooping Mac Brazel and Jesse Marcel.

Madison Wisconsin State Journal, July 7, 1947

May Be "'Saucers' -- Near and Afar

Jane Campbell, 17, of Chillicothe, Ohio, exhibits an unidentified mechanism which fell from a balloon and landed on her father's farm. The father, Sherman Campbell, said the vaned object, through optical illusion, may have caused some of the reports of "flying discs." 

An Estimate of the Situation

The Fort Madison Evening Democrat from July 7, is a great example of early UFO news coverage. The UP story combines wire reports of the real and unreal, in an attempt to cover the emerging phenomenon. The confused position of the newspapers seemed to echo that of the military.

"We're not dismissing the possibility that there's something to it, and we're not dismissing the possibility that it's all a hoax."- Captain Tom Brown, Army Air Force spokesman, Washington, DC. 

Carnival searchlights, Ghost Rockets, the Loch Ness Monster and much more:

Fort Madison Evening Democrat, July 7, 1947

The barrage of conflicting stories in the news kept the public interested- and confused. In the absence of facts, speculation and rumor were king, and in those days, many UFO legends were born.

Real Life Comics #55, Jan. 1951

Captured Flying Saucers: Twin Falls, Idaho, July 11, 1947

Mrs. Fred Easterbrook

July 11, 1947
A crashed flying saucer with glistening sides of silver and gold was discovered by Mrs. Fred Easterbrook in the yard of her next-door neighbor T.H. Thompson in Twin Falls, Idaho. Two narrow strips of turf on the Thompson lawn were torn up, apparently from when the disc had crashed into the earth. Mrs. Easterbrook reported it to the the police, and both the military and FBI participated in investigating the incident. In a day's time, it was determined that the saucer was a counterfeit.

Twin Falls, Idaho, July 11, --AP-- Four teen age boys skimmed a "flying saucer" into this town today and before the turmoil died down tonight with their admission it was "all a joke," the FBI, army intelligence and local police spent a dizzy day trying to figure out their gadget. Lewiston, Idaho Daily Tribune - 12 July, 1947 Army, FBI, Police in Circles

The Lewiston Daily Sun July12, 1947

From the PROJECT 1947 web site.

Government Cover-Up?

An editorial from the July 15 Idaho Times-News showed how the military's insistence for secrecy was fueling rumors of a government conspiracy or cover-up.

The Idaho Times News July 15, 1947

The object was determined to be of earthly origin, and the identity of the hoaxers was determined, so this is one of the few cases definitively closed as solved.

As with so many of the most interesting UFO cases featured here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, Project Blue Book has no file on this incident


For further reading on the case, see the reprints of more original news articles:
Twin Falls, Idaho, 1947 and...

Saturday Night Uforia, Flying Disc Reported Found in Idaho; Now in Army Hands

Captured Flying Saucers: July 7, 1947, The Disk that Slipped by the FBI

The FBI is shut out

There was a FBI memo allegedly about flying saucers recovered with a handwritten notation by director J. Edgar Hoover:

"...we must insist upon full access 

to discs recovered. For instance 

in the La. case the Army grabbed it & 

wouldn't let us have it for cursory 

examination." 

(signed "H" for Hoover.)

The FBI file with the Hoover "La." memo is on page 45 of this PDF:

https://vault.fbi.gov/UFO/UFO%20Part%201%20of%2016/view#document/p45

Some UFO proponents like James Fox have insisted the memo is connected to the recovery of a crashed alien space craft. A few have misinterpreted Hoover's handwriting of La. as SW for South West, thinking that his memo was about Roswell, NM. Others have speculated that it was LA for Los Angeles, CA. However, the facts is that La. was short for Louisiana, as in the case of the July 7, 1947 crashed disk case in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Not Roswell

Top and bottom of the sloppy saucer from the south.

There have been many crashed flying saucers recovered over the years, but this is one of the very few instances where the object's flight and actual crash were witnessed 

From the files of Project Blue Book:

"Mr. (F. G. Harston), Shreveport, Louisiana, stated in an interview on 7 July 1947 that at 1805, 7 July 1947, he heard the disc whirling through the air and had looked up in time to see it when it was approximately 200 feet in the air and coming over a sign board adjacent to the used car lot where he was standing. ( Harston) stated that smoke and fire were coming from The disc and that it was traveling at a high rate of speed and that it fell into the street and his immediate vicinity. ( Harston) further stated that he retrieved the disc from the street and immediately notified Army officials at Barksdale Field."

Project Blue Book's file on this case: 7 July 1947, Shreveport, Louisiana. Here's a picture of F. G. Harston, lucky survivor of the close encounter. 

LIFE: "A Rash Of Flying Disks Breaks Out Over The U.S." in LIFE July 21, 1947

Case Closed

Investigation showed that this disk was yet another made here on Earth:

"A flying disk' fell in the street in a Southern city.  It was composed of aluminum strips, fluorescent-lamp starters, condensers, rivets, screws and copper wire.  A little investigation resulted in a confession from the culprit, the superintendent of an electric-fan factory, who said he concocted the device and threw it from the roof of the factory, hoping to scare his boss, who was getting into his car."

What You Can Believe About Flying Saucers - Conclusion by Sidney Shalett, Saturday Evening Post May 7, 1949

The object was determined to be of Earthly origin, and the identity of the hoaxer was determined, so this in one of the rare cases closed as definitively solved.

Captured Flying Saucers: Black River Falls, Wisconsin July 10, 1947

There was a rash of flying saucers reports in the weeks following Kenneth Arnold's pivotal sighting in June 24, 1947. What many historians forget is that there was also a large number of reports of crashed flying saucers. What caused this frenzy of reports real and imagined, and the inevitable hoaxes? It may have been the cash rewards offered for $1,000 for proof that the flying saucers are real.

Black River Falls, Wisconsin July 10, 1947. Sigurd Hanson found a small unmanned flying saucer in a field near the fairgrounds, where it had apparently crashed. The earth was scarred from the landing, and object itself was clearly a technological device, streamlined for flight and the body of the saucer showed scorching form the engine exhaust. The Wisconsin Civil Air Patrol was called in to investigate.

Kenosha Evening News, July 11 1947.

There was a lot of excitement due to the physical evidence recovered, and this was indeed a saucer not scraps of tinfoil. As the story developed, further details emerged.

Sigurd Hanson

"Hanson hopes that the saucer will merit one of those $1000 rewards that he has been reading about in the newspapers lately, although he hasn't given it much thought."

The La Crosse Tribune, July 11, 1947

The story was so big, there were stories on the news coverage of the story itself. Saucers were selling papers, and photographers were eager to get a photograph of a real flying saucer.

July 11, 1947

July 12, 1947

Exploitation and Exhibition 

The investigation by the Civil Air Patrol revealed the saucer had been constructed on Earth, but they weren't certain it was the same kind of object that was being reported in the skies across the nation, and their interest in the disc diminished. The object was returned to the Black River Falls' Chamber of Commerce who saw an opportunity to capitalize on the publicity by charging viewers for admission to see the saucer.

"The Hansons, wondering if the saucer will merit the $1000 offered, are considering contacting officials at the World Inventors Congress in session at Hollywood, Calif. The inventors have offered the reward to the first disk finder."

? July 13, 1947 and Dubuque Telegraph Herald, July 13 1947.

The Saucer Crashes

The FBI's file has a document that discloses their analysis of the UFO's physical properties.

The disc might be made of a substance such as cardboard covered by a silver
airplane dope material. The contraption has a small wooden tail like a
rudder in the back and inside of the disc is what appears to be an RCA
photo-electric cell or tube. Also inside the disc is a little electric
motor with a shaft running to the center of the disc. At one end of the
shaft is a very small propeller. In ____ opinion that contraption might
possibly have been made by some juvenile. ____ stated that he desired
to return the contraption to Milwaukee and eventually turn it over to
the Army Air Forces, but that the finder, ____ apparently wanted to get
some publicity on his find and wanted it returned to him.

FBI Office Memorandum, Subject Flying Discs Sabotage, August 12, 1947 

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. Conclusion: Hoax.

From the files of Project Blue Book

Confessed

In a newspaper story in 2004, Bob Huntley confessed how he, with the help of three friends, Bud Bowler and cousins John and Dan McDonald, built and staged the saucer crash.
"BRF's flying saucer mystery revealed as a hoax" by Autumn Grooms of the La Crosse Tribune Nov 18, 2004

They weren't the only kids up to saucer mischief, but we'll cover those in future installments.

The object was determined to be of Earthly origin, and the identity of the hoaxers was determined, so this is one of the few cases definitively closed as solved.

Reward: $1000 for Proof that Flying Saucers Are Real!

Flying saucers may not have become a big news item if not for cash rewards. Kenneth Arnold's sighting in June 24, 1947 was an unexpected by-product of him searching for a crashed Curtis Commando R5C military transport plane that carried a reward of $5,000 for the finder. Arnold struck out, but in the aftermath of his UFO sighting, several parties put forth rewards for evidence that the flying saucers were real.

(The text in the clipping below is tiny, but it's it's the headline that's important, and the detail from it shown below.)

Berkeley Daily Gazette, July 8, 1947

Three Rewards of $1,000 each for flying saucer proof from:

• E.J. Culligan, Illinois businessman.
• Spokane Athletic Round Table (a group of gangsters?)
• World Inventors Congress (catch: offer expires in five days.)

"For a thousand dollars almost anyone will describe a flying saucer, and that is just what is happening today. E. J. Culligan — a Chicago industrialist — offered a reward for a flying saucer or a correct explanation of the celestial discs. Now he is being swamped by hundreds of letters and telegrams — all claiming to have the inside information on the saucers."

The Neosho Daily News from Neosho, Missouri on July 11, 1947

The Spokane Athletic Round Table wanted a saucer itself, delivered in person.

WallaWalla Union Bulletin, July 8, 1947

The World Inventors Congress also provided reward for a saucer, and the word was getting around. People started to come forward with claims.

On July 9, The Ceylon Observer reported: 

"Meanwhile, the World Inventors Congress has offered a thousand dollars reward for the delivery of a 'flying saucer' to their exhibition at Los Angeles this week.
      Concrete evidence too has not been wanting, so far three reports of 'discs' or parts of discs being reported.  While one discovery reports a "flimsy construction" with material "some sort of tin foil," another speaks of diecast metal an eighth of an inch thick melting only at a heat of 6,300 degrees, and third speaks of 'rock-like metal' which rained down from a huge flying disc."

The Concrete Evidence

"Flimsy construction" and "tin foil" was from the balloon crash at Roswell found by Mac Brazel.

Warrant Officer Irving Newton identifying the Roswell tin foil.

"Diecast metal" was Lloyd Bennett's (disappointing) lawn discovery.

Fayette County Leader
July 10, 1947

"Rock like metal" was just common terrestrial slag from the Maury Island hoax by Fred Crisman, Harold Dahl and Ray Palmer.

August 1947 Tacoma Times

Stay Tuned

The cash rewards helped feed the 1947 public's saucer fever, and in the days and weeks to come, many more people would come forward with stories and claims of the recovery of crashed flying saucers. This serves as a teaser to a recurring series here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, tentatively titled, "Captured Flying Saucers," coming soon to this very screen.

Coming Soon!

© 2017, Curt Collins