Captured Flying Saucers: Saybrook, IL, July 26, 1947

In Captured Flying Saucers: July 7, 1947, The Disk that Slipped by the FBI, we looked at how J. Edgar Hoover was upset that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was cut out of a UFO investigation. Along with previous disappointments dealing with the military, that caused the FBI to want nothing to do with flying saucers. Later the same month, the policy, if not the attitude, changed.

(Document on the FBI site: BUREAU BULLETIN No. 42)

The Bureau, at the request of the Army Air Forces Intelligence, has agreed to cooperate in the investigation of flying discs...

7-30-47
BUREAU BULLETIN No. 42
Series 1947

You should investigate each instance which is brought to your attention of a sighting of a flying disc in order to ascertain whether or not it is a bona fide sighting, an imaginary one or a prank. You should also bear in mind that individuals might report seeing flying discs for various reasons. It is conceivable that an individual might be desirous of seeking personal publicity, causing hysteria, or playing a prank.

The Bureau should be notified immediately by teletype of all reported sightings and the results of your inquiries. In instances where the report appears to have merit, the teletype should be followed by a letter to the Bureau containing in detail the results of your inquiries. The Army Air Forces have assured the Bureau complete cooperating in these matters and in any instances where they fail to make information available to you or make the recovered discs available for your examination, it should promptly be brought to the attention of the Bureau.

Any information you develop in connection with these discs should be promptly brought to the attention of the Army through your usual liaison channels.

They also noted that there was the potential for UFO hoaxes to be used to breed fear:

"The Army Air Forces Intelligence has also indicated some concern that the reported sightings might have been made by subversive individuals for the purpose of creating a mass hysteria."

The Springfield FBI Memo

One of the USA's greatest concerns about flying saucers were that they were a new weapon of some sort by the Soviet Union, therefore, investigating UFOs was a matter of national security. As a result, saucer sightings were taken seriously, and many FBI agents' reports were written in grave tones, though few cases were of genuine importance.

Shortly after the FBI saucer directive, a report came in from Illinois. Someone had recovered a small disc. The memorandum to headquarters for FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover:

TO: Director, FBI DATE: August 20, 1947

FROM: SAC, Springfield

SUBJECT: FLYING DISC 

Reference is made to Bureau Bulletin No. 42, Series 1947, dated 

July 30, 1947 re the above. 

For the Bureau's information a Mrs. xxxxxxxxxxxxx of Saybrook,  

Illinois reported to this office the finding of a flying disc 

in her front yard at 6:00 A.M. on July 26, 1947. 

It appears from investigation conducted by an Agent of this 

office that the stability of xxxxxxxxxxxxx is questionable. How- 

ever the alleged flying disc was obtained and it is apparently 

the concoction of some of the juveniles in the area. It is an

old wooden platter, which has assembled on it a silver plate, a 

spark plug, a timer, and some old brass tubing. Photographs 

were taken of the same and there are six views enclosed herewith. 

No doubt this was someone's idea of a prank. 

The disc is presently being retained by the Springfield Office and 

will be retained pending receipt of Bureau advice relative to its

destruction. The thought in retaining it was that perhaps the 

Bureau might desire to have it transmitted to Washington for any 

novel value it might have. 

JBP:hg 

62-0-1445 

Enc. (6) 

To view the FBI file on this case: 62-0-1445: Saybrook, Illinois, July 26, 1947

On Sept. 5, 1947, FBI headquarters replied: Nah, if the military doesn't want it, get rid of it.

The FBI site has a page on their site about the “Unusual Phenomena” files collection, “The FBI and UFOs: Flying Flapjacks, Saucers, and Saw Blades.” It featured a brief recap of the Saybrook saucer case and displayed two clear pictures of it:

The FBI and UFOs: Flying Flapjacks, Saucers, and Saw Blades

The FBI report failed to mention that the flying disc carried the brand of its purported country of origin: Russia. With the "timer, and some old brass tubing," it looked a bit like a bomb. Had the "Russia" label been published in the media, it might have led to just the kind of mass hysteria the authorities feared, hoax or not.

The Saybrook citizen's report seems to have gone directly to the local FBI, and was not covered by the newspapers like so many other flying saucers stories around the same time. Since the FBI's investigation was conclusive, nothing was passed on to the Air Force, therefore this incident is not found in the files of Project Blue Book. In a sense, the case is unsolved. Once the FBI decided it was just a prank by some kids, they were done with it. We'll never know who made the phony soviet saucer or just why.

The FBI was only in the UFO business for a short while. According to their site, a July 1950 FBI statement said that “the jurisdiction and responsibility for investigating flying saucers have been assumed by the United States Air Force... the FBI does not attempt to investigate these reports..."
There were a few exceptions though, but those generally were focused on saucer swindlers, not actual reported UFO sightings.

There were many other early cases of hoaxed captured flying saucers, and the FBI was involved in several of them. See our previous STTF articles, including: Captured Flying Saucers: The North Hollywood Disc, July 10, 1947

FBI UFO Files, 1947: The Harbinger Letter

The FBI got into the UFO business in 1947, but they wanted nothing to do with it. In many cases, the FBI was stuck doing the legwork for low-level cases, chasing down rumors and hoaxes for the Air Force. They continued to do so up until 1950, but after that they were still occasionally involved mostly in investigating the people involved in UFO cases, most often Contactees or frauds - or both.

FBI files contain many documents on UFO- related cases, often without any context. We’ve written about two such cases before. The most famous FBI document is the Hottel Memo:
Scientist Predicts ET Contact / FBI Crashed UFO Document. Another stir was caused by "A Memorandum of Importance" dated July 8, 1947 which seemed to show the FBI knew quite a bit about the nature of the saucers and the aliens who flew them:

1946, Before Saucers, Kareeta: UFO Contact in California

The problem comes from the FBI material not clearly identifying the source, and worse, by failing to note the solution. We recently discovered another case that follows this pattern, but with a bit of research have matched it to newspaper reports to resolve the mystery.

A Strange Flying Saucer Letter

July 11, 1947, less than a month after Kenneth Arnold’s newsmaking saucer sighting, people across the USA were receiving strange letters suggesting that the UFOs could be “harbingers of a better day,” and that “one of these startling discs is on its way to you.”

Many of the people who received the letter wrote to their local newspaper, and at least one citizen forwarded a copy to the FBI to see what they could make of it.

The mysterious letter itself, postmarked New York City:

Have you seen one of the mysterious "Saucers?" 

What did it look like? 

Do you think these strange celestial manifestations are harbingers of a better day? 

Do you believe it means a new and revolutionary advance is coming? 

Will it make your life brighter, happier, more useful? 

We believe one of these startling discs is on its way to you. Then the secret will be out. 

(Signed) The Combined and Amalgamated Committee of Sky-scanners, Disc Decipherers and New-Product Introducers. 

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover replied to the informant, but merely offered thanks, not an explanation, and no clarification is contained in the files.  

The original FBI files

The Silver Disc Appears

Below is a simulation of the follow-up to the mysterious letter, and the newspaper clippings that clarify the mystery.

The Decatur Herald, (Decatur, IL) July 18, 1947, The Call Leader, (Elwood, IN) July 16, 1947

It was an advertising stunt for Eversharp CA, perhaps the first major company to exploit the flying saucer craze. They were the biggest, but not the first. Many smaller local businesses had beat them to it by commercializing saucers to promote anything from radio stations to hamburger stands.

Here’s a look at the Eversharp CA, a pioneer in the ball point pen business. More on the company can be found in the article at Eversharp CA Ballpoint 1945-1947 at PenHero.com.

There are more FBI flying saucer cases, from the serious to the silly and we’ll continue to look at them here at STTF. We’ll also keep looking at other examples in the never-ending saga of saucer exploitation

Noah Clubb and the UFO Crash Retrieval Case

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

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

Flying Disc Segments Recovered in Colorado 

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

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

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

Believe It or Not!

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

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

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

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

“To J. Edgar Hoover – True?” 

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

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

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

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

Back to the Saucer Debris Investigation

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

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

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

Relic Is Identified As Jap War Gadget 

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

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

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

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

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

The Pre-Saucer US Government Cover-Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

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

The OTHER Air Force Captured Flying Saucer Retraction

Flying Saucer Swindlers: Silas Newton and the UFO Crash

In 1950, the public had been told that flying saucers are real, but there was even more exciting news circulating. A scientist disclosed that four spaceships had been captured by the US government - and we should expect another flying saucer landing soon. The story was issued by United Press (UP) and published as front page news by many papers across the USA on October 20, 1950.

Hartford Courant Oct. 20, 1950

The Minneapolis Star Oct. 20 1950 

The "scientist" was oil man Silas M. Newton, billed in the news as a geophysicist. The Newton story began circulating in late 1949, and spread faster than a virus, and by early 1950, several variations of it were in circulation. 

... the story got from Silas Newton to J. Edgar Hoover: Newton told George Koehler (employed at radio station KMYR in Denver), who told Morley Davies, who told Ford dealers Murphy and van Horn, who told auto dealer Fick, who told the editor of the Kansas City Wyandotte Echo. By that time, Koehler had become "Coulter," just like a game of "gossip" (or a game of "pi")!       

This article was picked up in the news, where it caught the interest of the OSI. The OSI agent passed the story on to Guy Hottel of the FBI, and he gave the 8th-hand story to Hoover. http://www.nmsr.org/aztec.htm

The FBI Hottel Memo

A version of Silas Newton's story was recorded by agent Guy Hottel of the FBI New Orleans office on March 31, 1950. It's a real document, but it has often been misrepresented, taken out of context. Since it surfaced in the 1970s, the "Hottel Memo" has been frequently cited as evidence of a government cover-up of recovered UFOs, and also falsely linked to another incident, the alleged flying saucer crash known as the "Roswell Incident." 

The document itself can be viewed at the FBI Vault:

FBI Memorandum - Subject: Flying Discs (Guy Hottel Memo)

In 2011, Isaac Koi made a thorough examination of the frequent "re-discoveries" of the Guy Hottel Memo: "Debunked! The FBI alien bodies memo – A case study in the reinvention of the wheel"

Behind the Flying Saucers

Silas Newton's story really caught fire when it was picked up in a national magazine. Frank Scully was a Hollywood gossip columnist, with "Scully's Scrapbook" dishing up tinsel town 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.

Newton and Scully

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.

The story was a hoax, part of a scam by Newton to provide an exotic technological origin for the "doodlebug" he was selling with partner Leo GeBauer, a device that was supposed to magnetically detect oil deposits beneath the earth. He was tried and found guilty of fraud in 1953.

Before: Co-defendant Leo GeBauer, his attorney, and Silas Newton

After: Newton Sentenced

Here's a short version of the Silas Newton Aztec hoax, a non-UFO article examining the episode as just as an oil swindle. It's from the site of the The American Oil & Gas Historical Society:

Doodlebugs, Magnetic Loggers & Flying Saucers 

Here's a rare recording of Silas Newton telling the story himself. This undated 24-minute audio was part of Wendy Connor's Faded Discs collection: 

Aztec, NM. 1948. Silas Newton relates the crash of a UFO with humanoids.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Although the hoax had its critics, it took two years before it was debunked by J.P. Cahn in "The Flying Saucers and the Mysterious Little Men" in True Magazine, Sept. 1952, and in a follow-up piece in True Magazine, Aug. 1956, "Flying Saucer Swindlers." Newton and Scully exploited the hopes and fears of those interested in the UFO mystery, promoting the belief that extraterrestrials were visiting Earth and that there was a Government conspiracy to hide it. When the hoax was exposed, the story was largely forgotten, but the alien and cover-up concepts were adopted as canonical beliefs. The Air Force was portrayed as a villain in Newton's story and Scully's book, and it continued to be a source of irritation. In 1965, answering a request for information about it, the Air Force replied:

For more on the Frank Scully book, see the previous STTF article,

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

The Shape of Things to Come

As for Silas Newton's 1950 prediction that a flying saucer would soon land, he was off. It happened in 1952, according to the story told by George Adamski.

For more on the Adamski hoax, see:
Saucer News presents: the George Adamski Exposé

The Saucers That Time Forgot will be presenting an series of in-depth articles on other early Flying Saucer Swindlers. Next up, Harold J Berney: The FBI’s Flying Saucer Fugitive.

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.

1947: The Unsolved Mystery of Discs Over America

A U.S. dollar in 1947 had some nice purchasing power. A buck could buy a couple of movie tickets, dinner out for one, or a sack of groceries. Another option was to spend it learning about the secret behind flying saucers.

(Photo borrowed from the unrelated Rhodes Photo Case of July 7, 1947.)

An item was widely circulated in newspapers in several states across the USA during August and September of 1947. It looked like a short news article about an organization located in Illinois, but was actually an advertisement.

DISCS OVER AMERICA

The most amazing event in history is the appearance of unexplained discs over America. Their explanation is necessary to every Man and Woman in this country. 

The amazing explanation involves not only the discs alone . . . but it answers the greatest and most potent of mysteries,— 

Why do anthropoid apes sit spellbound before two crossed sticks? 

Why do children draw an arc one third of the way up a sheet of paper when confronted with the idea of death? 

What is the meaning of the twenty eight fires that struck at the exact center of the American population? 

The answer to these questions is the most important information you have ever received. Send one dollar now for your copy of the survey “Discs Over America.” Mail to des Arc Foundation, Lake Forest, Ill.  

States where the advertisement is known to have been published.

After the run of that ad, there was nothing else. We were unable to locate a copy of the pamphlet or whatever “Discs Over America” was. The tone of the text sounded like it was from a New Age  religious organization. We’ve contacted UFO historians and religious scholars, but no information on  "des Arc Foundation" has been found anywhere, and there’s no mention of the publication anywhere else. However, some valuable information was located, thanks to TK of the Kook Science Research Hatch, material presented in our next section.

The FBI and the United States Post Office

While the ads were still circulating, Chicago Post Office Inspector T. H. Barkow sent a note to the FBI on September 19, 1947, asking for any information on “[Redacted], formerly of Lake Forest, Illinois, who may also have given a Chicago address at various times," in connection with an "Alleged violation of Section 2350, P. L. & R. by des Arc Foundation, sale of information on flying discs." 

The FBI responded saying they could not help without more data about the suspect. “You are advised that an effective search cannot be conducted... on the basis of the name only. If you are able to furnish the physical description of [Redacted ] or other means of identification... a search will be conducted in an effort to furnish you with the information desired.”

See the FBI file on pages 8-9 of this collection.

The FBI records show nothing else. Postal Statute Section 2350 related to schemes “to defraud or to obtain money by means of false or fraudulent representations.”  

It may be that the U.S. Postal Service stepped in and shut down the “Discs Over America” enterprise for fraud.  Hoping to the Post Office had files with further details, I submitted a FOIA request. Sadly, the response was unfavorable: 

“We regret to advise that any investigatory records which may have existed during the period 1947 regarding the individual in question would have been destroyed in accordance with the prescribed records retention schedule of the U.S. Postal Service.”

The Unsolved Mystery of des Arc Foundation

What was des Arc Foundation? The bit about “anthropoid apes sit spellbound before two crossed sticks” sounds like a dig at Christianity. The part about children drawing an arc “when confronted with the idea of death” sounds like it had a religious or metaphysical message. As for twenty-eight fires “that struck at the exact center of the American population,” we at least know what event was being described, one from June 21, 1940, at Odon, Indiana. The Buffalo Evening News, (New York) Dec. 6, 1941, carried a story on freak accidents, noted, “At Odon Ind., the farm home of William Hackler caught fire 28 distinct times in one day.”

The 2019 story, “The 28 Fires of Odon” by Dale M. Brumfield, has more details about the Hackler incident. Some newspapers reported on Fortean-type speculation that the fires were caused by the house's position in "the center of a strong magnetic field where static electricity prevailed.” The Hackler story was exploited in an advertising campaign by the Travelers Insurance Company, appearing in papers and Collier’s Magazine, April 19, 1941:

Was des Arc Foundation genuinely investigating the flying saucer mystery, and “silenced” by the government? Or was it a bogus organization by a charlatan to capitalize on UFOs to peddle some spiritual hokum? Without more information, we’re left guessing.

If you have any leads on des Arc Foundation, “Discs Over America,” or the person or organization behind it, please contact us at The Saucers That Time Forgot.