UFOs ‘Official’ History Part 2: 1947 - Kenneth Arnold, Roswell and all that!

In part 2 of this series we will revisit the very early years of the Cold War (well actually just one) and look at what the ‘official’ files and statements from governments, the military and civil authorities tell us about UFOs during the period covering Kenneth Arnold’s sighting, Roswell and the UFO Wave of 1947.

If you missed part 1 which looked at the Battle of LA 1942 (which happened 75 years ago this month), Foo Fighters and the Scandinavian Ghost Rocket Phenomenon then please see this link: UFOs ‘Official’ History Part 1 : Before the Saucers Came

Now I was going to go into the early 1950s in this particular part. However I am aware of the significance of what went down in 1947 and how one particular case will probably dominate any debate. Plus I’d been having PC trouble for a while which slowed me down substantially.

So this part focuses solely upon one year – 1947.

1947 - Operation ‘Charlie’

In the bitterly frozen winter of early 1947, the night of January 16th, Britain’s radar defence operators began to twitch because of an object being tracked at 38,000ft. It descended towards the Eastern coast of England and appeared to briefly stop then race at speeds of 400mph – 1000mph on radar scopes.

An RAF Mosquito was repeatedly sent in pursuit of the object for some 30 min. or more. But the target was finally lost on radar scopes inland over Norfolk. This was by no means the only intrusion and there was serious concern about these mysterious incursions into British airspace. These phantom aircraft seemed to evade the Mosquito fighters with ease. The Mosquito pilot was able to confirm a radar contact but was never able to make a visual sighting.



Above : Reports reached the British newspapers in May of 1947 with the UK Air Ministry denying there was any evidence to support the ‘ghost plane’ stories.

These ‘ghost planes’ became the subject of ‘Operation Charlie’. An unofficial name for the Air Ministry’s investigation into the mysterious object. No satisfactory explanation was ever given for the incidents. The lack of any conclusion to the investigation was to secretly influence military policy on both sides of the Atlantic when, months later, "flying saucers" began to hit the news wires.



A later USAF inquiry offered the solution as a "..possible temperature inversion", without any real evidence this was the case.

In conclusion “Operation Charlie” remains an unknown 70 years later. Had the incidents occurred in the summer of 1947 then perhaps ‘Charlie’ would have been dubbed as a flying saucer. It also seems to have the hallmarks of Project Palladium. Palladium was an early secret study of the effect of radar and electronic counter measures which allowed the CIA to create and control ‘ghost’ images on enemy radar. However, to this day, no one seems to have admitted to any such experiments regarding Operation Charlie.

For a full report on Operation Charlie see Martin Shough’s excellent analysis: Operation Charlie (Free pdf)

1947 – The Coming of the Saucers

1947 is often viewed as year zero in modern UFO history. There were many sightings of unexplained aerial phenomena in early to mid -1947. The Ghost Rockets reports (covered in part 1 of this series of posts) continued to come in from Scandinavia and objects were being reported all over the world.

On Feb 6th 1947 five strange objects in formation were seen heading south at rapid speeds above the skies of Port Augusta, Australia.

In April of 1947 sightings of disc craft were reported in France. One disc was described as 30m in diameter seen from about 400m away, it vanished as it ascended on an almost vertical path upwards.

There is also a well documented UFO case that lies on record from Richmond, Virginia in April 1947 and recorded in Project Grudge as Incident No. 79.

A weather bureau observer at the Richmond Station observed on three different occasions, during a six month period prior to April, 1947, a disc-like metal chrome object. All sightings were made through a theodolite while making pibal [balloon] observations.
On the last reported sighting, the balloon was at 15,000 feet altitude, the disc followed for 15 seconds. It was shaped like an ellipse with a flat level bottom and a dome-like top. The altitude and the speed were not estimated, but the object, allegedly through the instrument, appeared larger than the balloon.

Another observer at the same station saw a similar object under corresponding circumstances, with the exception that her balloon was at an altitude of 27,000 feet and possessed a dull-metallic lustre. There was good visibility on days of observation. Report of this sighting was not submitted until 22 July 1947.

Project Astronomer’s Opinion: There is no astronomical explanation for this incident, which, however, deserves considerable attention, because of the experience of the observers and the fact that the observation was made through a theodolite and that comparison could be made with a pibal balloon. The observers had, therefore, a good estimate of altitude, of relative size, and of speed – much more reliable than those given in most reports.

More reports would follow. On May 5th 1947 - Seattle, Washington a silver object streaked across the sky leaving a strange pillar of gas hanging in the sky. Two weeks later a round white object was seen travelling at an estimated 3 times the speed of sound over Oklahoma City.


By early June sightings were even being made in India (clip above from Times of India – 9th June 1947). Although perhaps in this case it really was a comet people across the world were starting to notice things in the skies.

But it would not be until Kenneth Arnold’s report of craft ‘skipping like saucers.....’ that the wave of 1947’ flying disks (or saucers) would really capture the imagination of the public and the attention of the military.



Further reading : The Day Before Roswell

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1947 – Summer of Saucers: Kenneth Arnold



June 24th 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying from Chehalis to Yakima on a business trip when he was asked to assist in the search for a crashed aircraft. Shortly after 3pm he was approaching the west side of Mount Rainier in Washington State. He then noticed a flash of light like a reflection from a mirror.

Looking for other aircraft, he looked around and north of Mount Rainier, was a formation of nine objects reflecting the light of the sun. Describing them as convex shapes he compared their movement to saucers skipping on water. Arnold made an estimate of their speed at almost 1,700 miles per hour, travelling 47 miles in 102 seconds.

Arnold’s calculations and estimations may well have been wrong. The media thought his story to be a hoax at first:

.....when the story first broke all the newspaper editors in the area were thoroughly convinced that the incident was a hoax, and that they intended to report the story as such.

.....when the editors found out that they were wrong about the hoax, they did a complete about-face, and were very much impressed by the story. This enthusiasm spread, and since the Air Force so quickly denied ownership of the objects, all of the facts built up into a story so unique that papers all over the world gave it front-page space.

Source: The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, 17-19 - Edward J. Ruppelt

The story has been debated for 70 years. At the time Kenneth Arnold, being a patriotic American who thought he’d possibly witnessed an intrusion of US airspace by foreign aircraft, was somewhat perplexed that the Pentagon showed absolutely no interest in his story in the immediate aftermath and did not contact him. He eventually submitted a written report to the Army Air Force on July 12th 1947.

See : Link



The US Air Force’s ‘Project Sign’, however, concluded Arnold had seen a mirage.

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1947 –Summer of the Saucers: Roswell

The Roswell story has become the most famous of all UFO stories in many nations and cultures. Yet the full details remain unclear even 70 years after it happened. We know something fell to earth in late June/early July of 1947, on the Foster Ranch, 30 miles south of Corona, New Mexico. We know that the rancher William ‘Mac’ Brazel took some of the debris into Roswell after hearing about a possible reward for recovering a ‘flying disk’.

It is also a fact that Major Jesse Marcel , Captain Sheridan Cavitt and MSgt Lewis S. Rickett followed Brazel the 70 miles or so from Roswell back to the ranch to inspect and recover the remaining debris. On July 8th the Roswell Army Air Field Public Information Office brazenly announced they had recovered a flying disk.







A day later that announcement had been ‘corrected’ to the finding being nothing more than a weather balloon. Photos of the (alleged) debris recovered were released to the press. One of those photos included, a rather sheepish looking, Jesse Marcel holding pieces of a wrecked weather balloon in his hands.



The story was then almost forgotten, but for a handful of mentions down the years, until the late 1970s. The official explanation was virtually universally accepted at the time. The ‘Roswell event’ was caused by a weather balloon.

Even some 20 years after the Roswell events UFO investigator, Ted Bloecher, wrote in his “Report on the UFO Wave of 1947”.

.... If a report wasn’t an out-and-out hoax, it was an embarrassingly obvious mistake. One of those mistakes, given the widest possible publicity, had its origins near Roswell, New Mexico, when a farmer named William W. ("Mac") Brazel discovered the wreckage of a disc on his ranch near Corona, early in July. After hearing news broadcasts of flying saucer reports, Brazel, who had stored pieces of the disc in a barn, notified the Sheriff's Office in Roswell, who, in turn, notified Major Jesse A. Marcel, of the Roswell Army Air Field intelligence office. The remnants of the disc were taken to Roswell Field for examination. Through a series of clumsy blunders in public relations, and a desire by the press to manufacture a crashed disc if none would obligingly crash of itself, the story got blown up out of all proportions that read "Crashed Disc Found in New Mexico."

According to AP on July 8th, public information officer Lt. Walter Haught made an announcement of the discovery:

“The many rumours regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff’s office of Chavez County.”

The effect of this reckless statement was equal to an atomic detonation; results were immediate. While newspapers deluged the air base for additional information, a search party was sent out to scour the landing site for additional fragments; the collected remains of whatever it was that had crashed on Brazel’s ranch were taken to Eighth Air Force headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas.

There, Brigadier General Roger M. Ramey tried to clarify matters by first explaining that no one had actually seen the object in the air; that the remains were of a flimsy construction; that it was partially composed of tinfoil; and, finally, that it was the wreckage of "a high altitude weather device..... There remains the possibility that some super-secret upper-atmospheric balloon experiment had crashed near Corona, which would have accounted for all the confusion and secrecy involved in its recovery.. The New Mexico incident created an uproar in Washington, and high Army Air Force officials were reported to have delivered a blistering rebuke to Roswell Field spokesmen for having fostered the confusion. But the damage had already been done....

Roswell would remain a footnote of ufology for another decade.

1947 - The FBI and the ‘Roswell’ Teletype Memo


Yet there is a genuine FBI document that clearly relates to the Roswell incident. It is a teletype message dated July 8th 1947, between the FBI’s Dallas and Cincinnati offices copied to director J. Edgar Hoover and Strategic Air Command.
This document at first appears to follow the ‘official reports’ from the time.
It states - “......the object found resembles a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector”.
But then tantalisingly includes further comment -“.....but that telephonic conversation between their office and Wright Field had not xxxxxxxxxx borne out this belief”.

…


FBI DALLAS 7-8-47 6-17 PM

DIRECTOR AND SAC, CINCINNATI URGENT

FLYING DISC, INFORMATION CONCERNING. MAJOR CURTAN, HEADQUARTERS
EIGHTH AIR FORCE, TELEPHONICALLY ADVISED THIS OFFICE THAT AN OBJECT
PURPORTING TO BE A FLYING DISC WAS RE COVERED NEAR ROSWELL, NEW
MEXICO, THIS DATE. THE DISC IS HEXAGONAL IN SHAPE AND WAS SUSPENDED
FROM A BALLOON BY A CABLE, WHICH BALLOON WAS APPROXIMATELY TWENTY
FEET IN DIAMETER. MAJOR CURTAN FURTHER ADVISED THAT THE OBJECT
FOUND RESEMBLES A HIGH ALTITUDE WEATHER BALLOON WITH A RADAR
REFLECTOR, BUT THAT TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION BETWEEN THEIR OFFICE AND
WRIGHT FIELD HAD NOT xxxxxxxxxx BORNE OUT THIS BELIEF.

DISC AND BALLOON BEING TRANSPORTED TO WRIGHT FIELD BY SPECIAL PLANE FOR EXAMINATION
INFORMATION PROVIDED THIS OFFICE BECAUSE OF NATIONAL INTEREST IN CASE
xxxx AND FACT THAT NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY, ASSOCIATED PRESS, A
OTHERS ATTEMPTING TO BREAK STORY OF LOCATION OF DISC TODAY. MAJOR
CURTAN ADVISED WOULD REQUEST WRIGHT FIELD TO ADVISE CINCINNATI
OFFICE RESULTS OF EXAMINATION. NO FURTHER INVESTIGATION BEING CONDUCTED.

Source : vault.fbi.gov...

Selective quotation from the above memo has resulted in debates of exactly what this reveals. It was even used ‘selectively’ in “The Roswell Report Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert” 1995 where the Air Force mentioned “.....the object found resembles a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector” and omits the part “....but “that telephonic conversation between their office and Wright Field had not [text blacked out[ borne out this belief...”.

Of course the latter phrase is open to interpretation and people with differing views have twisted it to fit their own perceptions of what they believe happened. Frustratingly it leaves us with no definite answers.

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1947 – The Hoover ‘Flying Disks’ Memo


On July 10th 1947,Assistant Director D. M. Ladd composed an FBI memo to E. G. Fitch, outlining a request to Clyde Tolson (Hoover’s right hand man and deputy). This was following up Army Brigadier General George F. Schulgen’s request for FBI help.

“...in locating and questioning individuals who first sighted the so-called flying discs..[with] the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in locating and questioning the individuals who first sighted the so-called flying disks in order to ascertain whether or not they are sincere in their statements that they saw these disks, or whether their statements were promoted by personal desire for publicity or political reasons....... ”.

Released long before the internet era this memo, dated July 10th 1947 contains handwritten annotations by none other than the Director of the FBI J.Edgar Hoover.

Clyde Tolson (pictured with Hoover below) endorsed the memo, writing on July 15, “I think we should do this” encouraging his boss to agree that the FBI would participate in UFO investigations.



There is an addendum at the end of the memo where Ladd intimates that the FBI only wants to hear about the ‘good stuff’ –

“...I would recommend that we advise the Army that the Bureau does not believe it should go into these investigations, it being noted that a great bulk of those alleged discs reported found have been pranks. It is not believed that the Bureau would accomplish anything by going into these investigations...”

The final annotation is on page 2 of the memo and by J. Edgar Hoover himself. It is somewhat difficult to read.

The most common interpretation of what Hoover’s scribbling says is:

“....I would do it but before agreeing to it we must insist upon full access to discs recovered. For instance in the La. case the Army grabbed it and would not let us have it for cursory examination”.

Now that statement in itself seems like a revelation that the US Army had already recovered ‘discs’ and Hoover knew about them. However back in 1947 there had been a spate of ‘flying saucer hoaxes’.

See : www.project1947.com...

The debate around this memo has long been about what Hoover is referring to when he mentions “La”. Some have thought it dates back to the “Battle of LA” in 1942 or “Los Alamos”. Others have suggested that it does not state “La” at all. But researchers like Kevin Randle believe Hoover’s comment relates to a ‘hoax’ from Shreveport (in Louisiana, often abbreviated to “La.”)

....A saucer, whirling through the air, shooting smoke and fire, landed in a downtown street. This one was seemingly solved without recourse to either the FBI or Air Force Intelligence. The Shreveport police said it was the work of a prankster, who had launched the homemade disk from the top of an office building. The saucer had a fluorescent light starter and two electric fan condensers. It couldn't fly either....

Source : Frank Scully – Behind the Flying Saucers

There is some provenance for this conclusion as another, typewritten FBI memo states

For instance, in the La. case the Army grabbed it and would not let us have it for cursory examination .....

In quoting the Hoover memo the’ La.’ abbreviation for Louisiana had also been used in this clearer type written version. Project Blue Book files also reveal a report that a “Flying Disc” was found in Shreveport, Louisiana on July 7th 1947.



According to documents now in the public domain, the FBI was aware of the Shreveport case. Their agents did interview a ‘source’ and confirmed that the Army had taken the disc into their possession. Investigations revealed that the disc (pictured) was an electronic starter from a fluorescent light and two condensers from electric fans. The man who built it, whose details are blacked out, also said that he had used a torch to put soot on the edges so that it looked as if the disc had been spinning.

The Army Air Force agreed to complete co-operation with the FBI. Ultimately however it seems that they were trying to palm off investigations of hoaxes onto the FBI. This is outlined by Colonel R H Smith (Assistant Chief of Staff Intelligence) in a memo that was not intended to be seen by FBI officials.

“... the FBI were enlisted in order to relieve the numbered Air Forces of the task of tracking down all the many instances which turned out to be ash can covers, toilet seats and whatnot”.

Hoover, however, did see this memo and responded rather sarcastically that his agents would not be wasting their time in this way.


Another seemingly interesting memo as it clearly shows the FBI was intending to carry out investigations after prompting from the military. However taken in full context it is less ‘exciting’ .The underlying motive appears to be an attempt to save wasteful manpower by the military and avoid investigating hoaxes.



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1947 - The Twining Memo

The Twining memo of September 23rd 1947 is, arguably, one of the more important UFO documents released into the public domain from 1947. It was created just 3 months after the Arnold sighting (and the events at Roswell). Authored by (then) Lt. General Nathan F. Twining it is a classified letter to United States Air Force General George Shulgen.

In the letter General Twining is requesting investigations should be made into the wave of Flying Saucer sightings and confirmed that saucer shaped UFOs were “real and not visionary or fictitious”.

The letter contains some very interesting references. It has been used by ufologists with differing points of view to reinforce their opinions about what Twining (and the US Air Force) really knew about the flying disks .

In his report Twining clearly makes the case that these objects existed and were possibly under intelligent control.



For those that believe Roswell (or any other UFO event prior to Sept 1947) may have been an ET crash covered up by the US military though there is also another comment from Twining. He confirms there is a ‘lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these subjects’.

 

h. Due consideration must be given the following:-
..................
(2) The lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these subjects............

However it has also been argued, by the likes of Richard Dolan, that although Twining was probably in a position to know of any such UFO crash; he simply may not have been able to tell Schulgen about it. If Schulgen lacked the right clearances and a “need to know,” Twining would not be allowed to mention it to him in his memo directly. All conjecture of course but also

To see the full memo for yourself then please use this link : www.nicap.org...

By late October of 1947 it was no longer a question about whether the flying saucers existed. The question was a case of what they were and where they came from. Schlugen (pictured) dispatched his own memo.

See : www.roswellfiles.com...

What can be gleaned from Schulgen’s memo ?

It seems fingers were pointed towards Germany. It particularly focused on the work of the Horten brothers (aircraft engineers from Nazi Germany who had developed the ‘flying wing’). Expressing a suspicion that they had been building aircraft for the Soviets and consequently this would represent a real threat to the United States and the Western Allies.

There were strong fears that the Soviet Union may be behind the “flying saucer” wave in 1947. Some media reports even claimed the Russians were launching these ‘flying saucers’. But eventually those views would change.........


Official investigations into Roswell would only be re-opened in the 1990s. In 1993, the then called General Accounting Office became embroiled in the ‘Roswell dispute’, after a line of inquiries was opened by the late New Mexico Congressman, Steven Schiff.

Schiff was personally involved in trying to unveil the truth and believed both the National Archives and the ‘Department of Defense’ were giving him the run-around in his search. The Air Force was also involved in an investigation of its own.

In a report on Roswell – dated July 28, 1995 the GAO stated that the DoD [Department of Defense] informed them that the U.S. Air Force report of July 1994, entitled Report of Air Force Research Regarding the Roswell Incident, represented the extent of DoD records or information concerning the Roswell crash.

The US Air Force report concluded that there was no dispute that something did happen near Roswell in July 1947 and that the historical records and contemporary interviews conducted pointed to an explanation that the remains of a Project Mogul balloon train had been found in the summer of 1947. Project Mogul was a highly classified U.S. research project to determine how advanced the Soviet nuclear program was at the time.

Source : fas.org...

The alien bodies reported by ‘witnesses’? They were just crash test dummies. People were confused because it was so long ago.

We will return to Roswell again later in the series. However back in 1947 Roswell was neither the start nor the end of the 1947 Flying Saucer Wave. It did not seem to hold any importance with officials and ufologists alike for decades. Immediately after the incident reports began to reduce and the ‘smirk’ factor slowly took hold with people in the media reporting on people who had seen UFOs.

As the summer of ’47 came to an end with ‘Flying Saucer fever’ fading in the United States some of those in power were still secretly expressing deep concerns.


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1947 - In Conclusion

There was a lot more going in 1947 than this briefest of snapshots focusing on the two most culturally significant cases of that year. Many of the alleged UFO sightings turned out to be pranks and hoaxes. Other reports came from unreliable witnesses reporting anything in the night skies as flying saucers.

In 1947 there were multiple agencies investigating ‘flying saucer’ issues. Reports were often slow to appear and, due to internal rivalries and politics, cross agency co-operation was patchy at best and non-existent at other times. The Air Force was officially tasked with investigations but other military intelligence agencies and the FBI had all been investigating ‘saucer’ reports and things changed rapidly after the summer UFO flap.
On September 18th 1947 the National Security Act was passed by President Harry Truman. The US Army Air Force became the United States Air Force (USAF).

To better coordinate U.S. intelligence gathering President Truman also created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It would be charged with the collection of all intelligence reports from every available source, and expedite delivery of those reports to the President without a ‘Department treatment’ or interpretations.”The most important thing was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions” said Truman. The CIA’s main purpose was to advise the President on domestic, foreign, and military policies, and to ensure cooperation between the various military and intelligence agencies. Truman was later to regret this decision when he saw the power and influence wielded by the CIA after he left the Oval office.

A year earlier in 1946 the UK/USA agreement had been signed and formed the basis for the ‘Five Eyes’ agreement. This agreement was the foundation for the most powerful intelligence gathering alliance on the planet. It was created by and for the ‘Anglo’ nations and our allies but was not even publicly acknowledged to exist until 2005.

The intelligence services have continued to play a part in the history of the UFO topic by continually denying there is anything of real concern but also actually investigating UFO incidents and even investigating civilians who investigate UFO incidents. On another level again it seems they have attempted to shape the history of the subject by releasing false information into the UFO community. For what ends I don’t know. But it is fairly easy to speculate that they have something to hide and something to gain with their actions.

By the end of 1947, a group of analysts at at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and part of the ‘Air Technical Intelligence Center’ (ATIC) had concluded that UFOs were something interplanetary. ATIC was prominent in assessing new technology, and became a key player in the early investigation of UFOs. Although USAF Commander Hoyt Vandenburg would later reject this theory outright for lack of proof and a refusal to accept an extra-terrestrial conclusion to the flying saucer issue.

Whatever the ghost planes were. Whatever Kenneth Arnold saw near Mt. Rainier and whatever came down on the Foster Ranch back in 1947. Something was going on that alerted to the military. A 'something' that has been going on for a long, long time.

In the ‘available’ records of the military and other agencies there may be no ‘smoking gun’ or evidence of a UFO locked away in a secret hangar. There may be nothing to say there are alien bodies on ice in a hidden underground facility somewhere. Personally I am not convinced that Kenneth Arnold’s sighting or the modern adaptation of ‘Roswell’ present us with the best evidence for extra-terrestrial encounters either.

But what we can take from the ‘official’ record is that we do have is confirmation that the UFO phenomenon exists.




Coming next............

originally posted by: mirageman
Selective quotation from the above memo has resulted in debates of exactly what this reveals. It was even used ‘selectively’ in “The Roswell Report Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert” 1995 where the Air Force mentioned “.....the object found resembles a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector” and omits the part “....but “that telephonic conversation between their office and Wright Field had not [text blacked out[ borne out this belief...”.

Of course the latter phrase is open to interpretation and people with differing views have twisted it to fit their own perceptions of what they believe happened. Frustratingly it leaves us with no definite answers.

If Wright Patterson had any idea what it was then of course they knew it wasn't a weather balloon since it wasn't measuring the weather. According to the later air force report it was probably part of a series of test flights aimed at detecting the sounds from soviet nuclear detonations, so there's not really any mystery behind the statement it looked like a weather balloon but it really wasn't if that's what happened.

Awesome post, the kind that made this site great. Thank you! ~Hyp

In the case of Kenneth Arnold's sighting I do think that it has to do with a flying wing concept most likely to do with the Horton Bro's conception since the Americans had a captured prototype of sorts. Most telling is that Arnold spoke about the craft skipping like saucers on water without actually saying that they were saucer shaped, and if the drawing of Arnold's is his, and of what he saw, it is a flying wing. But to carry on with his visual of the craft skipping, what would you expect it to do as a flying wing? I would expect it to do just that, lift and stall if all the flying sufaces had not been perfected for an even transit through the air, plus the CG and all that entails including say fuel, or any animate objects inside. Against that, Arnold saw in his estimation, nine aircraft...that is a fleet, and you would not expect a fleet of plonkers to be built in a go, but perhaps a series of prototypes, but doubtful to be seen all at once. There again Arnold also said that they were big, so it's like back to being a fleet, so still something of a mystery, though flying wings were being worked on in the 1940's from several American sources but I don't think there were any fleets as early as that.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Yeah, it would have been nice if OP included more info about Mogul.

On June 4, 1947, Flight 4 was launched, and tracked as far as Arabela, New Mexico, only 17 miles from the location of the debris field on the Foster ranch.

www.csicop.org...

a reply to: moebius

The octahedral radar reflectors used in the balloon train being tantalisingly close to the hexagonal "disc" in the FBI memo.

The thing is with the whole Roswell issue that if you come down on either side of the argument you ignore testimony from the other and the only way to reconcile that is for a saucer with occupants to have crashed into a Mogul flight !

originally posted by: moebius
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Yeah, it would have been nice if OP included more info about Mogul.

On June 4, 1947, Flight 4 was launched, and tracked as far as Arabela, New Mexico, only 17 miles from the location of the debris field on the Foster ranch.

www.csicop.org...

I didn't specifically mention Mogul for a number of reasons but mainly for reasons of brevity in what was to be a much larger post going into the 1950s. Plus the 'Mogul' explanation did not appear until the 1990s when a much more expanded story would enter the public domain. So left it out it was.

Of course Charles Moore's account in the link you kindly provided explaining that the Roswell debris was from Mogul flight 4 is refuted by Kevin Randle (also mentioned in the article).

Randle claims

........First, let me point out that Charles Moore prepared detailed report on Project Mogul Flight No. 4 using his expertise and winds aloft data that I supplied to him. As I have mentioned before, that data only went to 20,000 feet and it was often incomplete with several stations either not reporting or reporting only partial data. Even the layman, looking at these data see that the winds are wildly variable and often blowing in nearly opposite directions from one altitude to the next.

Second, let’s look at what [Dr. Albert] Crary wrote about those early June, 1947, launches that included Fight No. 4. He said, "June 4, 1947. Out to Tularosa Range and fired charges between 00 and 06 this am. No balloon flight again on account of clouds. Flew regular sonobuoy up in cluster of balloons and had good luck on receiver on ground but poor on plane. Out with Thompson pm. Shot charges from 1800 to 2400."


Source : kevinrandle.blogspot.co.uk...

Basically saying the evidence for a Mogul flight 4 is tenuous at best. Of course the debate goes much deeper than this and don't think that I believe an alien craft crashed near Roswell just because of that point. But when examining the 'evidence' people tend to either cherry pick the bits to fit their own theory or are left wondering what to believe and what is the real truth.

a reply to: chunder

The thing is with the whole Roswell issue that if you come down on either side of the argument you ignore testimony from the other and the only way to reconcile that is for a saucer with occupants to have crashed into a Mogul flight !

Well that's another theory but Jesse Marcel never mentioned 'occupants' in any of his interviews in the 70s/80s. He was the base intelligence officer and you'd have thought he'd have known and said something if 'occupants' were involved. But that's just an assumption. So who really knows?

I remain convinced, as I've posted here before and elsewhere, that what crashed on the ranch near Roswell wasn't an actual Mogul flight. I believe a balloon cluster was inflated on June 4th in anticipation of the launch of Mogul #4. When #4 was cancelled, they were left with a cluster of inflated balloons. Instead of wasting that cluster, Charles Moore then used the opportunity to attach multiple radar targets to continue his testing of the V-2 radar reception of Mogul flights in NM. OR as routine procedure, multiple targets had already been attached shortly after the balloons were inflated awaiting the attachment of Mogul instruments. Once flight #4 was cancelled because of cloud cover, the intended balloons and radar targets were instead launched with a "regular sono bouy" as described in Moguls flight director Albert Cracy's diary on June 4th. The equipment on that flight would have been expendable and not recovered. It crashed on the ranch on June 4th leaving an unusually large debris field of foil-like material, small sticks, and burnt rubber as described by Mac Brazel shortly thereafter.

This seems like the most logical scenario to me. That removes the argument of Mogul #4 not being launched that day by believers/supporters of a crashed alien saucer. It in fact wasn't launched. There doesn't need to be a Mogul flight to explain this tale, only one that contains balloons and radar targets. That's exactly what would have been on the "regular sono bouy" flight launched on June 4th.

a reply to: Ectoplasm8

That sounds plausible to me. The news reports and evidence at the time do not hint at anything more than tape, sticks, paper and rubber, ' being found. Certainly no engine or propulsion system appears to have been reported. Although people could argue, how would we know what an alien propulsion system would look like? The co-incidences of the materials found with those used in a Mogul balloon train provide strong clues to an objective answer.

Plus back in 1947 the term 'flying disk' or 'flying saucer' was not considered to mean an extra-terrestrial craft either.

As for the 1990s USAF reports on Roswell I think the main problem with them was that they tried to 'explain' the popular mythology of that decade regarding Roswell rather than concentrating on explaining what happened. So we got the rather silly explanations about Crash Dummies being mistaken for aliens etc.

However we cannot escape the cultural significance of both Kenneth Arnold's Sighting and Roswell and the impact both events had on perceptions but strangely in very different time periods.

Hey m.m. thanks for summary of 1947...

A questions that i have, how (why) did the news papers change their views on the Kenneth Arnolds sightings?
was there any witnesses other than him, radar? Because the case of Kenneth arnold sighting as i understand, only came from him? So what makes him a credible witness? I know its probably a controversial question about K.A.. but what i find hard, (this goes trough every ufo case) is that nobody else, have seen these craft at that time and fast forward to 2017, nobody "yet" has reported roughly the same experience. So once again its a isolated case, with zero evidence other than the story of K.A (please correct me, if i am wrong on this, if there is cases that is almost identical to this one.)



ps sorry for my bad english grammar...

a reply to: JoeHansen

Google the William Rhodes UFO photo - taken in Pheonix, Arizona on 7th July 1947 and identical to the description given by Arnold.

I guess the exception is that Arnold saw 9 in a trailing formation but there have been numerous reports of sightings of multiple objects, some of which have also been chevron shaped.

a reply to: JoeHansen

...how (why) did the news papers change their views on the Kenneth Arnolds sightings? was there any witnesses other than him, radar?

The quote I used comes from The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects by Edward Ruppelt. It's out of copyright now. So the link provided here allows you to download the full book in pdf form free and legally. Well worth a read if you haven't already seen this book.

Ruppelt also says about Arnold (see page 19)

The more they dug into the facts, however, and into Arnold's reputation, the more it appeared that he was telling the truth. Besides having an unquestionable character , he was an excellent mountain pilot, and mountain pilots are a breed of men who know every nook and cranny of the mountains in their area.....

.

So basically Arnold had a 'credibility factor' that made the media sit up and take proper notice.

There was no other witness to Arnold's sighting on the day and no radar track (that we know of). So it remains what it is. A single witness UFO case with no evidence. But in 1947 it was BIG news.

Ruppelt summed it all up

...In 1947 this was a fantastic story, but now it is just another UFO report marked "Unknown." It is typical in that if the facts are accurate, if Arnold actually did see the UFO's go behind a mountain peak, and if he knew his exact position at the time, the UFO problem cannot be lightly sloughed off; but there are always "ifs" in UFO reports....

......(see P18)

It is so easy to place modern day interpretations on events and reports from the past. IN 1947 there was no history of UFO reports that we have now. Most people got their information from newspapers and radio and trusted these organisations and their governments to tell us the real truth. Hence the impact of Arnold's sighting at the time.

Hope you find some of that helpful Joe.

originally posted by: chunder
a reply to: JoeHansen

Google the William Rhodes UFO photo - taken in Pheonix, Arizona on 7th July 1947 and identical to the description given by Arnold.

I guess the exception is that Arnold saw 9 in a trailing formation but there have been numerous reports of sightings of multiple objects, some of which have also been chevron shaped.

Thank you very much for this, i will definitely look into this..

a reply to: mirageman

Well that does indeed answer my question about the transformation the news papers did back then. I agree on the modern day interpretations off old events, and how people did get information back then.. I was just curious to how, they switch their view of Kenneth.. I downloaded the book, never heard about it, so again thank you for that piece, and the helpful info M.M!