Flying Saucers Could Be Extraterrestrial Animals

WASHINGTON, April 30 - (CP) - Ever see an extraterrestrial animal?

Hold on, now - think a minute!

Okay, probably not. But exactly what was that darned thing you say you saw galloping across the sky that day?

A flying saucer?

Unites States Air Force intelligence officers admit they're baffled by some of the 270 "flying saucers" people claim to have seen in the last couple of years.

In searching for answers, these experts say, they considered the remote possibility of extraterrestrial animals.

That definition, says the dictionary, is an all-embracing term for animals "organizing or existing outside the earth or its atmosphere."

The air force, in an official report on its investigation of flying saucer phenomena, leaves no impression that it spent long hours on the extraterrestrial animal angle. It doesn't squelch the whole idea but it holds the comment to a minimum.

"The possible existence of some sort of strange extraterrestrial animals has also been remotely considered, as many of the objects described acted more like animals than anything else . . ."

Here's what a prospector says he saw at 5,000 feet in the Cascade Mountains of the west coast: five or six objects, 30 feet in diameter, rounded, tailed, noiseless and not flying in formation.

Here's what two children say they saw at Hamlet, Minn.: a strange object which "hit the ground, spun around once, made a whistling noise and then shot straight up into the sky about 20 feet, stopped again and made more whistling noises, manoeuvred around tree branches and telephone wires and suddenly sped off to the northwest."

That sound like extraterrestrial animals? Remember Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon last week-end?

No? Well, use your imagination a little.

The air force did.

North Bay, Ontario, DAILY NUGGET, 5 April 1950, Page 16

Saucers Mystify Even Mr. Truman

KEY WEST, Fla., April 5 - (AP) - The White House Tuesday pooh-poohed the idea of the existence of flying saucers as a secret weapon of the United States or any other country.

President Truman's press secretary, Charles G. Ross, said neither the president or any of his staff has any knowledge whatsoever of the mysterious flying objects reported from time to time.

"Do you think it likely that there would be any secret weapon project under way without the president knowing about it?" Ross was asked.

R.C.A.F. Cautious Regarding Saucers

OTTAWA (CP) - Flying saucers?

"Well . . ." said the R.C.A.F. and top government scientists yesterday.

Confronted with new reports of saucer sightings by R.C.A.F. airmen, the experts wouldn't say "no" and came up collectively with a cautious "maybe."

The new reports came from Air Force men at North Bay - 110 miles from the atomic-energy centre at Chalk River - who told of seeing flying objects described as "disks" or "saucers." The latest appearance was Saturday night.

While an R.C.A.F. intelligence officer questioned the sighters on the spot, these reactions to the flying-saucer phenomenon developed here:

Dr. O. M. Solandt, chairman of the Defence Research Board: "We are as mystified as anyone else . . . and are keeping an open mind."

Dr. Peter Millman, Dominion astro-physicist: "We can't laugh off these observations."

Dr. C. J. Mackenzie, chairman of the Atomic Energy Control Board: "These reports cannot be ignored as nonsense."

An R.C.A.F. spokesman added:

"The R.C.A.F. has come to no conclusions about saucers on the basis of what has been seen in Canada."

The Air Force has not yet received an intelligence report on the Saturday night occurrence. Two airmen at North Bay - WO. E. H. Rossell, a 13-year veteran, and Flt. Sgt. Reg McRae of Weston, Ont. - had told of seeing a "bright amber disk" in the sky over the airfield.

They said it moved across the field, reversed direction and disappeared after a climb at "terrific speed."

The only other reported sighting this year, the Air Force said, was on Jan. 1 at North Bay, where two airmen told of seeing a "saucer" which they described as apparently moving at supersonic speed.

The Air Force declined to disclose its intelligence report on that incident.

Flying Saucers Still A Mystery

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 astro-physics 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 wax a little over-enthusiastic in describing an event."

Dr. Millman said he has 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 SIMILAR

The Saucers had usually been described as disk-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 manoeuvrable.

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."

On Trail of a Mystery
Gov't Lab Hunts Flying Saucers

OTTAWA - A flying saucer sighting station is being built at the transport department's electronics establishment, at Shirley Bay, 10 miles west of the capital on the Ottawa river, in conjunction with the defence research board.

Responsible for procurement and installation of equipment, some of it new in the field of electronics, is Wilbert B. Smith, engineer in charge of the broadcast and measurement section of the telecommunications division of the transport department.

Associated with him are Dr. James Walt, theoretical physicist of the defence research board; Professor J. T. Wilson of the University of Toronto; Dr. G. D. Garland, Gravitational expert at the mines and technical survey department's dominion observatory; and other men emminent in the field of science and astro-physics.

The flying saucer sighting station has been equipped with an ionispheric recorder to measure the height, activity and change in the ionized layer of gases 60 miles from the earth's surface. The ionispheric detector will also record gamma and radiation.

Other equipment includes an electronic device to measure known and unknown radio noises; a gamma ray detector and a gravimeter. This gravimeter is a new device, built by the staff of the station with the assistance of Professor Wilson of the U. of T.

It is a device new to electronics, will measure the acceleration and deacceleration of gravity.

The equipment is wired to alarm bells in the nearby ionisphere station where a staff stands by on 24-hour duty.

The thing started as a hobby five years ago, but as Mr. Smith explained, the recurrent manifestation of unexplained celestial phenomena (flying saucers) has so interested men of science that the transport department has been assigned money, men and equipment to probe the mystery.

Some months ago, defence research board chairman Dr. O. M. Solandt and former National Research Council president Dean Jack Mackenzie, in discussing flying saucers, refused to join the scoffers who contend there is nothing but imagination and/or optical illusion to the phenomena.

Both insisted they neither believed nor disbelieved the actuality of the saucers.

Their position was they didn't know. They admitted there was certain "interesting" evidence, and the defence research board for more than two years has been investigating it.

Assignment of the saucer station was given transport, by the board, because this department has the trained personnel - ships captains at sea and on the lakes, men in the meteorological stations from the border to the pole, and agents in all parts of Canada - to make record and report saucer sightings.

The station will be in operation within a few weeks, and ready when summer brings another flurry of flying saucers.

Construct Lab To Sight Saucers

OTTAWA (CP) - The world's first laboratory to prove or disprove the existence of flying saucers is being built by the transport department at Shirley Bay, 10 miles northwest of Ottawa.

W. B. Smith, engineer in charge of the broadcast and measurement section of the department, said the laboratory or sighting station should be in operation in a few days.

Mr. Smith said the laboratory "is being built in the hope of finding out something tangible about flying saucers." He said if flying saucers actually exist "the equipment in the laboratory should be able to detect them."

Ottawa Constructing Flying Saucer Sighting Station - Just in Case
From the Ottawa Bureau of The Sudbury Daily Star

OTTAWA - Ottawa is planning to track down the truth of the flying saucer mystery - "just in case."

That's the substance of the transport department's announcement Wednesday that a flying saucer sighting station is to be built at the department's electronic establishment at Shirley Bay, 10 miles west from the capital on the Ottawa River. The transport department is to operate the new base in conjunction with the Defence Research Board.

Responsible for procurement and installation of equipment, some of it new in the field of electronics, is Wilbert B. Smith, engineer in charge of the broadcast and measurement section of the telecommunications division of the transport department.

Associated with him are Dr. James Wait, theoretical physicist of the Defence Research Board; Professor J. T. Wilson, of the University of Toronto; Dr. G. D. Garland, gravitational expert at the mines and technical survey department's and Dominion observatory; and other men emminent in the field of science and astrophysics.

The flying saucer sighting station has been equipped with an ionispheric recorder to measure the height, activity and change in the ionized layer of gases 60 miles from the earth's surface. The ionispheric detector will also record gamma ray radiation.

Other equipment includes an electronic device to measure known and unknown radio-noises; a gamma ray detector and a gravimeter.

This gravimeter is a new device built by the staff of the station with the assistance of Professor Wilson of the U of T.

It is a device new to electronics, and will measure the acceleration and deceleration of gravity.

The equipment is wired to alarm bells in the nearby ionosphere station where a staff stands by on 24-hour duty.

The thing started as a hobby five years ago, but as Smith explained, the recurrent manifestation of unexplained celestial phenomena (flying saucers) has so interested men of science that the transport department has been assigned money, men and equipment to probe the mystery.

Some months ago, Defence Research Board Chairman Dr. O. M. Solandt and former National Research Council President Dean Jack MacKenzie, in discussing flying saucers, refused to join the scoffers who contend there is nothing but imagination and/or optical illusion to the phenomena.

Both insisted they neither believed nor disbelieved the actuality of the saucers.

Their position was they didn't know. They admitted there was certain "interesting" evidence, and the Defence Research Board for more than two years has been investigating it.

Assignment of the saucer station was given transport, by the board, because this department has the trained personnel - ship captains at sea and on the lakes, men in the meteorological stations from the border to the pole, and agents in all parts of Canada - to make, record and report saucer sightings.

The station will be in operation within a few weeks, and ready when summer brings another flurry of flying saucers.

Mr. Smith said the laboratory is 12 feet square and is located about 200 feet from the transport department's ionospheric observatory at Shirley Bay.

"The building and equipment cost practically nothing," he said, "because we had most of it on hand from a previous project. All of the recording equipment is automatic and merely require servicing by officials of the ionospheric observatory."

Mr. Smith said the equipment is designed to detect gamma rays, magnet fluctuations, radio noises and gravity or mass changes in the atmosphere. Later, he said, "We will attempt to detect high level ionization effects in the upper atmosphere."

NO REAL PROOF

Mr. Smith said scientists do not believe there is any real proof that flying saucers exist or are interplanetary. However, he said, "There is a high degree of probability that they do exist and are interplanetary."

"If they are interplanetary they must work on some technology which has something in common with our own basic physics," he said. "If that is so our equipment will be able to detect them."

Mr. Smith said the experiment was a "shot in the dark." "It is possible," he added, "that we will obtain some clues which will help us to determine whether saucers exist."

Ottawa Begins Research On Flying Saucers

QUEBEC (CP) - Dr. O. M. Solandt, chairman of the Canadian defence research board, denied Friday that the board is associated with an Ottawa research program on flying saucers.

In announcing at Ottawa Wednesday that a detection laboratory is being built near the capital, W. B. Smith, engineer in charge of the broadcast and measurement section of the transport department, said the research board was co-operating in the project.

Friday Mr. Smith said that the project is a private one by him and his associates on government property, using available materials and having the full authority of the transport department.

SHOULD DETECT SAUCERS

He said Wednesday that the laboratory was being built "in the hope of finding out something tangible about flying saucers. If flying saucers actually exist, the equipment in the laboratory should be able to detect them.

Dr. Solandt said today the defence department is not planning immediately any research "even remotely connected" with flying saucer research.

"However, we are continuing to study new reports of flying saucers and are alert to the possibilities of discoveries of that nature."

Sudbury, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 21 November 1953, page 3

Sh-h-h-! It's for Saucers!

The mystery of flying saucers is being investigated by Canadian scientists on the grounds of the ionospheric observatory of the transport department at Shirley's Bay, 10 miles northwest of Ottawa. Some of the towers are shown here. The sighting station is being operated under the direction of W. B. Smith, engineer in charge of the broadcast and measurement section of the department. He says "we hope to find something tangible about saucers."

Space Stations Possibly Exist Says 'Saucer' Expert

OTTAWA (CP) - The man who operates Canada's "flying saucer" observatory says space stations are feasible and he would not be surprised if there are already some in existence.

W. B. Smith, senior transport department radio engineer, said today that he personally has seen neither space stations nor flying saucers in the sky.

"But from what I know of research that is going on in the United States, I would not be surprised if some major power, such as the U.S. or Russia, has already constructed a space station," he said.

The question of the feasibility of space stations developed out of a Washington dispatch Thursday night in which space writer Donald Keyhoe, retired marine corps major, said the earth is being circled by one or two artificial satellites.

Mr. Keyhoe, in a radio interview, said that U.S. Air Force Secretary Talbott has personally seen a "large, silvery, disk-shaped object" in the sky and that Canadian government scientists have asked sky watchers in the last two weeks to be especially alert in reporting unidentified aerial objects.

Mr. Talbott promptly denied ever seeing a flying saucer. Mr. Smith said the notice to Canadian sky watchers appears to have been a normal action, following recent completion of new ground observer corps by the RCAF.

Missile Expert Heads Probe of Flying Saucers

WASHINGTON (AP) - Retired Rear-Admiral Delmer S. Fahrney, once head of the navy's guided missiles program, said Wednesday reliable reports indicate that "there are objects coming into our atmosphere at very high speeds."

Fahrney told a press conference that "no agency in this country or Russia is able to duplicate at this time the speeds and accelerations which radars and observers indicate these flying objects are able to achieve."

Fahrney said he never has seen a flying saucer but has talked with a number of scientists and engineers who reported seeing strange flying objects.

He added there are signs that "an intelligence" directs such objects "because of the way they fly."

NO SOLID EVIDENCE

An air force spokesman said that service still is investigating all reports but has found absolutely no concrete evidence that there are flying saucers, but a percentage of reports remain unexplained.

Fahrney called a press conference following an organizational meeting of a new private group, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, of which he is board chairman.

Fahrney said the committee was set up largely to tie together a number of UFO - Unidentified Flying Objects - clubs being formed throughout the world.

Fahrney pioneered in the development of radio-controlled Drone aircraft targets in the Second World War. He coined the phrase, "guided missile," to distinguish that product from the flying bombs and aerial torpedoes of the time.

U.S. to probe new sightings in skies

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Air Force has investigated more than 8,000 reported unidentified flying objects in 16 years "and has yet to discover any evidence that they represent a threat to U.S. security."

It also said today that investigations of such sightings back to 1947 have failed to turn up any evidence that the objects are "alien interplanetary space vehicles under some form of intelligent control."

This report was furnished to The Associated Press as the USAF looked into a new epidemic of strange sightings in the skies over New Mexico.

A leading civilian consultant has gone to Socorro, N.M., to investigate the latest reports. He is Dr. J. Allen Hynek, director of the Dearborn Observatory at Northwestern University.

The latest report on Project Bluebook, the congressionally ordered study of unidentified flying objects, extends through 1963.

It shows that in that 16-year span, 7.7 per cent of the 8,128 reported cases have remained unidentified.

The air force is not conceding that there is anything sinister about the unexplained sightings. It just says, in effect, they can't be corrolated with any known objects or phenomena.

It was stressed that a "great majority of the unidentified cases occurred during the first five years of the project," before analysis techniques were sharpened.

Last year, there were 382 unidentified flying objects reported and only 15 are still listed as unidentified.

These include "two objects described as an ear of corn and a banana (which) performed a series of manoeuvres near Vandlia, Ohio" last Sept. 15.

Kirkland Lake, Ontario, NORTHERN DAILY NEWS, 22 March 1966, page 1

Congressman Asks Probe Of Flying Saucer Sightings

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - A Michigan congressman planned today to ask the defence department to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects sighted near Ann Arbor.

U.S. Representative Weston Vivian (Dem. Mich) left for Washington Monday after conferring with Sheriff Douglas J. Harvey of Washtenaw County. Harvey said Weston also planned to talk with the U.S. Air Force.

The latest sightings were made Sunday night by more than a score of persons, including police officers.

Dexter policeman Robert Huniwell said the object he saw had red and green flashing lights and at one time zipped down to hover "within 10 feet" of a police patrol car. He added that when the object rose again, it was joined by a similar object.

A composite description, made by police from reports of witnesses, put the object as triangular in shape, with a V-shaped antenna protruding from its undercarriage.

Inquiry Suggested on Latest Sightings of Flying Objects

WASHINGTON (UPI) - House Republican Leader Gerald Ford called Friday for a full-blown congressional investigation of unidentified flying object sightings.

In view of a new rash of UFO sightings, he said, it would be "a very wholesome thing" for a congressional committee to conduct hearings.

"The American people are becoming alarmed by the UFO stories," the Michigan Republican said, adding that Air Force investigators checking such reports "have come up with nothing conclusive" for years. Most of the recent reports came from Ford's home state.

He proposed calling as witnesses government officials and those who claim to have seen the UFOs.

The Air Force has formed a special squad known as "Project Blue Book," which has investigated 10,147 reports of UFOs since the start of 1947.

The Air Force said 646 of the 10,147 sightings remain unexplained. The others have been attributed to astronomical causes, to planes, balloons, missiles and, in some cases, to hallucinations and other psychological phenomena.

One of the Air Force's main conclusions is that "no unidentified flying object reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of a threat to our national security."

In addition to the Michigan sightings within the past week, reports of UFOs came from Maine, Texas, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and along the Maryland-Virginia border.

Despite the fact its investigation during past years have failed to develop "evidence that sightings categorized as unidentified are extra-terrestrial vehicles," the Air Force said it will continue to put its special squad to work on each new report.

These reports are expected to increase in the immediate months ahead. The Air Force noted that such sightings increase in summer when more people are outdoors and astronomical appearances are more closely observed.
_______

BY DAVID W. CHUTE
United Press International

DETROIT (UPI) - The man responsible this week for crushing the dreams of those who think about visits from outer space is a dreamer of sorts himself.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek of Northwestern University, Friday discounted the reports of unidentified flying objects in southern Michigan as nothing more than swamp gas.

But Dr. Hynek added, "I, for one, would dearly love to be able to determine that we are being visited from outer space."

One of the nation's leading astrophysicists and a consultant to the Air Force on UFOs, Hynek discussed the possibility of visits from other planets after blowing apart the theories of those who thought we already had been visited the past week.

"As a scientist, I must say that though such a visit is possible, it is highly improbable as of now," Hynek said, as he delved into the basis for his reasoning.

He conceded the vastness of space and that the nearest star, Alpha Centaurus, is 42 light years away, meaning that any object leaving a possible planet of the star would take 42 years to reach Earth, even travelling at the speed of light.

He conceded that many stars in the universe are as far as millions of light years from Earth.

But he pointed out that still others are well within 1,000 light years, and that it is probable some of these stars are "suns" for cold planets revolving around them, similar to Earth revolving around the sun.

"Now," Hynek said, "If intelligent beings with an intellect superior enough to develop a vehicle for space travel do exist on such planets, what would prevent them from inter-stellar space travel? Distances are vast, true, in the order of hundreds or even thousands of years at the speed of light."

Pointing out the vast changes in the life span of man in his short history, Hynek said a civilization "somewhere out there might have a life span of 10,000 years," compared with our 70 years.

"A space traveler with a 10,000 year life span might be willing to spend 1,000 years of it exploring the universe," he said, much as sea travelers a hundred years ago spent three years away from home when their life span was just half of what it would be now.

He said intelligent beings capable of building space ships might have developed vehicles that could approach the speed of light. "According to the laws of relativity," he said, "time for them would slow down commensurately over such vast distances. Their time travelling across the vast voids of space would be much shorter than it would seem to us waiting for them."

But Hynek qualified his own theory. "As a scientist, I must say that though it is possible, it is highly improbable as of now," that we are being visited by creatures from another planet.

Of the possible hundreds of UFOs on record that have defied explanation as natural Earth-made occurrences, Hynek is puzzled by the lack of "hardware."

"Wouldn't you think that if some of these reports actually are of flying saucers, one of them might have some trouble at some time, and come down to Earth, or lose something off the space ship either accidentally or by jettisoning?" he asked.

The science fiction fans' dreams at least partially restored, Hynek admitted he is constantly hoping to find a good honest-to-goodness flying saucer - a down to Earth one.

Huddle Probing Saucers
By DANIEL RAPOPORT
United Press International

WASHINGTON (UPI) - The hearing won't be public and it won't be long but it probably will be the closest Congress will get to an investigation of flying saucers.

It will take place on Tuesday when Air Force brass will huddle with members behind the closed doors of the House Armed Services Committee.

Committee Chairman L. Mendel Rivers, D-S.C., last week directed Air Force Secretary Harold Brown and Gen. John P. McConnell, Air Force chief of staff, to come prepared Tuesday to answer questions about the latest rash of unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings.

Expected to accompany Brown and McConnell are officials connected with Project Bluebook, the Air Force unit that has been recording and trying to explain the more than 10,000 UFO reports since it began operating in 1947.

The committee made it plain that this was not to be construed as a full-fledge congressional investigation of the subject.

"We just want to know if one is required," said Rivers.

Brown and McConnell were scheduled to appear Tuesday anyhow to continue their testimony on next year's defence budget. During a closed session Thursday, Rivers brought up flying saucers.

The chairman told the Air Force officials that House Republican leader Gerald Ford, Mich., had asked him to conduct an investigation. Ford acted as the result of UFO reports emanating out of his home state of Michigan.

Ford said he thought there might be "substance" to some of the reports and that the public was entitled to a more thorough explanation than given up to now by the Air Force.

According to a member who was there, both Brown and McConnell assured the committee that there was nothing mysterious about the sightings but that they would be glad to discuss them at greater length on Tuesday.

Officials Skeptical Of Flying Saucers

WASHINGTON (CP) - The Air Force said Tuesday it wasn't worried about unexplained flying saucer reports, but - just in case - it probably would ask outside scientific experts to take another look at the most mysterious sightings.

Air Force Secretary Harold Brown=s assurances to the House Armed Services Committee apparently ended any chance of a full-scale Congressional investigation of "unidentified flying objects," as requested by house republican leader Gerald R. Ford.

"I'm satisfied," said Rep. L. Mendel Rivers, D-S.C., the committee chairman. The House space committee already has turned down Ford, whose home state of Michigan recently went through a saucer scare.

Brown told Rivers' group at a preliminary hearing that "project blue book," the Air Force's UFO investigation, has explained all but 646 of the 10,147 flying saucer reports it has received since 1947.

There is no reason to believe that any of the unexplained sightings represent security threats, extra-terrestrial vehicles or any development "beyond present-day scientific knowledge," Brown said.

He attributed most such reports to mirages or natural phenomena.

An advisory group established last fall to review project blue book recommended further intensive study by a university or non-profit scientific organization of unexplained reports.

It said the Air Force's continuing inquiry was well managed, but "There is always the possibility that new sightings may provide some additions to scientific knowledge of value to the Air Force."

Another committee witness was Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a Northwestern University astronomer and scientific consultant to project blue book. Hynek attributed most of last month's UFO sightings in Michigan to swamp gases which ignited spontaneously over a wide area to produce strange visual effects.

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 22 April 1966, Page 16

SAUCERS

OTTAWA (CP) - Associate Defence Minister Cadieux said Thursday he will do what he can to interest government departments in issuing regular reports on unidentified flying objects.

Mr. Cadieux said during a Commons adjournment debate the defence department, the Defence Research Board and the National Research Council might be approached to put out such a report.

He was replying to William Howe (NDP - Hamilton South), who said sightings of strange objects in the air have been made by jet pilots, radar observers and many others.

U.S. Expert Will Probe Alberta Sighting of UFO

CALGARY (CP) - Sighting of an unidentified flying object by two Calgary men July 3 has
attracted the attention of one of the leading U.S. investigators on the subject.

Dr. Josef Allen Hynek, chief consultant of the U.S. government's Project Blue Book which investigates UFOs, said from Chicago Thursday he will arrive in Calgary Saturday to investigate the sighting reported by Warren Smith and Lorne Grovue.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Grovue said they saw the UFO in the Kananaskis area, 50 miles west of Calgary.

Mr. Smith said a photograph he took of the object was examined recently by the Canadian Forces Research Centre at Ottawa which said it was the best ever examined.

Both men said they saw "something" fall from the object and Mr. Grovue, a prospector, later spent four days in the area searching for it. He said he found a small crater from which he took some ash and metallic fragments. Samples have been sent to army offices in Vancouver and California, but no results have yet been released.

UFO Investigation Gone, But Not Scientific Talk

BOSTON (AP) - After 22 years, the U.S. Air Force has given up its investigation of UFOs - unidentified flying objects - but a scientific debate continues.

UFOs were the topic of a symposium today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"Scientists of the 21th century will look back on UFOs as the greatest nonsense of the 20th century," said Dr. Donald H. Menzel, Harvard University astronomer.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Northwestern University astronomer, countered:

"We in the 20th century may be as far away from a solution of the UFO problem as 19th century physicists were from an interpretation of the Aurora Borealis (northern lights)."

Both men have served as consultants during air force investigations of UFO reports. Dr. Hynek served almost from the inception of the project.

The air force, saying it found UFOs no threat to national security, closed its study last week.

Dr. Menzel, who believes that most if not all UFO reports have a natural explanation, said:

"I can't walk around the block without seeing at least one and sometimes several of the basic stimuli that people have reported from time to time as a bona fide UFO."

CAN HARM SCIENCE

He said amateur groups who believe UFOs represent spacecraft from other planets "can do considerable harm to science," and will "deluge Congress with demands for further costly studies."

"The government should withdraw all support for UFO studies as such, though I could certainly advocate the support of research in certain atmospheric phenomena associated with UFO reports," he said.

Dr. Hynek said some photographs of UFOs or flying saucers are obviously hoaxes, but that, in cases he looked into, "the probability of a hoax in all 25 cases is vanishingly small."

Even so, this would not prove the existence of strange flying objects, but it should provide sufficient justification for the proper attention to the phenomenon by the scientific world, he said.

"And that is, of course, all that I advocate: that the subject of UFO reports is worthy of serious scientific attention."

U.S. fighters sought Sudbury UFO because North Bay planes obsolete

The Canadian Armed Forces did not respond to Sudbury's unidentified flying object because Canada has no planes with an interceptor capability in the area, a spokesman at national defence headquarters in Ottawa said Thursday.

The aircraft at North Bay belong to 414 CF-100 Squadron and the CF-100 is now considered obsolete for interceptor operations, the spokesman said.

The aircraft which did respond to the UFO are F-106 fighter-interceptors from Selfridge, Mich., over 250 air miles to the south. North Bay is 78 air miles from Sudbury.

The CF-100 is now training aircraft, used as a target for the more modern Canadian interceptor the CF-101 Voodoo, the defence spokesman said.

The Voodoos are based at Comox, B.C., Bagotville, Que., and Chatham, N.B.

CLOSEST PLANES

Sudbury is part of the 23rd North American Air Defence command (NORAD) division; North Bay is part of the 22nd. Therefore aircraft from the closest 23rd division squadron responded . . . in this case the 171 F-106 squadron of the Michigan Air National Guard.

The borderline between the 22nd and 23rd divisions is just east of Falconbridge, a NORAD spokesman said. National defence headquarters said if the UFO had been in the east or over North Bay, Voodoos from Bagotville would have been scrambled.

The F-106 are more modern, delta-winged aircraft, built specifically for interception, although they are not the most modern United States fighters. The planes which came over Sudbury are technically under the command of the governor of Michigan because they are part of the state National Guard attached to aerospace defence.

They are part of the group of aircraft in the United States and Canada on a constant five-minute alert for interception purposes.

U.S. releases mounds of UFO data

WASHINGTON (AP) - The records of Project Blue Book, the Pentagon's systematic investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), are on display at the National Archives.

It is the first time the records have been made available to the public.

The records of the 1947-69 study have been declassified, but the U.S. Air Force has removed the names of citizens who wished to remain private.

The display includes about 42 cubic feet of paper records, or about 8,400 pages, photographs, dozens of artifacts, 23 sound recordings from persons who chose to talk rather than write letters, 39 films and film strips.

Most of the written material - on 94 reels of microfilm - has been open to the public since last week. Many of the films and photos are being processed and will be available within a week.

Sudbury, Ontario, STAR, 29 November 1977, page 7

PM saw UFO

White House request for UFO study refused

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. space agency has rejected a White House request to reopen a government investigation into unidentified flying objects (UFOs), saying it would be "wasteful and probably unproductive."

But the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it stands ready to analyse any "bonafide physical evidence from credible sources" - evidence that it said has never been found.

The rejection was made in a letter sent last week by NASA Administrator Robert Frosch to Dr. Frank Press, President Carter's science adviser. Press said he accepted NASA's conclusions and did not plan to pursue the matter further.

In 1969, the United States Air Force closed the government's formal UFO investigation, called project Blue Book. After 22 years of study and considerable expense, the air force concluded that, in the absence of significant findings, continuation of the project was unwarranted.

In a letter to Frosch last July, Press asked that NASA become the government's focal point in a national revival of interest in reports of UFO sightings. He recommended that the agency establish a small panel of inquiry.

Press said there was an upsurge in letters received by his office asking about UFOs, especially from young people. He said his staff was too small to answer them and assigned the job to NASA.

Many of the recent letters, averaging two or three a day, have been prompted by the new UFO movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Several demand that Carter make good on a campaign promise that if there were any secrets about UFOs, he would flush them out.

Carter reported in 1973, while governor of Georgia, that several years earlier he had seen a UFO in the form of a glowing light in the night sky. "I don't laugh at people anymore when they say they have seen UFOs because I've seen one myself," Carter was quoted as saying.

Frosch wrote Press that a NASA technical committee had carefully considered establishing a UFO panel. "I do not feel that we could mount a research effort without a better starting point than we have been able to identify thus far," he added.

"I would therefore propose that NASA take no steps to establish a research activity in this area or to convene a symposium on this subject."

"There is an absence of tangible or physical evidence available for thorough laboratory analysis. To proceed on a research task without a disciplinary framework and an exploratory technique in mind would be wasteful and probably unproductive."