[meteorite-list] NPA 04-19-1950 Flying Saucers Spotted, Oscar Monnig Quote

[MARK BOSTICK]

Paper: Valley Morning Star
City: Harlingen, Texas
Date: Wednesday, April 19, 1950
Page: 3 (of 14)

Flying Saucers Numerous, But All Appear Different
By UNITED PRESS

     "Flying saucers" of all types and descriptions returned to Texas skies 
Tuesday but, as always, no official explanation was forth-coming.
     The unusual speculation - ranging from bird to plane to superman - was 
offered. It appeared, however that the "saucers" were either weather 
balloons, jet planes or the planet Venus.
     No. 1 saucer honors for the day went tot he a silvery object however 
high over Clarendon and Childress in Northwest Texas, Austin, Fort Worth and 
Dallas also reported strange objects aloft.
     At Childress, hundreds stopped work to watch a silvery object, first 
sighted about noon. Excited knots of neck-craning persons gathered in the 
streets.
     W. S. Warren, managing editor of the Childress Index, said "I'm sure it 
was no saucer. They'll have to do better than this to make me a believer."

Looked Like Balloon

     Warren said a "good-sized telescope revealed what looked like a big fat 
balloon. It apparently was slowly drifting with the wind at tremendous 
altitude."
     The Civil Aeronautics administration got into the act. It radioed 
aircraft in the air to watch for the object.
     A B-36 on a test flight from Carswell Air Force base, Fort Worth, 
ascended to 40,000 feet over Childress but crewmembers saw nothing unusual.
     Test Pilot George Davis of the Consolidated-Vultee company said he saw 
a military plane flying beneath him at about 25,000 feet "apparently also 
looking for the object.
     Other aircraft including a Braniff airliner, also reported no luck, but 
W. A. Flippen, head of the Childress CAA station, said:
     "We don't know what it was but it was plainly visible. Through 
binoculars it looked like a soap bubble."
     Explanations of the object were double-barrelled.
     Editor Warren believed it possibly was a huge plastic weather balloon 
of the type released to prove the lower stratosphere. "It glistened like a 
balloon." Warren said.
     And in all the Valley points by receptionists at the Chamber in Fort 
Worth, Oscar Monnig, prominent amateur astronomer, said he "guessed it was 
venus." although Venus usually isn't seen in the northern sky where the 
Children-Clarendon object was spotted.
     Meanwhile, a motorcycle patrolman and at least five other persons 
reported seeing "flying saucers" over Austin Tuesday.
     Patrolman James C. Farnn described a "silver-looking saucer-shaped 
object with no wings traveling at a high rate of speed and very high in the 
sky."
     At Dallas, J.R. Chennault, 35-year-old painter, saw a "dinner plate" 
until it darted out of sight.

Saw Flying Saucers

     But it remained for Ira Maxey of Fort Worth to come up with the 
pictures of curved, banana-like objects that left vapor trails in the sky.
     "They weren't moving fast, and appeared to be six or seven miles away."
     Maxey took pictures which showed three of the objects trailing vapor. 
They were moving in and out of a thunderhead, he said.
     Maxey said they "definitely were aircraft of a type I had never seen."
     At Bergstrom, Hensley and Carswell Air Force bases in Austin, Dallas 
and Fort Worth, respectively, spokesmen said they had "no comment" on the 
reports. The Air force has repeatedly denied the existence of flying 
saucers.

(end)

Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick
Wichita, Kansas
http://www.meteoritearticles.com
http://www.kansasmeteoritesociety.com
http://www.imca.cc

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The NPA in the subject line, stands for Newspaper Article. The old list 
server allowed us a search feature the current does not, so I guess this is 
more for quick reference and shortening the subject line now.