If there is any such thing as a flying saucer disc, washtub or luminous ball of any kind flying around loose, it was not made in America. That was the official announcement from the army air forces Monday night in answer to the epidemic of reports from 40 states ranging from the Northwest to New England.
"Neither the AAF nor any other component of the armed forces has any plane, guided missile, or other aerial device under development which could possibly be mistaken for a saucer or formation of flying discs," Maj. Gen. Nathan F. Twining, chief of the AAF air material command, told The Oregonian unequivocally when reached by phone at Kirtland army airbase at Albuquerque, N. M.
"Some of these witnesses evidently saw something," General Twining, a native of Portland, declared. "But we don't know what. We are investigating."
AAF laboratories at Wright Field confirmed General Twining's statements to The Oregonian.
The navy and atomic energy commission also officially announced they had no knowledge of or connection with the mysterious missiles.
One of the most promising reports from Russell Baird, pilot of a photographic plane near Bozeman, Mont., collapsed when the pilot announced he had merely been "gassing around the hangar" and had no intention of telling a story for publication.
Another apparently fizzled out when national guard pilots from Spokane failed to find any trace of flying platters "big as houses" supposed to have fluttered into the timber near St. Maries, Idaho.
But more reports continued to come spinning in, most of them as elusive and varied as the reported missiles themselves.
A Rutland, Vt., woman said she saw a brilliant object in the night sky which she assumed to be a "flying saucer," although it was stationary.
At Cambridge, Mass., a housewife said she saw "a group of white flying saucers whirling around and going at a tremendous speed."
Harvard university astronomical observatory took note of New England's entrance into the game of "spinning the platter," but said it had had no luck so far in photographing one of the discs.
Curbstone explanations of the phenomena ranged from the theory they were radio-controlled flying missiles sent aloft by U.S. military scientists to the suggestion they might be merely sunlight reflected from the wing tanks of jet-propelled planes.
The mysterious saucers first were reported June 25 in the state of Washington, but Charlie T. Hamlet, superintendent of the Kingsport, Tenn., Times-News composing room, said he had seen the discs two years ago.
They were "of a bright, aluminum color" and "were going at a terrific speed," Hamlet said, explaining he kept quiet about them because of the Oak Ridge atomic bomb plant, then a war secret.
Norman Hargrave, a Houston, Tex., jeweler, told a Chronicle reporter Sunday that he had found an aluminum disk floating near the beach while he and his wife were walking along the beach.
He said the disk was about 20 inches in diameter and six inches thick.
Monday, however, Hargrave said it was all just a joke.
But the Chronicle, in its final edition Monday pointed out that "there are some mysterious facts contained in his (Hargrave's) first report that lend credence to the tale."
Hargrave reported the disk bore this inscription:
"Military secret of the United States of America, army air forces M 4339658. Anyone damaging or revealing description or whereabouts of this missile subject to prosecution by the United States government. Call collect at once LO446 army air forces depot, Spokane, Washington."
In big letters, Hargrave said were plainly printed "nonexplosive."
At Spokane, Col. Frank D. Hackett, commanding officer of the Spokane air depot, told the Associated Press late Monday that he knew "nothing about" the reported finding of a flying disk on the Texas Gulf coast other than that his public relations office had received a call from the Houston Chronicle.
Local developments page 11.