Richland, Washington, VILLAGER, 3 July 1947, page 1.
"'FLYING DISK' ARE SEEN HERE
"First Noticed by Leo Bernier
"A Richland chapter was added last week to the mystery of the 'flying
discs' or 'saucers' puzzeling the western states when a village resident,
Leo Bernier of 1213 Stevens Drive, reported having seen several of them
high in the sky last Tuesday afternoon.
"'They were going west by southwest around 2 or 2:30,' Bernier said,
'and were rather silvery and shpaed as though a saucer were seen
edgewise.'
"Bernier didn't say much about them until he read in the paper that
they had been seen elsewhere. 'I was worried that people might just
laugh,' he said.
"The disks were extremely far away, near the horizon, but high in
the sky, he stated, and even at that distance were traveling as fast as a
P-38 might seem to be going if it were just 600 feet high.
"'They appeared something like a reflection from a plane, but were
going too fast for any kind of plane,' Bernier said.
"Various theories have been offered for the phenomum (sic), which
has been sighted in at least five areas besides Richland, west of the
Mississippi.
"In clear air, the flash of sunlight from a plane can easily be
seen 50 miles. The flash is round, the shape of the sun. Any other
reflection from a great distance is apt to be round too.
"Most puzzling factor in the mystery are (sic) the great speeds.
although is is difficutlt for the eye to make a correct esitmate of
speeds, and jet planes travel much faster then regular planes.
"Reports of unusual objects in the sky have been numerous since the
war. Atomic bomb and rocket rumors have accounted for most of them.
Bernier has his own explanation as good as any.
"'I believe it may be a visitor from another planet, more developed
the ours,' he says, 'in my opinion we're just beginning to see things
this world never dreamed of."
"Seen Sunday by Neighborhood (Second story)
"Just to prove that there was something in the sky, a whole
neighborhood reported late this week that they had seen the famed 'discs'
last Sunday afternoon above Richland.
"A disc was first spotted by James Harbor, 10, of 1417 Johnston,
earlier in the week, but he ws having difficulty in getting anyone to
believe him, when he saw another one Sunday afternoon, 'about 3,' while
playing with some friends.
"Jimmy immediately called his mother and several meighbors to view
it and prove his story.
"'When I first came out,' reports his mother, Mrs. Thomas Harbour,
'the disc seemed straight above, right over the village. It seemed to be
hovering. It wavered, then started back and all of a sudden, reversed
itself and shot off toward the northeast.'
"The disc wsa bright, but very high in the air, according to Mrs.
Harbour. It was round, with a shimmering edge, as though that moved
separately from the center. (?) It was silvery, as reported elsewhere,
but to Mrs. Harbour seemed to have a tail or a stream of smoke clinging
to it.
"'I couldn't judge how high it was , but I'm sure it was a terrific
size,' she stated. 'The whole neighborhood saw it.'
"Others who saw the disc, according to her, were Walter and Donald
Schaeffer, neighbor boys, Mrs. Carl Gibons of 1413 Johnston and Mrs. E.
D. Ferguson of 1418 Johnston.
"Said Mrs. Gibson, 'It was real bright and seemed to go fast, but
every once in a while it looked like it was turning or something because
it twinkled like a star.'
"'It very definitely wasn't a plane. I've never seen anything
like it before...It was spinning,'" she added.
"Mrs. Ferguson thought of it as spinning, too, but to her it
seemed to have a 'sort of a halo or circle around it.'
"'It could have been smoke around it which appeared to come from
the center or top of the disc,' Mrs. Ferguson related.
"She too agreed that it was shiny, huge in size and very high in
the sky.
"'It didn't move like a plane, more like a balloon except that
balloons move smoothly and this was jerky,' Mrs. Ferguson reported. She
sad (sic) they had to be in a shadow to see it, and that the whole
neightborhood was out."
Jan Aldrich, Project 1947
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