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Reports Plentiful, 'Saucers' Nil

By Drew Pearson

Though a large part of the American public appears to be convinced that flying saucers do exist, so far the Air Force has not been able to track down a single bona fide saucer.

This is de- spite the fact that United States aviators have spent hour upon hour checking re- ports not only of flying sauc- cers, but of

PEARSON

such weird phenomena as midgets from Venus, shooting stars, and even an old washtub.

This column has now been able to examine Air Force files, and it is quite evident that the Air Force has done a painstaking job of trying to establish whether or not flying saucers do exist.

These files show that considerable time was even spent checking the report received from Movie Actor Bruce Cabot and the Wyandotte Echo, a newspaper published in Kansas City, that corpses of blond, beardless 3-foot men from Venus had been seen arriving on a flying saucer by a man named Coulter.

Dead on arrival, these space-traveling midgets had no cavities in their teeth, and wore shoes resembling human skin according to the story told the Air Force. Furthermore, Coulter was supposed to have as proof of this visit from Venus—a lunar clock operating on a 28-day cycle, a space radio, and gear from the flying saucer, all of them supposedly ar-riving with the blond midgets from Venus.

So the Air Force, as it does with most of these rumors, painstak- ingly and patiently investigated. The mysterious Mr. Coulter turned out to be George Koehler of Denver, an advertising sales- man for radio station KMYR. He produced the flying saucer gen- eral for radio station KMYR. He produced the flying saucer gen-

VI. His space radio was a chunk of metal that utterly failed to pick up a message or even a wheeze from space.

In the face of this evidence, Koehler still claimed knowledge of the little men, but refused to divulge his source and drastically revised his story.

According to the confidential Air Force report, "Koehler stated that he had no parts of flying saucers in his possession at pres- ent. He denied having ever seen any flying saucer or its occupants."

Flying Washtub

Another hot tip which Air Force investigators patiently tracked down was that a flying saucer had actually crashed near Warren, Minn. The report was traced to Walter Sirek, a service station op- erator, who directed the investiga- tors to look behind Nish's Tavern.

What they saw was summed up in the secret Air Force files as follows: "The machine was ob- viously made from various objects such as an old washing machine cover, part of a radio set chassis and a spent insecticide bomb."

It developed that Ted Heyen and Robert Schaeffer, who run the local hardware store, had made the "flying saucer" as a joke.

The Air Force has even received pictures of saucers in flight. The most spectacular was a movie of two silvery discs streaking over the baseball park at Great Falls, Mont., sent in by Nick Mariana, park manager.

However, investigators found that the pictures were taken be- tween 11:20 and 11:35 a. m. on August 15. By coincidence, two silvery F-84 jet fighters from Ladd Air Force Base, Alaska, flew high over Great Falls at exactly that

time. The sun was shining so that reflections from the high-flying jets appeared as two silvery blurs, like saucers.

Once the Air Force's own radar screen near Wright Field, Ohio, picked up what appeared to be a flying saucer drifting eastward at 20 miles per hour. But prompt in- vestigation showed it to be only a dense black cloud so charged with electronic particles that it ap- peared on radar.

Meanwhile, flying saucer reports continue to pour into the Air Force at the rate of five or six per day but, so far, not a single has ever materialized.

Missing GIs

One tragic and unpublicized fact about the Korean war is that at this writing the Army has only been able to release 138 prisoners of war from Korean prison camps.

This leaves approximately 4000 Americans still missing. Originally the Army believed that most of these missing GIs had been killed in action. However, since U. N. troops have now traveled the en- tire length of Korea without recov- ering the bodies of these missing men, it is believed they must have been taken prisoners and removed to Siberia.

So far, Chinese troops have treated American prisoners almost as if they were allies, returning many of them to American lines. But if the 4000 GIs were trans- ported into Siberia by the Rus- sians, the story may be different. This possibility is giving the Army great concern.

NOTE—As of the last official count, 4144 GIs were listed as missing.

Capital Capsules

Lady Diplomats—Madame Min- ister Perle Mesta put up a gallant fight but she lost. She's going to have to be satisfied with being a plain "Minister" instead of a full- fledged "Ambassador" to Luxem- bourg . . . Main reason Perle came back to Washington was to persuade the President to raise her American Legation to a full Em- bassy. Even though she's a close friend of Mr. Truman's, he said no... Meanwhile, the other lady diplomat, Eugenie Anderson in Denmark, will continue to reign supreme as the only lady Ambas- sador in the United States diplo- matic corps.

To Aid for Tibet—United States Ambassador Austin has privately advised El Salvador to give up its campaign to get the United Na- tions to rescue Tibet. The United Nations, Austin said, has enough trouble in Korea without taking on more headaches in the most moun- tainous and inaccessible country in the world.

Treaty for Japan — President Truman has told Secretary Ache- son that unless Russia answers within the next month, he is in favor of going ahead and holding the Japanese peace treaty confer- ence without Soviet representa- tives. The President told this to Acheson and John Foster Dulles during a secret meeting at which they reported that Russia has not yet even indicated it will attend the conference.

162. 83294-A

8: DEC 19 1950

Flying Saucers

Jules S. Ethier

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