Report By Frank Edwards about UFOs and Official Statements

(from 1956 — for comparison with what may be read in the 2021 military Preliminary Assessment)

 

Frank Edwards autobiography cover / 1950 UFO newspaper article

Frank Edwards (1908-1967) was a popular American journalist, broadcaster and author during the first years of Modern UFOlogy.  The 1956 autobiography of the man who was 'Mutual news commentator' is entitled My First 10,000,000 Sponsors and was followed by four books inspired by his national radio program "Stranger Than Science."  Frank's next book was Flying Saucers — Serious Business in 1966 and the following year was published his Flying Saucers — Here and Now!  This blog article presents a substantial portion of the autobiography chapter about UFOlogy. 

"What the hell is that!?"

 

 

Your experience is just one of thousands of similar reports, filed away as classified material, which keeps them from the prying eyes of newsmen who are not convinced that the official stories are true stories, where these strange objects are concerned.

What may some day be the greatest news story of all time began on the afternoon of June 23, 1947.  A railroad engineer called the newspaper in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to report that he had seen something very strange in the air that day.

"They looked like ten shiny, disc-shaped things," he said. "They were very, very high, fluttering along in a string and pretty soon they vanished toward the northwest."

 
His report made only a few lines on the news tickers and was dropped during the early-evening reports.

Next day the storm broke.

A Boise, Idaho, businessman, Kenneth Arnold, was flying his own plane from Chehalis to Yakima, Washington.  Before him in the distance something glinted in the brilliant sunshine.  Between his plane and Mount Ranier he saw a string of nine shining disclike objects swerving back and forth over the mountains.  Flat like pie pans, Arnold later told authorities.  How fast were they?  Veteran flier Arnold estimated  their speed at a thousand  miles per hour — or better.

That story hit the news wires with a crash and made the front pages from coast to coast.  Before the night was over, Arnold's strange account had support: A Portland building contractor who knew nothing of the furor over Arnold's report told authorities that while up in the Cascades during the day, he and his companions had watched six or more shiny disc-shaped things zooming overhead in unbelievable maneuvers.  They noticed more than that, however, for while the objects were in the neighborhood the contractor reported that his compass wavered wildly.

In the ensuing week, reports of sightings poured in from all parts of the United States, from Canada and Alaska and from ships at sea.  The Air Force, charged with evaluating such reports, was plainly bewildered by the magnitude of the problem.  The first official announcements stated that a check was being made on the reported sightings.  A few days later the Air Force made its initial backflip: On July 4, in an effort to reassure everyone, a statement was released to the press to the effect that the mystery had been solved: everyone was having hallucinations!

The Air Force brass could not have chosen a more transparent solution nor a worse day on which to release it.  On that same day, thousands of perfectly sane citizens in Portland, Oregon, watched dozens of strange discs flip around in the skies at tremendous altitudes.  Seattle, Vancouver, Spokane and many smaller cities reported similar sightings before the day was done.  Most conclusive of all was the experience of a United Airlines crew flying a passenger plane over Idaho.  Captain E. J. Smith, Co-pilot Ralph Stevens and other crew members watched five wingless discoids move into the path of their plane, to be followed a few moments later by four more objects  of identical form, which the fliers estimated to be about one hundred feet in diameter and perhaps twenty feet  in thickness at the center.  The airliner crew watched them for ten minutes before the discs suddenly accelerated and ran away from the big passenger plane.

Since those first hectic days of the so-called "saucer" sightings the Air Force has changed its position several times, generally with an ineptitude that served merely to underscore the contradictions in the official statements.  Since the 1947 sightings in this country, similar unidentified flying objects have been reported from every country on earth, including the Soviet Union and its satellites.  A great deal has been learned about the discs in these past eight years but thus far no nation has been able to produce a comparable device.  The strange objects have been frequently tracked by radar, photographed by movie cameras, by still cameras with diffraction grids and by telescopic devices.  They have been seen at close range by military fliers who pursued them in jets; they have played tag with civilian and military pilots on occasion.  Many credible witnesses have reported to authorities that these circular, metallic-appearing objects have been seen on the ground, generally about daylight and almost always in remote areas.  The favorite theme in Air Force public statements has been to dismiss the matter as a crackpot phantasmagoria.

 
The sightings of 1947 created intense public interest and then ceased as dramatically as they had begun.  In 1948 I went to Alaska and made movies of that majestic land.  While I was there I made inquiries about the mysterious UFOs — and I found numerous civilian fliers who had reported the things.  I talked with two jet pilots who had reported chasing a strange wingless object that looked like the fuselage of a wingless B-29, with no visible means of propulsion.  Then I got a spray job from the Air Force in Alaska, whose representatives slyly hinted that they knew all about the things.  And, unofficially of course, they could assure me that there was nothing to be concerned about.  The UFOs were ours! 

I must hang my head in shame and admit that I fell for their story, for a while at least.  Then came that night in the winter of 1949 when Gordon Graham gave me that package — the advance copy of an article which True magazine had scheduled for release in its January, 1950, issue.  Written by Major Donald Keyhoe, it methodically punctured the Air Force shield of confusion and presented an imposing array of factual matter to support  his statements.   

 

 

. . . the tens of thousands of people from all walks of life who wrote to me on this subject made it clear that they did not believe the Air Force official statements and "explanations" which are too frequently contradictory or ridiculous.

 

It would, I think, have been far better for the Air Force to have admitted that they were aware of the implications and that they were seeking the answer, whatever it might be.

 

When a veteran jet fighter pilot's radar locks on a strange object and he chases it at full speed for hundreds of miles before it eludes him, it hardly makes sense to tell that pilot (and the public) that he was chasing a weather balloon.

 

When a naval officer makes movies of several disc-shaped objects maneuvering in formation at speeds that were officially estimated to be in excess of nine hundred miles per hour, it is hard to accept the Air Force statement that the objects are only seagulls! 

 

 

During the four and a half years that I was with Mutual, I was in very close touch with the men who fly America's thousands of commercial airline planes.  These are the carefully trained pilots, co-pilots, navigators and flight engineers who are responsible for the safety of millions of passengers . . . it was easy for me to establish rapport with them on a confidential basis. 

 

For a couple of years, until 1952, there was no difficulty in getting prompt reports of strange objects the fliers were encountering in the skies.  I made a telephone recording of a conversation with Captain Jack Adams of Chicago and Southern Airlines only a few minutes after he and his co-pilot had reported that a large circular object was flying rings around their airliner near Stuttgart, Arkansas.  This incident was promptly covered by the press services and got excellent coverage on press and radio.

 

In contrast we have the case of a B-36 bomber near Rosalia, Washington, which radioed that it was being circled by a huge disc-shaped object carrying blinking blue lights.  The crew of the bomber were watching the thing visually and on their radar.  Dated February 6, 1953, their account of the sighting is one of the most detailed reports in the files, but the press wires ignored it and few people knew that it had happened.

 

I mention this incident because it is typical of the manner in which thousands of similar cases have been kept from the public knowledge.  The less the people know about what is happening the easier it is to deceive them into believing that nothing whatever is occurring.  It is ironic that in the United States, which prides itself on its freedom of press and freedom of speech, the muzzle has been clamped on the subject of Unidentified Flying Objects.  The best examples of this suppression are to be found in the manner in which the sightings in the District of Columbia have been handled.  

 

As late as the summer of 1952 there was prompt publication of the sightings in Washington, D.C.  On the night of July 20th, 1952, the radar scope at the National Airport picked up five objects which were also reported by commercial radio engineers, who saw the things near their transmitter, moving in formation.  The radar contact verified the formation and speed; a warning was flashed to nearby Andrews Field military base.  For two hours the strange objects circled the nation's capital without interference.  (Actually all the jets were sweeping the skies over New Jersey at the time, where a gigantic object was hovering far above the reach of the jets.  They stayed there until the thing went away, about 2:10 a.m.)  The first jets to reach the Washington area came roaring in about three o'clock on the morning of July 20th.  As the jets approached, the Unidentified Objects scattered and vanished from the radar scopes.  After scouring the area vainly, the jets went on to land at Andrews Field.  Five minutes later, the radar scopes again picked up the mysterious blips.  One of the things, easily seen because of the lights around its periphery, followed a commercial airliner to the edge of the National Airport.  By daylight, the objects were gone and the weary jet and radar crews went to some well-earned rest.  

 

Newspapers had no trouble getting the story from the airport personnel and others who had been in the midst of the excitement.  Only the Air Force remained aloof.  

 

On the night of July 26th, the things were back over Washington again.  This time they came in at high altitude.  First reported by commercial pilots, they were quickly picked up by radar and jets were dispatched.  The jet pilots saw the things right where the radar indicated they should be, but the jets were hopelessly outdistanced in the chase.  

 

Official explanation: The things were natural phenomena! 

 

 

On the night preceding the second visit of the Unidentified Flying Objects to Washington, the jet pilots were instructed to order the "natural phenomena" to land and if they refused, "shoot to kill."  Under a nationwide barrage of protest to President Truman from aroused and alarmed citizens, the "shoot to kill" order was quietly rescinded a few hours after I had broadcast the fact of its existence.  

 

The sensational and puzzling developments were fully reported in the nation's newspapers and on the air.  There was ample coverage — but that was in the summer of 1952.  From that moment forward the screws were tightened on the release or discussion of Unidentified Flying Objects at official levels.

The evidence: On May 13th, 1954, between 12:45 and 2:00 a.m., police and other personnel at the National Airport reported watching two large glowing objects which maneuvered over the airport and over part of the city of Washington.  Military Air Transport confirmed the sightings and an Air Force spokesman recommended that the things be referred to as Unidentified Flying Objects.  The report of this incident appeared in one early edition of the Washington Post.  It did not appear in any other newspaper or any other edition of the Post!

 

. . . an official document published by the Civil Aeronautics Administration, a copy of which I have.  It is entitled For Limited Distribution — A Preliminary Study of Unidentified Targets Observed  on Air Traffic Control Radars.   

 

 

On July 7th, 1952, the CAA study says that Captain Bruen of National Airlines radioed that he was being approached by a blue-white light at an altitude of 11,000 feet about 60 miles west of National Airport.  "The object," says the CAA report, "came to within two miles of the aircraft and hovered at the same altitude.  Pilot switched on all lights, ball of light took off, going up and away."  

 

 

The CAA charts published in that document list more than a score of sightings involving a single object in each case.  Other sightings, both radar and visual, include what it calls "many" objects.  The real jackpots were hit on May 23rd, 1952, when fifty of the things  were under observation on the Washington radars at the same time and again on August 13th, when 68 Unidentified Flying Objects were officially tracked within ten miles of the National Airport between 8 and 11:30 p.m., moving at widely varying speeds and directions . . . When the August 13th UFOs darted over the nation's capital, not one word was made public.

The muzzle was on.  

 

 

. . . I was receiving more than a hundred reports per week from listeners who were sending clippings from their local papers.  The news-wires carried reports of such sightings in 1952; they did not carry them (with rare exceptions) in 1954.

In Washington the Air Force press desk told the public in June of 1954 that it had received only 87 sighting reports in five months.  At Cincinnati, which is the nerve center of the entire government UFO investigation, Lt. Colonel John O'Mara is Deputy Commander of Intelligence.  He was interviewed by Mr. Leonard Stringfield, Cincinnati businessman and publisher of a periodical dealing with UFOs.  Colonel O'Mara scuttled the Pentagon statement when he told Mr. Stringfield that sightings were actually pouring at the rate of more than 700 per week — the heaviest rate since the investigation began five years before!

As further evidence of the manner in which the flood of sightings have been kept from the public, the Wilmington Delaware Morning News carried a front-page story on July 9, 1954, headlined: 100 Mystery Flying Objects Spotted Here.  "Air Force permits Ground Observer Corps to release data on phenomena sighted in past two years and confirmed elsewhere."  The article disclosed that ground observers had been watching these things and reporting them to the Baltimore Filter Center where the Air Force studied the reports.  On July 5th, just four days before the Wilmington News broke the story, the Air Force had officially identified one of the sightings as "an Unidentified Flying Object!"

As the evidence mounted, month by month, I carried the reports briefly on my nationwide Mutual news commentary.  The Air Force efforts to ridicule the subject were not helped by my repeated disclosures.  

 

 

Dr. Hermann Oberth, father of the German rocket program, told newsmen recently: "There is no doubt in my mind that these objects are interplanetary craft of some sort.  I am confident that they do not originate in our solar system . . ."

 

 

Immediately following the widely publicized sightings of these objects over the nation's capital in the summer of 1952, the lid of secrecy was clamped on.  The Air Force adopted a policy of withholding from publication sightings which were not easily recognizable as conventional objects.  Local newspapers continued to report on sightings in their communities but the press wires obligingly ignored the reports.
 
February 17th, 1954:—Officers of Military Air Transport Intelligence meet with officers of the Airline Pilots Association in the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.  Purpose of the meeting was to urge commercial pilots to radio at once when unidentified objects were sighted.  Pilots were to be advised to make full reports to government officials and to make no public statements.

May 15th, 1954:—Air Force Chief Nathan Twining tells audience in Amarillo that best brains of Air Force are trying to solve the riddle of the flying saucers: "If they come from Mars, there is nothing to be alarmed about!"

May 17th, 1954:—Four National Guard jet pilots near Dallas, Texas, engage in game of high-altitude tag with sixteen flying discs, before jets were outdistanced.  Reported in Dallas Herald on May 25th.  Not carried by news services.

May 31st, 1954:—Fifth Air Force officials confirm report that U.S. jets in South Korea have been chasing flying saucers.

June 9th, 1954:—Colonel Frank Milani, Baltimore director of Civil Defense demands that Air Force lessen its secrecy about the saucers.  

 

 

July, 1954:—Official confirmation that Doctor Clyde Tombaugh and Doctor Lincoln La Paz, of the University of New Mexico, are conducting search for two tiny objects known to be circling the earth.

October-November, 1954:—Sightings of flying saucers reported throughout Europe, Northern Africa and the Near East.  

 

 

February 18th, 1955:—Adler Planetarium in Chicago discloses that an astronomer whom it calls "thoroughly responsible" has located more than a score of small objects of unknown nature circling this earth at an altitude of about 475 miles.  

 

 

July 29th, 1955:—President Eisenhower announces that the United States will launch a small experimental satellite within two years.  This satellite will be designed to circle the earth at the equator at an altitude of 250 miles and a speed of 18,000 miles per hour.  This means that it will become the third object to circle the earth at the equator at that height and speed.

What is the nature of the other two?

Where did they come from?

How long have they been there?

How did they get there?