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Official
Explanations
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Sault
Ste. Marie, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 26 February 1942, Page 1
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.
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North
Bay, Ontario, DAILY NUGGET, 26 February 1942, Page 1
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.
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Kirkland
Lake, Ontario, NORTHERN DAILY NEWS, 25 January 1945, page
15
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.
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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.
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Sault
Ste. Marie, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 23 March 1950, Page 15
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.
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Kirkland
Lake, Ontario, NORTHERN DAILY NEWS, 6 April 1950, page 1
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.
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Sault
Ste. Marie, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 13 February 1951, Page 4
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.
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Sudbury,
Ontario, DAILY STAR, 2 January 1952, page 6
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.
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North
Bay, Ontario, DAILY NUGGET, 22 April 1952, Page 2
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.
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Sault
Ste. Marie, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 23 April 1952, Page 2
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."
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Sault
Ste. Marie, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 29 July 1952, Page 3
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.
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North
Bay, Ontario, DAILY NUGGET, 30 July 1952, Page 2
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.
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North
Bay, Ontario, DAILY NUGGET, 1 August 1952, Page 2
"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.
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Kirkland
Lake, Ontario, NORTHERN DAILY NEWS, 6 August 1952, page ?
Editorial
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?
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North
Bay, Ontario, DAILY NUGGET, 20 November 1953, Page 1
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.
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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.
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North
Bay, Ontario, DAILY NUGGET, 18 September 1954, Page 1
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.
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Sudbury,
Ontario, DAILY STAR, 13 September 1955, page 26
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.
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Sudbury,
Ontario, DAILY STAR, 16 September 1955, page 6
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.
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North
Bay, Ontario, DAILY NUGGET, 7 November 1957, Page 28
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.
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North
Bay, Ontario, NUGGET, 15 November 1965, Page 5
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.
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Sault
Ste. Marie, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 26 March 1966, Page 1
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.
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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."
Sir
Bernard, who stopped over here briefly en route to Boston,
said Russia is ahead of the United States in the race to the
moon but the two are so close that the "slightest setback
to either program could put the other in front." |
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Sault
Ste. Marie, Ontario, STAR, 21 February 1967, Page 13
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.
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North
Bay, Ontario, NUGGET, 16 March 1968, Page 10
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."
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North
Bay, Ontario, NUGGET, 10 July 1968, Page 3
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.
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Sault
Ste. Marie, Ontario, STAR, 28 February 1969, Page 13
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.
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North
Bay, Ontario, NUGGET, 26 March 1970, Page 5
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.
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Sudbury,
Ontario, STAR, 17 April 1972 , page 1
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."
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Sault
Ste. Marie, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 29 April 1975, Page 2
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.
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Sault
Ste. Marie, Ontario, DAILY STAR, 26 July 1978, Page 17
'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."
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News
clippings courtesy of The Sault Star, The Timmins Daily
Press, The Kirkland Lake Northern Daily News, The North
Bay Nugget and The Sudbury Star.
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