kept to themselves for fear of ridicule.

At Oklahoma City, a private pilot told Air Force investigators he had
seen a huge round object in the sky during the latter part of May. It
was flying three times faster than a jet, he said, and without any
sound. Citizens of Weiser, Idaho, described two strange fast-moving
objects they had seen on June 12. The saucers were heading southeast,
now and then dropping to a lower altitude, then swiftly climbing
again. Several mysterious objects were reported flying at great speed
near Spokane, just three days before Arnold's experience. And four
days after his encounter, an Air Force pilot flying near Lake Meade,
Nevada, was startled to see half a dozen saucers flash by his plane.

Even at this early point in the scare, official reports were
contradicting each other. just after Arnold's story broke, the Air
Force admitted it was checking on the mystery disks. On July 4 the Air
Force stated that no further investigation was needed; it was all

{p. 25}

hallucination. That same day, Wright Field told the Associated Press
that the Air Materiel Command was trying to find the answer.

The Fourth of July was a red-letter day in the flying-saucer mystery.
At Portland, Oregon, hundreds of citizens, including former Air Force
pilots, police, harbor pilots, and deputy sheriffs, saw dozens of
gleaming disks flying at high speed. The things; appeared to be at
least forty thousand feet in the air--perhaps much higher.

That same day, disks were sighted at Seattle, Vancouver, and other