UFOs proved even more persistent the day following the Independence Day Sightings. In Augusta, Maine, at 1:15 P.M. EST dozens of reports came into the Civil Aeronautical Administration describing unidentifiable flying objects over the city―all heading in a northerly direction. Dan Kelly, program director at the local radio station WRDO, personally saw twelve of the discs.
By 8:00 A.M. PST on the other side of the country in Sacramento, California, Dr. A.K. Carr had a remarkable sighting of two disc which may have been seen by others shortly afterwards. The local newspaper detailed this his sighting:
They came in from the west, Dr. Carr said, one was at about 10000 feet, I would say and the other was traveling at about 10000 feet, I would say and the other was traveling at tremendous speed at about 5,000 to 6,000 feet. We could see streams of vapor behind them. The lower one continued in an easterly direction, but the other, which I was observing through 12 power field glasses, banked sharply over the city and flew north. It seemed to stand on one edge as it turned s1Ibid.
Just 30 minutes later two similar discs were seen far to the south near Dana Point, California, by Mr. and Mrs. John K. Street. Street was an insurance company executive and he and his wife were spending the weekend at the beach side town enjoying the long holiday. At the time of the incident they were sight seeing just a few miles inland at the Capistrano Mission. Mr. and Mrs. Street described the objects they saw as two "saucer-like" craft which slowly flew up the canyon from the beach in a northerly direction toward the Capistrano Mission s2Bloecher, Report on the UFO Wave of 1947, p. III-l.
Then about 50 miles north northwest of Dana Point two discs were once again seen by a third independent witness over Eagle Rock, California. Donald Levine, ten years old at the time, described them as yellowish and traveling at a high rate of speed flying straight toward the north s3Ibid., Index. About that same time a fourth observer just a few miles north of Eagle Rock saw disc-like objects over Glendale, California. In that case, however, observer Donald Dwiggins reported seeing four discs which changed shape and flew at 8000 feet to 9000 feet s4Ibid.
A series of sightings occurred in Washington State around Spokane and Seattle that also involved independent
observations of similar flying objects between 10:45 and 11:00 A.M. PST s5Ibid. In
Covington, Kentucky, that afternoon, two women described seeing a flying saucer with legs.
Interestingly, that
same day a Chicago woman reported an identical feature on a flying disc, stating: it had legs
s6Ibid., p. 11-15.
In Bethesda, Maryland, témoin, a visual artist, saw a very unusual flying object. He said it looked like a dome with an antenna protruding from beneath. This is of note because a Sioux Falls man described seeing an identical sort of disc the next day ― also describing some sort of pole-like appendage sticking out of the bottom of the craft s7Sioux Falls, Idaho, Daily Argus Leader, 1 July 1947; and Pierre, South Dakota, Daily Capital-Journal, 1 July 1947; and Denver, Colorado, Post, 1 July 1947; and St. Paul, Minnesota, Dispatch, 1 July 1947; and Bloecher, Report on the UFO Wave of 1947, p. 11-15. OH-JJ.
Other reports on the 5th came from St. John, New Brunswick; Sherbrooke, Quebec;
Port Huron, Michigan; Anaconda, Montana; Hollywood, California;
Waterloo, Iowa; Akron and
Cincinnati, Ohio; Portland, Oregon;
South Bend and Huntington, Indiana;
New Orleans, Louisiana; Albuquerque, New Mexico;
Denver, Colorado; Seattle, Washington (where a flying football
appeared);
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maryland, Connecticut, Utah, and Chicago, Illinois
s8The New York Times, 6 July 1947, pp. 1, 36; and Bloecher, Report on the UFO Wave of J 947, Index.
Of special interest, around 11:00 A.M. PST in San Jose, California, Sergeant
témoin of the Army Air Force said he and three others observed a silvery
flying disc near his home. Sigala was on leave from Hamilton Field at the time and saw the object fly by in clear
view. It circled around over some nearby mountains at about 5,000 feet, dipped several times, and then headed toward
the sea. Sigala estimated the object to be as large as an automobile s9The (Portland) Oregonian, 6 July 1947.
Further north in Albany, Oregon, at 3:20 P.M. PST ex-sailor Ted Tannish and his friend Bill Lemon observed a similar
circular-shaped object rapidly flying south. They then watched it slow down before heading northward ― finally
disappearing into a cloud bank s10Albany, Oregon, Democrat Herald, 1 July 1947.
At 7:00 P.M. EST TWA pilot Captain John L. Dobberteen and First Officer Frank Corwin, observed a strange looking object while over Neapolis, Ohio. They were on a ferrying mission from the East Coast with an empty airliner at about 4000 feet when the unknown object came into sight. Both pilots described it as a "whirling fan blade" about the size of a small private plane and moving at an estimated speed of 200 miles per hour. The Captain stated that it definitely resembled no plane or auto gyro he had ever seen and felt it may have resembled a flying disc if seen from the ground.
Dobberteen deviated slightly off course and followed it for a short time before correcting back to a heading for their destination in Chicago. After landing Dobberteen made a point of reporting the incident to air traffic control as the event had occurred in commercial air lane space and he feared that the mysterious object may pose a hazard s11Bloecher, Report on the UFO Wave of1947, p. 11-17.
At sunset, two miles north of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Henry Seay (who had a sighting the night before) claimed he saw a ten to twelve foot wide luminous disc briefly land on his farm! Very conservative and set in his ways, Seay described the event to UFO researcher Dr. James McDonald years later.
He had been driving his cattle toward the barn for milking at the time. As he moved them up a road leading to the milking barn, a disc-like object flew over him and showered down an array of sparks. The sparks landed on Seay's bare arms but did not burn. The whole incident, however, badly frightened his cattle. For the next ten minutes Seay scurried around attempting to gather them up―being more concerned about his livestock than looking at the bothersome disc. Finally getting them rounded up to drive back toward the barn, he saw the disc again. This time it had touched down between him and the barn at a distance of 200 yards across the pasture. As he gazed at the object Seay could discern a round flattened shape that was luminous but not too blinding to look at―just too bright to clearly make out any distinct edges. Within seconds the craft silently rose up vertically to almost 40 feet and zoomed off horizontally at a speed around 50 miles an hour. As it did so, it again dropped a shower of sparks which fell to the ground but did not seem to damage his nearby oat field. Only ashes were evident from the event and Seay could not even find a mark on the ground to prove where the disc had landed. Yet, like the night before, his cattle remained badly spooked by the whole event s12Ibid., p. IV-1.
We know that Alfred Loedding was investigating such landing cases by at least 1948―the files of which have never been released by the Air Force s13Interview with Donald Loedding by the authors. (Donald stated that his father spoke many times of the landing cases he had investigated.). But there is no indication Mr. Seay was ever contacted by anyone other than Dr. McDonald, although Seay did say his neighbors saw the disc too.
That night at 10:30 P.M. EST many Canadian residents of Wallaceburg, Ontario, observed two large formations of luminous discs traversing a wide area of the nighttime sky s14Associated Press news service report, 7 July 1947. Back east in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, Mrs. Jessie F. Willis reported that she saw eight blue flying discs heading in a northerly direction about 7:30 P.M. EST. She then observed others in groups of twos and threes s15Aldrich, Project 1947: A Preliminary Report On The 1947 UFO Sighting Wave, p. 80. By 9:30 P.M. MST Mrs. Shirley Hefferon and her sister Lois Mae Gadbaw of Butte, Montana, saw several strange craft pass overhead in a northerly direction s16Helena, Montana, Independent-Record, 6 July 1947. At 10:00 P.M. MST lights were reported on the horizon by Evanston, Wyoming, residents but these may have been attributed to searchlight beams from the fairgrounds in Salt Lake City s17Wyoming, Unita County Herald, 11 July 1947, p. 1. By 9:45 P.M. EST Mrs. Scott Jones, daughter, and children witnessed a "shooting star" turn and float toward the Phillips Packing Company in Cambridge, Maryland. It then turned again in an opposite direction s18Cambridge, Maryland, Daily Banner, 1 July 1947. Around 10:00 or 10:30 P.M. PST in Longview, Washington, Mrs. Margaret Carter told of seeing a spherical, aluminum-colored object in the southwestern skies headed northwest." The object "dipped" several times while it was in view for up to five minutes s19Longview, Washington, Daily News, 8 July 1947.
In Norwalk, Ohio, that night two Huron County farm families saw saucers. They noted that "one disc over-lapped the other and traveled in the opposite circular directions" s20Sandusky, Ohio, Register-Star-News, 8 July 1947. At 12:23 A.M. EST the next morning, a sighting occurred in Paterson, New Jersey. Across the country John Neisswanger of Eugene, Oregon, was returning home on a dark and lonely road about 12:30 P.M. MST. Suddenly, he became startled by a slowly-moving aerial object. His description compared it to a child's drawing of the sun with lines around it. He then stopped the car, and he and his wife and another passenger watched the weird phenomenon until it passed s21Corvallis, Oregon, Benton County Herald, 10 July 1947.