Planes Over Los Angeles Says Stimson

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 - (AP) - War Secretary Stimson said today that unidentified airplanes, possibly as many as 15, which may have been operated by enemy agents, were over Los Angeles early yesterday and were fired on by United States army anti-aircraft.

Since no bombs were dropped, Stimson said, it was possible that the planes might have come from commercial sources operated by enemy agents to spread alarm, disclose the location of anti-aircraft gun emplacements, and slow down war operations by causing blackouts.

The secretary said his information was contained in a report from Gen. George C. Marshall, army chief of staff, and apparently was based on reports from army officials in California.

"My only comment," Stimson said, "is that perhaps it is better to be too alert than not alert enough."

Stimson said he had no explanation of the statement that neither army nor navy planes were in action, and he did not explain what was meant by "commercial sources."

Stimson said the investigation of the incident was continuing.

15 Craft Over U.S.

Washington, Feb. 26. - War Secretary Stimson said today that unidentified airplanes, possibly as many as 15, which may have been operated by enemy agents, were over Los Angeles early yesterday and were fired on by United States army anti-aircraft guns.

Stimson said the incident, described late yesterday by Secretary of the Navy Knox as a "false alarm," occurred between 3:12 and 4:15 a.m. Pacific war time.

Anti-aircraft guns of the 37th coast artillery brigade fired 1,430 rounds of ammunition at the planes, which Stimson told a press conference were officially reported as flying at speeds ranging from "very slow," to 200 miles an hour, and heights of 9,000 to 18,000 feet.

The planes dropped no bombs, Stimson said, there were no casualties among American troops, none of the planes was shot down, and no American army or navy planes were in action.

Since no bombs were dropped, Stimson said, it was possible that the planes might have come from commercial sources operated by enemy agents to spread alarm, disclose the location of anti-aircraft gun emplacements, and slow down war operations by causing blackouts.

NAZIS NEW WEAPON PARTIALLY EXPLAINED
_______

NEW YORK - The description of the new German foo-fighters, or balls of fire, fit into several well-known electrical phenomena.

These are induction, ball lightning and have some, though not all the aspects of St. Elmo's fire. If they are electrical, they are something created in the air close to the planes, rather than anything shot like artillery shells or anything floating in the air in wait for planes.

Induction is suggested by the reports that the foo-fires keep up with the plane, at fixed distances, regardless of plane speed, changes in speed or changes in direction.

Electrical induction of some sort would explain such marvelous synchronization. Nothing else that is well known would explain such perfect timing. Radio control from the ground does not explain the timing, unless radio control is meant to describe a beam which is part of the automatic induction.

Induction, however, fails completely to describe what happens when a fire-ball zooms upward leaving its plane. Apparently, the balls fly paths of thousands of feet away from the planes.

The common experience that resembles this trick is ball lightning. How anybody could produce ball lightning is unknown. Exactly what ball lightning may be is also unknown. But it is a quite harmless thing, even as the German foo-balls are reported to be. A lightning ball can explode in your front yard, making a loud bang but doing little or no damage.

St. Elmo's fire is a brush discharge of static electricity, which streams off some solid object with a brilliant intensity. Aviators are familiar with brush discharges and would recognize them, so that the foo-balls are probably not ordinary St. Elmo's fire.

The deep purple color of brush discharge static would explain the reports that the foo-balls are red. The shade of red has not been reported. Ball lightning has been reported in slightly red shades.

A reason for the foo-balls, again based on experiences, is interference, with radar, radio, or perhaps with a plane's ignition. Ignition interference would stop a plane in the air. It was a real project in Italy before this war, and how to do it was well known in theory in the United States. All you needed then to stop a plane five or more miles away, was a power plant equal to Niagara Falls.

A guess can be made that the foo-balls are evidence that German natural scientists have found some way to get around part of the power troubles in interference. The fact that they are using them, and so disclosing their secrets to the Allies, would indicate that they do not hope to attain to ignition interference power.

Sudbury, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 22 December 1947, page 1

CONNECTS 'SAUCER' EPIDEMIC WITH SOVIET ROCKET TESTS

Washington, Dec. 22 (AP) - Representative Harris Ellsworth (Rep.- Ore.) revived reports today that last summer's "flying saucer" epidemic may have stemmed from Russian rocket experiments.

Claiming that he has received reliable information concerning the development of high velocity missiles by Soviet scientists, Ellsworth added:

"Strangely enough, this development might be the solution of the now almost forgotten mystery of the flying saucers."

He said the Russians are reported to have a rocket of amazing speed and "almost limitless range," propelled by a series of explosions occurring several seconds apart.

"Each successive explosion shoots the missile forward at increased speed," Ellsworth said. "Apparently the charges are packed separately and are held by metal discs. As each charge is fired, the metal disc is discharged as an empty cartridge shell is ejected from an automatic rifle. The discs are made of thin metal and possibly disintegrate in the air not long after they are discharged."

Ellsworth suggested that American scientists might have been working on some similar device but he held it more likely that any discs actually seen had come from Russian military proving grounds.

There were similar reports at the time the flying saucer wave swept the United States and Canada earlier this year, but they were given no official credence.

Missing Balloon Seen Over Hamilton

Hamilton - (CP) - An object sighted in the sky over Lake Superior Ontario Saturday afternoon by four fruitland residents may have been a balloon containing radar and other scientific and photograph equipment which broke away from its moorings at Minneapolis.

Following news reports which described the object as a "flying saucer," one of the four, Stanley Tuddenham, received a telegram from Minneapolis asking him to telephone a complete description. The Minneapolis party said that while the object they saw may have been the missing balloon, it should have been deflated to a greater degree than the object they described.

Claims Flying Saucers Originate In Russia

TORONTO - (CP) - Kenneth de Courcey, publisher of the Intelligence Digest at London, England, thinks those flying saucers may be discharges from supersonic missiles launched in Russia. In a broadcast over a Toronto radio station (CKEY) de Courcey said Wednesday night this explanation is based on information he has received from intelligence experts behind the iron curtain.

FLYING SAUCERS BALLOONS USED IN COSMIC STUDY
By ALTON L. BLAKESLEE

NEW YORK - (AP) - Flying saucers are real - but they're only huge balloons used in cosmic ray studies, Look magazine says in today's issue, quoting Dr. Urner Liddel.

Dr. Liddel, chief of the nuclear physics branch of the office of United States Naval Research, is in charge of the cosmic ray-balloon project.

The balloons are huge plastic bags, 100 feet in diameter, that may rise 19 miles high - about 100,000 feet. Winds may sweep them along at 200 miles an hour. At dusk, the slanting rays of the sun lights up their bottoms, giving them a saucer-like appearance.

They carry instruments aloft to record what happens when cosmic rays hit atoms in the earth's atmosphere. This splitting gives clues to how atoms are put together, and how to release their energy.

"When this project first began, it was kept secret," the magazine quotes Dr. Liddel.

"The Liddel report is considered to be the most authoritative scientific explanation of the flying-saucer phenomenon. As far as Dr. Liddel is concerned personally, he considers his answer incontrovertibly right."

The balloons, called "skyhooks," were first sent aloft in 1947 and it was then that flying saucer reports began. There were more balloons in the next two years and more "saucers" seen.

Unusual Fireballs Could Be Missiles

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Dr. Lincoln La Paz said Tuesday the unusual green fireballs observed over the southwestern United States recently could be guided missiles - American or somebody else's.

The meteor specialists of the University of New Mexico said in an interview:

"They may be simply an unconventional kind of meteorite fireball. They may be guided missiles undergoing a test in the area which they are designed to defend, or they may be guided missiles of foreign origin."

Guided missile tests, either by friend or foe, would probably be designed to give the impression that the guided missiles emanated from known meteoritic radiants in order to cloud their true nature, he said.

RCAF Insists Jet Caused Mystery, Some Skeptical

OTTAWA (CP) - The air force was pretty sure today that Southwestern Ontario's Sunday "mystery aircraft" was a 600-mile-an-hour British jet bomber. However, some skeptics still had doubts, including one air force wing commander who saw it.

Defence Minister Claxton communicated the RCAF feeling to the Commons the object "almost certainly" was an RAF Canberra bomber flying from Montreal to Omaha, Neb., with Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh Lloyd aboard.

In London, Wing Cmdr. A. D. Haylett, officer commanding No. 420 City of London reserve squadron of the RCAF estimated that the object must have been doing 2,000 miles an hour.

FLYING SAUCERS "REAL PROBLEM" EXPERT DECLARES

TORONTO - (CP) - Most reports of "flying saucers" can be explained as natural phenomena - but there still remains "a concrete group of reports that are unexplained."

This is the cautious assessment by Dr. Peter Millman, chief of the Dominion Observatory's astrophysics division at Ottawa.

"It is difficult to dismiss casually the weight of evidence that now has accumulated," he wrote in an article for the Toronto Telegram. "It is also a mistake to ridicule anyone making a sincere report."

He felt that 99 per cent of those who have reported seeing flying saucers were "perfectly honest" although they might have misinterpreted what they saw, "or was a little over-enthusiastic in describing an event."

Dr. Millman said he had no "inside information" on flying saucers but for 20 years, he has studied reports of objects seen in the sky during observations of meteors.

Accounts Very Similar

The saucers had usually been described as disc-shaped or cigar-shaped. A few observers claimed to have seen rows of lights or port holes along the sides. Nearly all reports said the objects moved rapidly and were highly manoeuverable.

Many normal phenomena in the sky had given rise to flying saucer reports, he said. These included aircraft, balloons, meteors, planets, northern lights, reflections and mirages.

All of these can "under special circumstances appear in such an unusual way that the observer is sure he has seen a unique and inexplicable event."

After allowing for human error and eliminating sightings explainable as natural phenomena, however, "there still remains a concrete group of reports that are unexplained."

"One, two or three of these might be disregarded but there now seems to be too many peculiar cases to eliminate in this way . . ."

"Personally, I haven=t come to any definite conclusions about these objects . . . I am awaiting further developments with interest. There seems to be a good deal that has not yet been satisfactorily explained."

Take Plane Vapor Trails For Saucers

TORONTO (CP) - Vapor trails from high-flying jet aircraft have been taken for flying saucers by Ontario citizens during the last two days, the R.C.A.F. said today.

The saucers were reported from Brampton, Newmarket and Roche's Point on Lake Simcoe. The R.C.A.F. said the apparent saucer formations were jets returning to base after participating in the nine-day defence manoeuvres known as Exercise Signpost.

More than 800 Canadian and United States aircraft took part.

Radar "Saucers" Just Air Layers

WASHINGTON - (AP) - Radar screens showed flying unidentified objects over Washington for five hours early today, but air force experts said they appeared to be mere layers of cold air.

Maj.-Gen. John A. Samford, director of air force intelligence, discounted any theory that the Washington area is being menaced by unknown aerial vehicles from abroad or from other worlds.

Experienced radar operators at the Civil Aeronautics Administration traffic control centre reported scores of unidentified objects flitted about the capital sky from 2:30 to 6 a.m.

3RD RADAR REPORT

It was the third time in 10 days that radar - an electronic device which tracks only physical objects, not imagination - picked up signs of something unknown moving through pre-dawn black skies.

On the two earlier occasions, sightings were confirmed by more than one radar set, and veteran pilots, asked to investigate, said they saw mysterious lights zooming hither and yon. All that led to one of the biggest flying saucer mysteries yet.

But today's sightings - little spots on a fluorescent radar screen - were unconfirmed by other radar sets in the area or by visual sky watchers.

And the air force threw lots of cold water on any chilling speculation about men or missiles from Mars - or enemy countries.

CLAIM NATURAL CAUSE

Samford and fellow air force officers told a press conference, called especially to answer questions about the recent goings-on, that they are personally satisfied there was a natural cause.

Their explanation:

In hot, humid weather - such as Washington and other eastern areas have been having - layers of cold air are likely to get sandwiched between layers of warm air, in what is called a temperature inversion.

These layers produce strong reactions on radar screens, the officers said.

They didn't add any specific explanation of the reported moving lights, but presumably the cold air layers could reflect searchlights or other lights from the earth below.

The air force chiefs conceded that of about 2,000 reports on flying saucers, about 400 have not yet been explained satisfactorily. The air force is giving these reports an "adequate but not frantic" check, they said.

"MYSTERIOUS" LAKE LIGHT WRITTEN OFF AS BUOY

A mysterious light, blinking on and off far out on the choppy waters of Lake Nipissing, was finally written off as a buoy light after several hours of investigation by city police and Provincial Police from Powassan and North Bay.

The light was first sighted by a vacationer residing at a tourist camp on the southeastern shore of the lake. After watching the light, which flashed at about five-minute intervals a coded two dashes and three dashes, for two hours, the tourist called city police.

The call was turned over to Provincial Constable Gerald Kasubeck, Powassan. Constable Kasubeck went to the scene and saw the light, which by this time was flashing three times every five minutes.

When he flashed back with a powerful flashlight, the light appeared to signal back immediately. A check with several resort owners in the area revealed that they knew of no buoy where the light was to be seen.

One resort owner fixed the light at about two miles west of North Bay. The lights appeared to be coming from approximately the centre between the Manitou Islands and the mainland when seen from the south shore.

City police investigated and were unable to pick out any lights beyond the normal channel buoy.

No boats on the lake were reported missing.

Just What Are These Flying Saucers?

Are there or are there not, such things as flying saucers?

The answer to this question will quite likely depend on what you have been reading the past few days.

Some "experts" claim there are flying saucers, and that they hail from one of the planets, probably Venus, while other "experts" claim they are a new aircraft developed by Russia.

Still other groups declare the flying saucers are just illusions, brought on by (A) cloud formations (B) mirages (C) fast flying aircraft (D) overindulgence in alcoholic beverages.

What about radar?

The United States Air Force gives the following explanation:

"Air temperature decreases with altitude. However, when a warm air mass passes over a relatively cooler one, temperature temporarily increases and an inversion layer of warm air is formed. This inversion will cause radar beams to bend earthward. Radar impulses then bounce off ground "targets." What then appears as unidentified "pips" or tiny white lights on radarscopes are not objects in the sky but objects on the ground. With a large inversion street or automobile lights may be similarly reflected, as if in formation, on clouds. If there is sufficient wind velocity, these lights will appear to dance or "dog fight" with the phenomenal gyrations attributed to flying saucers."

In contrast, a U.S. scientist declares there is no question but what the flying saucers are real and that they come from another planet.

It might be added here the scientist was a little embarrassed when a writer asked him why the visitors from space did not land on earth but kept flitting around the skies. However, the scientist had an answer for that one too. He said they probably landed on the sea or in some uninhabitated part of the earth.

Shy little fellows, we must say.

One flying saucer was tracked down a couple of days ago. A man reported he had seen an aircraft being chased by a flying saucer which in turn was being chased by a second aircraft.

Investigation showed the first and second aircraft were real. The flying saucer? A target drogue being towed by the leading plane while the pilot of the second plane tested his marksmanship.

A well known magazine jumped on the bandwagon with a feature story quoting leading authorities as saying flying saucers are not only real but that the United States is in possession of a couple that crashed. No mention was made of what happened to the crews, although it is to be supposed that friends in other saucers carried them away.

Now you tell us. Are there or aren't there flying saucers?

U.K. Sky Ball Just Balloon?

LONDON (AP) - That "huge, glowing metallic object" reported by a military radar team as hovering menacingly over Britain's coastline, probably was just a weather balloon, the air ministry decided Thursday night.

At any rate, there was a metal balloon in the area and at the precise time army radar crews spotted a mysterious object, an air ministry spokesman said.

The war office reported Wednesday night the "metallic intruder" had first been seen by FO. T. S. Jonson from the cockpit of a Vampire night fighter. Then Nov. 3, a military radar team plotted the object on their screens, tracing its movements.

These movements corresponded exactly with the passage of the meteorological balloon released that day, the air ministry said.

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 19 December 1953, Page 1

FLYING SAUCER MAY HAVE BEEN DAYTIME METEOR

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A "flying saucer" said to have been seen over southern Sweden Thursday might have been a daylight meteor, Bertil Anders Lindblad, Lund Observatory scientist, said today.

He said it might have been a straggler from the annual meteor shower known as Geminides, which falls towards the earth between Dec. 7 and 15.

The Swedish defence staff has so far reached no conclusion in an investigation into the report, made by airline pilot Ulf Christiernson. He said he had seen an object "travelling at colossal speed."

The pilot said he had the object in view for four seconds as it passed under his plane. He added: "It looked like a robot." His mechanic agreed.

Flying Saucer Just a Balloon

The RCAF today lifted the lid on its usually secret investigations just high enough to quash the reported sighting of a flying saucer at the base on August 31.

What Henry Durdle, civilian mess orderly, saw by the dawn's first light, was nothing but a weather balloon, the RCAF says. And they presented times, data and a tour of the terrain to a reporter to bolster their declaration.

Durdle said he saw a noiseless glowing object hovering a few feet above the telegraph poles shooting out tremendous sparks of light which rose slowly and spiralled out of sight.

The RCAF said Durdle saw the weather balloon just over the airport beacon which flashes every few seconds. Another light from the object that Durdle saw was a small marker light attached to the balloon by which observers follow the balloon's course.

An investigating officer from the RCAF said Durdle punched the time clock at the guard house at 5:45 a.m., walked a few hundred yards and sighted the object.

At 5:45, a weather balloon was released a few hundred yards away beyond the roofs of some buildings. A meteorologist who plotted the balloon's action through an instrument, testified that the balloon followed the gyrations and course as described by Durdle.

However, the RCAF had no statement to make on the reported sightings of other mysterious flying objects in this district.

High-Flying Weather Balloon Checked by RCAF Jets; Numerous Calls Received

OTTAWA (CP) - RCAF officials quickly took the mystery out of an object reported flying over Ottawa. The object, they said, is a weather balloon.

Local newspapers and weather offices received several phone calls about the object seen at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. EDT Monday.

Because of its great height - estimated at up to 100,000 feet - it could possibly be the same balloon reported visible in the Kitchener area, almost 300 miles distant, one official said. Strong winds and jet trails would move it great distances.

SAME, HIGH UP

The estimate of its height was made when jet planes from Uplands airport reported the balloon looked no larger from 45,000 feet than it did from the ground.

Similar weather balloons are sent up daily from various points in Canada, one official said. They contain radio equipment for broadcasting temperature, humidity and air pressure information.
______

A strange circular object was reported in the sky Sunday over the Beaverton-Orillia district. Later it was sighted around Lindsay, 40 miles farther east.

Early Monday persons in Fort Erie spotted the balloon and later police and weather offices in Hamilton were flooded with calls.

Monday night it was spotted at Kitchener, seemingly about 5,000 or 6,000 feet in the sky, looking about the size of a soccer ball.

Observers said it had a bubble-like projection on one side and a ridge on another. It appeared to be slightly pointed on the side nearest the earth.

Those Saucers Quite Likely Were Balloons

DENVER (AP) - The release order is given and a shimmering, transparent balloon slides away from the concrete launching site.

Within 60 seconds it is more than 500 feet aloft and on its way to that area of silent nothingness 70,000 to 80,000 feet above the earth, bearing a 500-pound load of sensitive electrical equipment.

No spacemen or queer-shaped animals are involved.

It is a commonplace occurrence at Denver's Lowry air force base - the launching of an air force weather balloon, another in a series maintained almost daily.

There is nothing about the event to suggest that hours or days later a balloon launched here might appear to an unskilled observer to be a flying saucer or spherical spacecraft zooming along at phenomenal speeds.

At a demonstration launching Wednesday, however, air force spokesmen conceded that a balloon 14 miles up in space may actually create an optical illusion.

Alternately slimmed down by night and mushroomed by day in the heat of the sun, the hydrogen about 200 miles an hour, depending on wind velocity.

The bags are about 175 feet tall and 120 feet in diameter. At launching they take on the appearance of a long, inverted teardrop.

They carry sensitive gear which records data on wind velocity and direction. Aloft for three to five days, the balloons lose their burden when an electric timing device cuts loose this gear and floats it to earth by parachute.

The balloon, relieved of its weight, rises and explodes. All but a few of the gear from more than 1,000 bags launched at Lowry have been recovered.

Late Doctor's Files Answer To Mystery?

TORONTO (CP) - The widow of a Toronto doctor believes papers and records of experiments by her husband may provide some explanation to car-stopping, light-extinguishing phenomena reported in scattered parts of the United States in the last few days.

The experiments were conducted from 1955 to his death in 1953 by Dr. James Cotton, a well-known diagnostician who produced a widely used type of anesthetic and a truth serum.

Mrs. Ruby Cotton said her husband was conducting final experiments with a mysterious "death ray" at the time of his death. She says the rays, identified by her husband as microwaves and produced by a complicated electrical apparatus, were powerful enough to stop car engines, extinguish lights and kill bugs and mice through brick walls a foot thick.

Papers left by Dr. Cotton, which he intended to publish in book form, describe in detail the medical use of the ray. He used the ray to treat many forms of disease and claimed it produced healing effects in many cases, relieving patients suffering from any kind of pain.

Mrs. Cotton said she complied with her husband's wish that all his equipment be destroyed after his death. However, details of the equipment were registered with the U.S. patent office in Washington.

Shortly before the Second World War, she said, German scientists tried to persuade Dr. Cotton to take his experiments to Germany but he refused.

Relay break at Queenston caused blackout

TORONTO (CP) - Hydro Chairman Ross Strike said today that last week's blackout in the United States and Canada was caused by a relay breaking at Sir Adam Beck plant No. 2 at Queenston Ont.

Hydro was importing a total of 1,600,000 kilowatts in power on the six lines going into the plant and the relay breaking caused all other relays to go out, Mr. Strike told a press conference.

The 1,600,000 kilowatts were thrown on to the U.S. distribution facilities, causing a very rapid increase in frequency. He said this tripped safety equipment but all of it didn't work, and the northeastern states and New York City were most badly hit by this surge of power.

2 Michigan UFOs Called Swamp Gas
BY MICHAEL J. CONLON
United Press International

DETROIT (UPI) - The U.S. Air Force closed its books today on the case of two "visits" by unidentified flying objects. Its verdict: swamp gas.

But some of the people who witnessed what they thought was a landing by a glowing, extra-terrestrial space craft were not completely convinced that the experts were right.

And even while the two most spectacular Michigan sightings now wore the tag of an "official explanation," UFO sightings continued to pop up across the country, in rural areas and cities alike.

Dr. J Allen Hynek, the top Air Force adviser on UFO sightings, climaxed three days of on-the-scene investigation by telling a press conference it appeared "very likely" that swamp gas was responsible for mass reports of strange glowing objects this week at Hillsdale and Dexter in Southern Michigan.

Hynek, an astrophysicist from Northwestern University, said rotting vegetation can release a gas, especially at springtime, which can glow like fire and even make "popping" noises. He said both instances he investigated took place in marsh land.

"It appears very likely that the combinations of the conditions of this particular winter - an unusually mild one in this area - and particular weather conditions that night - were such as to have produced this unusual and puzzling display," he said.

Frank Mannor and his son had described the object that hovered in a marsh at their farm near Dexter as football-shaped with a pitted surface, "like coral rock." But Hynek told reporters Mannor and his son were 500 yards away from the "visitor" and couldn't have distinguished such detail. He said distance was also a factor in the Hillsdale case, where 37 co-eds, their house mother and a civil defense director watched an object in a nearby swamp for several hours.

"A dismal swamp is a most unlikely place for a visit from outer space," Hynek said.

"It was in both cases a very localized phenomenon," he said. "I think that this is a most significant point. It would seem to me that the association of the sightings with swamps, in these particular cases, is more than coincidence."

"I emphasize, in conclusion that I cannot prove in a court of law that this is the full explanation of these sightings," he added.

Mrs. Kelly Hearn, the Hillsdale dorm housemother, said she still retained a "reasonable doubt" about Hynek's findings. "If the phenomena were gas as Dr. Hynek stated, then it behooves me to spend more time studying swamp gas and less time watching what I took to be UFOs," she said.

North Bay, Ontario, DAILY NUGGET, 19 April 1966, Page 2

Space visitors not responsible says Lovell

MONTREAL (CP) - Sir Bernard Lovell, head of Britain's Jodrell Bank Observatory, said Sunday night unidentified flying objects reported in various North American centres recently are really bits of meteorites burning up as they enter the earth's atmosphere.

"I am always surprised by the great amount of discussion which goes on in North America concerning these objects," he said in an interview. "They do not concern science but science fiction."

"Scientists have been able to explain every UFO they investigated. Any suggestion that UFOs are visitors from outer space is nonsense."

Flying object identified as airplane

The unidentified flying objects sighted Friday evening by three Sault Ste. Marie residents could possibly have been a light plane.

Officials at the Sault Ste. Marie Airport said one light plane was in the vicinity early Friday evening when the sightings were reported.

The pilot of the craft, Joe Kachanovsky, a department of lands and forests flyer, Monday said the light, one-engine plane could look odd in the light snow falling that night. The flashing lights of the plane would reflect off the falling snow and produce different colors, he said.

UFOs were reported by two boys on Hugill Street and a woman on Wellington Street West at 8:30 p.m. Friday.

Professor debunks UFOs as wishful seeing
By BOB COHEN
Southam News Services

MONTREAL - Unidentified flying objects which cannot be explained naturally may exist courtesy of the tricks man's brain can play on his vision.

Dr. Roy M. Pritchard, an associate professor of psychology at Hamilton's MacMaster University, says man can "most emphatically not" believe what he sees because people interpret visual stimulation in different ways.

"Any visual signal is effected by what's in the brain already," he said in a session on unidentified flying objects presented here at the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute's annual Astronautics Symposium.

"We see what we need to see, what we expect to see, what we try to see. The amount of visual information we receive is so big that we must be selective (in extracting bits from it) that extraction can result in perceptual distortion."

"The human is interpreting the outside world. He can be fooled very easily."

Dr. Pritchard pointed out human perception could be affected by such factors as hunger, anger, and prejudice. The psychological context in which different people absorbed different information varied so widely that it did not matter whose account of an event you accepted.

"It's immaterial what the wife of the vicar of Little Whopping says she saw; his mistress would do just as well," he suggested.

Despite natural and visual tricks, there are still unexplained UFO sightings which Dr. James E. McDonald of the University of Arizona's Institute of Atmospheric Physics believes can be explained most easily by assuming UFOs come from somewhere else in earth's Milky Way galaxy.

Dr. McDonald told the symposium, "very far from being a nonsense problem, the UFO issue is one of extremely great scientific importance" of international scope.

"Over 20 years of evidence . . . suggests that machine-like objects, products of some technology rather than atmospheric optical or electrical anomalies have been repeatedly seen, often by observers of very high credibility. I favor the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs."

"A search for patterns in these observations discloses one major feature - the seemingly global scale on which the observations are coming in. Hence, we appear to be confronting here an international scientific problem."

Dr. McDonald based his support for the extraterrestrial hypothesis of the origin of UFOs on several cases in which he suggested the existence of objects sighted could only be explained in extraterrestrial terms.

However, he was confronted by Phillip J. Klass, an editor of Aviation Week Magazine whose own book on unidentified flying objects - UFOs identified - seeks to explain some saucer sighting in terms of such atmospheric phenomena as ball lightning and the creation of charged gaseous masses called plasmas.

Mr. Klass said Dr. McDonald has a "fast-changing inventory" of puzzling cases which could be explained away tomorrow, just as some of Dr. McDonald's puzzlers of the past had been removed from his case book.

Dr. Peter Millman, the internationally recognized head of the National Research Council's upper atmosphere research section in Ottawa said his years of experience in working with telescopes, cameras, and radar to study meteors had taught him that all perception systems could do funny things.

"I'm very familiar with how the honest observer can misconstrue what he sees," said Dr. Millman.

"Up to the present, I must be sold on the idea of an interplanetary phenomenon. I can't see anything in all my experience (he has been a practicing researcher since 1929) to show an interplanetary visitation."

All the panelists urged that a detached, scientific study of the whole UFO phenomenon be done. Dr. Millman read the paper of Allan Lovitch of General Precision Systems Inc. and Mr. Lovitch advocated this study.

"I would back him heartily at looking at UFOs scientifically," said Dr. Millman.

Dr. McDonald also advocated a careful scientific study of UFOs, claiming the research which had been done in the United States was not first rate. He maintained any UFO research was subject to prejudice because there had been official efforts to discredit the whole idea. He said Canada could make a contribution because it had no preconceived notions on the matter.

Dr. Pritchard warned:

"If we want to worry about UFOs, we have to use the methods we know."

UFO spotted at Temiskaming may be weather balloon from U.K.

BULLETIN

An object of the same description was spotted flying over Sturgeon Falls at about noon today. The object was flying in a westerly direction and was about 10,000 feet in altitude.

A second such object was spotted minutes later over North Bay. Aluminum-colored, it seemed to be drifting on a south to north path. It was first spotted directly over the Pro-Cathedral of the Assumption.
_________

TEMISKAMING (Staff) - An object sighted by residents of this Quebec border town is suspected to be a high flying balloon launched in northern Scotland several months ago.

The object was sighted early today by many Temiskaming residents. Some described it as a circular object that "appeared to be hovering over the Ottawa River."

NORAD officials in North Bay said they received a communique from the United Kingdom announcing the launching of a weather balloon in early April.

The NORAD spokesman said the mylar balloon is 65 feet in diameter at flight level and its speed is estimated at between 18 and 35 miles an hour.

"It would be flying at about 125,000 feet," the air force spokesman said.

A North Bay-based aircraft in the Temiskaming area spotted the object and reported that it resembled the British balloon.

Sault man explains sight of sky object

Unusually clear weather and a phenomenon as old as the earth seem to have combined to give one local stargazer cause for concern.

At first, the possibility of it being a UFO or some sort of experiment, crossed Joseph Thomas' mind. But on second consideration, the UFO became, "maybe the evening star." Mr. Thomas lives at 99 Pine Street.

Two nights this week, Mr. Thomas sighted a light in the west, over the Sault locks. It remained stationary between 8:30 p.m. at the earliest incidence and 10 p.m. at the latest . . . "yellow-bright, like a beautiful, enormous star."

Mr. Thomas is a senior citizen and lives on the third floor of the Pine Street apartment building. Every night, he says he looks from his balcony at the sky but, "I never noticed that evening star."

"It's got rays, like the ones you see on Christmas cards."

The federal airport weather office in Sault Ontario reports unusually clear nights lately because of the north and north-westerly winds. The winds clear the air of fog or mist. The weatherman explained that the unlimited visibility, resulting from the weather conditions, would tend to give the star an added brightness.

The weatherman promises at least another couple of days of continuing good visibility. It's possible the star will be visible tonight to any other interested star-gazer.

400 stranded underground for 10½ hours

SUDBURY (CP) - A power failure stranded about 400 miners underground for 102 hours Wednesday in six mines north of here.

Some of the men were able to climb out from shallow levels and a number left one mine through an adjoining mine owned by International Nickel Co. of Canada Ltd. No one was injured.

A spokesman for Falconbridge Nickel Mines Ltd., owner of the mines involved, said no troubles were reported underground and the men were thought to be all out by 9:30 p.m.

Ontario Hydro officials said the power failure at 10 a.m. might have been caused by vandals shooting out insulators. Power was restored at 8:30 p.m.

About 1,000 homes in the Chelmsford Valley were also blacked out but had their power restored about noon.

The Falconbridge spokesman was unable to say how deep the stranded miners were. He said the men were stranded because hoists are electrically operated.

He said they had ample food supplies and battery-powered headlamps. Natural air circulation, although usually augmented by machine, was sufficient, he said.

No Need to Worry, Bright Light Only Planet Venus

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) - A bright light seen above the moon by many people Sunday night was the planet Venus, the North American Air Defence Command said.

"There is no threat to North America," a spokesman said.

The bright planet was seen by persons during the afternoon in parts of North America.

"We've gotten calls from people saying they see antennas on it," the NORAD spokesman said, noting attention is focused on the moon because of the Apollo 16 mission. "It's not so and it's nothing to worry about."

Latest UFO sighting is the planet Venus

One of the byproducts of the planetarium opening at Lake Superior State College and the resulting publicity is the number of calls about possible UFO sightings.

"I've had about 12 in the last couple of weeks," said Professor Randy Mullin, who operates the planetarium.

He said people are calling about a light that appears at sunset in the southwest.

"What it is," he said, "is the planet Venus. It's visible for about three hours after sundown. What's happening is that it is setting. It is moving down slowly, about as fast as the sun."

"As it gets closer to the horizon, the light changes, like the sun. Some people say that it is not round and that's true."

"Venus is the Gibbous stage. That means it looks like the half of the moon we see when it is only three-quarters lighted."

Professor Mullins said he usually receives several calls this time of year.

'Close encounter' was army flare
BY DAVID EVANS
Of The Star

There may not be a "simple explanation" for all unusual airborne apparitions, but one appears to have turned up in the case of the strange lights spotted by a Sault resident last Thursday.

What Ethel Murphy, of 1100 Great Northern Rd. described as "very strange bright, lights" hovering on the horizon between 10 and 10:15 p.m. may well have been flares sent up by the 49th Field Regiment.

About 60 troops on a field training exercise at Thayer's Acres just north of Hiawatha Lodge spent about an hour learning to use "para-flares," Capt. Sean MacNamara said.

The "para-flares" are hand-held rockets which burst at a height of 1,000 feet and burn for about 60 seconds, Capt. MacNamara explained.

The burning part of the rocket descends slowly suspended by a small parachute, he added.

Mrs. Murphy had said "First, there was a bright light, kind of hovering. It went off for a bit then came back on. Then there were three lights."

Capt. MacNamara said the first flare was fired by itself as a demonstration, and this was followed by about 20 more, fired in threes and fives.

He said the flare exercise was intended to teach troops how to illuminate an area, and how to avoid being illuminated by opposing troops.

Mrs. Murphy said this morning that a young man from the regiment had called to give her this explanation, and that "there's no doubt in my mind" that it is the correct one.

She said she was very glad to have found the solution to the mystery because "you wonder."