Articles From Portland Newspapers 1947 #1
Introduction written and news articles compiled by Keith Rowell, Assistant State Director, Oregon MUFON
The following 40 or so news articles from June 26, 1947, to July 9, 1947, are taken from the Oregonian, and a now defunct daily, the Oregon Journal. The Oregonian today, as it was then, is the major daily newspaper in Oregon. It is published in Portland. I believe these are all of the UFO stories from the Oregonian and Oregon Journal in this period. (The copyright of all the stories is owned by The Oregonian. You may not use these stories for commercial purposes.)
As you read through the articles, you begin to form some interesting ideas about UFOs. Remember that the only coverage of UFOs before Kenneth Arnold's June 24, 1947, sighting was the occasional article about the World War II era "foo fighters" and the brief coverage of the Swedish "ghost rockets" in 1946.
The modern era of UFOs is considered to begin with the Kenneth Arnold sighting, which occurred when he was flying his light plane near Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams in Washington state. So, these articles represent the very beginning of public and professional speculation about what the mystery objects were all over the skies of America in the summer of 1947. And it is still a mystery today. I wonder why? See what you think.
(For much, much more on UFOs in that seminal year, 1947, check out the Project 1947 site.) Here is a summary of the contents of the Oregonian and Oregon Journal news articles:
- The usual sighting consists of silvery, solid discs, sometimes in formation, traveling at variable speeds — sometimes faster than the fastest plane of the day, sometimes slower than the prevailing winds — lasting seconds to minutes. Many sightings had multiple witnesses. Almost all sighters are convinced they have witnessed intelligently controlled craft. Sighters include former military and current airline pilots, hunters, attorneys, business people, housewives, teenagers — you name it.
- The wave of reports starts west of the Mississippi from Oklahoma City and Mt. Rainier first, then all over the west. Then by July 4 and beyond sightings spread to the entire nation (and into Europe).
- Reports of saucers seen before Arnold’s June 24 sighting surface from other people — one is a navy man (Kenyon) seen aboard a ship while on duty with others in 1943.
- On July 4, two independent groups of 60 and 100 picnickers in Idaho report saucers in the sky.
- By the end of the two weeks, over 40 states have sighting reports.
- The national guard of Washington and Oregon are concerned enough to send up patrols of search planes loaded with gun camera film sent in from Washington, D.C.
- The nation is told by Maj. Gen. Roger M. Ramey in Fort Worth, Texas, that a weather balloon crashed near Roswell, N.M., and the captured saucer story is false. (The Oregonian failed to pick up the official press release from Roswell AAF of the day or two before.)
- The most credible explanation offered is "secret U.S. experimental craft" or "guided missiles." We know today that these are not the solution to the mystery.
- One landed and one exploding saucer story already make their appearance in these first couple of weeks.
- Official military response is mostly to deny they are responsible for the saucers and also that they know nothing more than reporters and the public. But all the responses taken together are contradictory.
- The phenomenon is treated as a genuine mystery by all concerned, though some initial stories have a ridiculing tone. The tone turns more serious in the second week, though.
- Many of the "explanations" of today were already offered within these first two weeks.
The News Articles
06/26/1947 Oregon Journal
Oklahoman Sees Strange Objects
Oklahoma City June 26 (AP) — Don't sell those strange flying objects reported whizzing over western Washington short until the returns are all in — a flyer claimed today he saw one flash over Oklahoma City.
"It was about five or six weeks ago, as near as my wife and I can remember" said Biron Savage, 38, Oklahoma City businessman pilot.
"I was standing in my front yard at the time about dusk, with little sunlight in the sky when a flat disc-like object came across the city from just a little east of south and was gone in about four or five seconds."
06/26/47 Oregon Journal
Flying Disk Mystery Grows
2 Midwest Men Support Boise Flyer
Descriptions Tally on Fast-Flying Pie Pan Objects
(AP) — A Boise flyer's tail of nine mysterious objects hurtling through the air over western Washington was discounted by Army and Air experts today, but received confirmation in reports from two midwestern cities.
Descriptions of the shiny, "piepan" shaped objects, apparently flying in formation at terrific speed tallied in virtually all details, and at least two of the midwesterners added information on "motor noise" and "vapor trails.”
Speed Terrific
"The machine, or whatever it was, was a shiny silvery color — very big — and was moving at a terrific rate of speed."
"The funny thing about it was that it made no noise. I don't think it had any type of internal combustion engine."
Referring to a claim by Kenneth Arnold, flying Boise Idaho businessman, that he saw nine shiny objects in western Washington similar to the one Savage described, the Oklahoma City man declared: "I know that boy up there (Arnold), really saw them."
Savage said he told his wife about the object at the time but "she thought I must have seen lighting" and he also told some skeptical pilot friends.
Wife Convinced
"I kept quiet after that." He continued "until I read about that man seeing nine of the same things. I saw it and I thought it only fair to back him up."
Mrs. Savage said today she now was convinced her husband saw the object "he was very much worked up about it when he read about the man in Washington," she declared.
Savage said the object he saw was high up in the air — "somewhere around 10,000 feet. I couldn't be sure, judging from the ground where I was."
06/26/1947 Oregon Journal
Carpenter Reports 'Discs' in Midwest
KANSAS CITY, June 26, (AP) — Nine shiny objects flying at a high rate of speed such as described by a Boise Idaho pilot were reported by W. I. Davenport, a carpenter, to have been sighted here Wednesday.
Davenport, working on the roof of a house, said he saw the objects flying west shortly after noon. He said he first heard the faint sound of motors.
"There were nine of them, flying in a group with one a little to one side." He said, "They were flying so fast I barely had time to count them before they were gone. They were leaving vapor trails."
He added that he could not describe the shape of the objects since he could not see them clearly.
06/27/1947 Oregon Journal
Salem Woman Sighted Disks
SALEM, June 27 — (Salem Bureau of the Journal) — Mrs. Dennis Howell, a resident of the veterans' colony in southeast Salem, has come forward with a claim to sighting the mysterious silvery disks sailing along in the sky. Mrs. Howell said that she spotted the disks between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m. Tuesday but gave no further thought to them until she read the story quoting Kenneth Arnold, Boise, Idaho pilot as having sighted the mysterious objects.
06/27/1947 Oregon Journal
Arnold Insists Tale of Flying Objects O.K.
PENDLETON, June 27 (AP) — Kenneth Arnold, a veteran pilot and fire control engineer, Thursday clung stoutly to his story that he saw nine shiny crescent-shaped planes or pilotless missiles flying in formation at a speed of at least 1,200 miles per hour over the Mt. Rainier region.
"It's God's truth — I will swear it on a Bible. I saw them and I clocked them. They traveled 48 to 50 miles in 1 minute and 42 seconds."
(A plane traveling 48 miles in 1 minute and 42 seconds would be moving at a speed of 1,692 miles per hour.)
Arnold said he saw the objects flying in "weaving formation" in a line at 10,000 feet as he piloted his own small private plane over Mineral, Wash. He said he flew at a right angle to the line of flashing objects.
When he landed at Pendleton, in route to Boise Idaho, Arnold told his story and stuck to it.
"Some of the pilots thought it over and said it was possible. Some of them guessed that I had seen some secret guided missiles. People began asking me if I thought they were missiles sent over the North Pole. I don't know what they were, but I know this — I saw them."
Arnold, general manager and owner of the Great Western Fire Control Company, said he first saw the objects when they flashed in the sun low over the slopes of Mt. Rainier.
"Then I saw them, weaving and ducking in and out as they came south not more than 500 feet over the plateau. They looked like they were rocking. I looked for the tails but suddenly realized they didn't have any. They were half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear. I was in a beautiful position to watch them. I thought they might be jet planes, and I clocked them. Then when I saw they had no tails and I realized how fast they were going, I knew they were like nothing I had ever heard of before. There were no bulges or cowlings; they looked like a big flat disk. They were larger than the ordinary jet plane but slightly smaller than a DC4, if you don't count the rear fuselage."
Arnold said that the objects waived "like the tail of a Chinese kite."
"They hugged the horseback between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams, and the flashing they made in the sun reminded me of the reflection of a great mirror."
6/27/1947 Oregon Journal
Objects Seen Several Times
Lloyd Kenyon, 26 of 6934 S. E. 45th Avenue, today told the journal he had seen the much discussed piepan objects while over-seas during the war and also while fishing on Johnson Creek less than a year ago.
Kenyon, a former shipfitter in the Navy, reported he first saw the disks while in the Russell
Islands in 1943. He was aboard a ship at the time and said several others saw the objects traveling at an unbelievable speed.
"I have also seen the same objects several times while fishing."
06/28/1947 The Oregonian
Flying Saucer Story Grows
Reports Pour In From Wide Area See story on page 1.
Kenneth Arnold, the Boise businessman who touched off nation-wide conjecture with his story of the “flying saucers,” Friday armed himself with a C150 movie camera in case he should ever again meet up with the missiles he saw putting through the skies over Western Washington.
“Next time, “ he vowed, “I’ll get proof to back up my story.” At the same time, the one time North Dakota football star fired a telegram at the Oregonian whose roundup story of opinion on Arnold’s elusive sky travelers reported views of observers who intimated with tongue in cheek levity that the pilot was seeing spots before his eyes.
Mirror Angle Out
The telegram, sent just before he took off in Pendelton in his single engine three seater plane for Boise, said:
“I am certainly on your side of the fence and I did not believe it either but I have never suffered from snow blindness, mirages, or spots before my eyes of any kind.”
Arnold said he, “made certain” the objects were not the result of reflections from his own airplane, as suggested by a veteran United Airlines pilot. His story, he reiterated, “is positively true.”
Arnold told Pendelton newsmen he was not a pilot who did “crazy things” or who did “screwy flying.” He said he had never been charged with a flying violation during his three years as a licensed pilot.
Jap Balloons Recalled
He recalled that wartime stories of the Japanese balloons sitting over the Pacific Northwest were treated with skepticism and he suggested “that’s the way it might be with my story.”
But Arnold’s story had its backers. By Friday noon several residents of Oregon and Washington stepped forward with tales of the eerie saucer-like objects which the Boise flyer said he spotted flying in formation over the Cascades.
E. H. Sprinkle of Eugene said enlargements of a snapshot he took with a $3.50 camera showed seven dots shaped like an “X” or “V” lined across the sky. Laboratory reports, however, suggested the dots were only dust spots on the negative.
In the northerly city of Bellingham, Wash., George Clover said he looked up into the sky about 10 A. M. Tuesday and saw three shiny objects “like kites” heading south toward Seattle. He insisted they had no wings or pontoons and were traveling “real fast.”
Widespread Reports In
“At first I thought they were army jet jobs,” he said, “because the engines didn’t sound like gas engines.”
A Kansas City carpenter said he saw nine such discs, too. So did a pilot in Oklahoma City. Still another version, this time of a night flight, was told by Archie Eden of Wenatchee, who saw what he described as a speeding object descending in a long slant while he was driving on the Moses Lake highway.
“As we watched, it neared the ground and when it was about 200 feet high it exploded. There was no blinding flash, but there were great showers of sparks, and piles of flame seemed to hurtle to the ground, “ he said.
A Yakima, Wash., woman Mrs. Ethel Wheelhouse, reported sighting the “whatzits,” Tuesday afternoon. They sped so fast she could not count them and they abruptly disappeared, she said. In Portland, Mrs. Jerry Nuels, 6510 S. E. Foster St., said she saw some flying discs south of Kelso last Friday. She said that they were “bright and shiny.”
Science Steps In
From New York, the Associated Press attempted a scientific explanation of Arnold’s story and the other scattered reports.
The reports from five areas west of the Mississippi river centering about the mysterious disc-like objects roughly agree with the way light is occasionally reflected from a distant airplane, the news service pointed out.
In clear air, the flash of sunlight from airplanes can easily be seen 50 miles. The flash, the news service reported, is round, the shape of the sun. Any other reflection at a great distance is also likely to be round, coming only from a small area on the plane.
As for Arnold — he flew to Boise to spend the weekend with his wife and children and try, if he could, to forget the hullabaloo provoked by his story of 1200 mile-an-hour speedsters. “All I wanted was an explanation of what I saw,” he said ruefully brushing the spots from his eyes.
06/28/1947 The Oregonian
Harassed Saucer-Sighter Would Like to Escape Fuss
PENDELTON. June 28 (UP) — Kenneth Arnold said Friday he would like to get on one of his 1200-mile-an-hour “flying saucers,” and escape from the furor caused by his story of mysterious aircraft flashing over southern Washington.
“I haven’t had a moment of peace since I first told the story,” the 32-year-old Boise, Idaho, business man-pilot sighed.
He said a preacher called him from Texas and informed him that the strange objects Arnold claims to have seen batting through the ozone actually were harbingers of doomsday.
Arnold said he didn’t get the preacher’s name during their phone conversation, but the minister said he was getting his flock “ready for the end of this world.”
That was unnerving according to Arnold, but it wasn’t half as disconcerting as the episode in a Pendleton cafe.
Arnold said a woman rushed in, took one look at him and then dashed out shrieking. “There’s the man who saw the men from Mars.” She rushed out of the eating place “sobbing that she would have to do something for the children,” Arnold added with a shudder.
Arnold, a representative of a fire control equipment firm, startled the country Thursday by reporting he had seen nine shiny, round objects skimming through the air in formation between Mt. Rainier, Wash., and Mt. Adams. Arnold said he was able to clock them with the stop watch on his own plane’s instrument panel. He said they were spinning off a neat 1200 miles per hour.
Airmen Quote Figures
“This whole thing has gotten out of hand,” Arnold went on. “I want to talk to the FBI or someone.”
“Half the people I see look at me as a combination Einstein, Flash Gordon, and screwball. I wonder what my wife back in Idaho thinks.”
But all the hoopla and hysterics haven’t caused Arnold to change his mind or back down. He doesn’t care if the experts laugh him off. He said most of his aviator friends tell him that what he saw were probably either one of two things: New planes or guided missiles still in the United States army air forces secret category. Some theorized they were experimental equipment of another nation, probably Russia. “Most people,” he said, “tell me I’m right.”
But meanwhile, aeronautical experts in Washington and elsewhere were teeing off on Arnold’s story with facts and figures straight out of the books.
Their principle [sic] point seemed to be that if Arnold’s saucers moved as fast as he claimed, they couldn’t have been tracked with anything short of radar.
The fastest man has yet flown is 647 miles per hour — a record set recently by Col. Albert Bord in a P-80.
Additional details on page 6.
06/30/1947 Oregon Journal
Lads Declare They Saw "Flying Disks"
Two boys Sunday said they saw "flying disks" speeding southeast of the Lambert Gardens, 5120 S.E. 28th Avenue, shortly after 4 pm.
John Waymire, 6210 S.E. 34th Avenue and Freddie Hodge, 3438 S.E. Holman Street, both 13, telephoned the Journal that they observed the "disks" dipping and flashing in the sun.
They were flying very high, according to the boys, and appeared larger than a plane soaring near the earth.
07/02/1947 Oregon Journal
Flying Disk Reported Above Fort Stevens
ASTORIA, July 2. — "There is a flying disk right now over Fort Stevens," Mrs. Earl Seado, housewife residing in the Fort Stevens annex, said Monday at 1 p.m., when she called an Astoria newspaper office.
She was asked to chart its course. Mrs. Seado said it was heading across Fort Stevens in a northern direction and that it had been visible for 15 minutes, even when the sun was not shining. It was dazzling bright and saucer-shaped.
"Everybody in the annex saw it," she said. Mrs. Seado was asked to call another of the witnesses, preferably a man, to the phone.
A man did come but said, "I won't give you my name. I don't want the same thing to happen to
me that happened to the first man who said he saw a disk."
The man said he was a welder and had looked at the disk through the welder's goggles because it was so bright. He said that he was not certain whether the disk was reflected light or some physical object but it was blinding bright. In contrast to Mrs. Seado, the welder said that he could not make out the direction taken by the disks because the "clouds were moving so fast."
The reporter receiving the two reports rushed the call to Fort Stevens and was answered by a calm, drowsy voice which reported that no official report had reached the headquarters of flying disks. Fort Stevens, he reported, was intact. He did not refer the call to the commanding officer.
A second call made to the Coast Guard, was answered by an alert man on the switchboard who reported that no disks had been reported. He stepped outside and saw none.
07/02/1947 Oregon Journal
Spokane Jailer Says He Saw It
Spokane, July 2. (AP) — Two Spokane residents, one of them a sheriff's officer, said Tuesday they saw a "flying saucer" speeding over Spokane Monday afternoon.
John Mourning, county night jailer, submitted an official report to the sheriff's office saying there was a "bright, shiny object coming from the west" which was much higher than most airplanes fly and "did not have any wings but appeared to be round."
He said there was no motor sound and declared jet planes "are very slow in comparison with what I saw."
David Allen, 18, said he saw an object while washing windows downtown which "looked like a silver dollar and was going very fast."
07/02/1947 Oregon Journal
Rankin Report Adds Credence to 'Disks'
The report of a long-time West Coast man was added today to the growing account of "flying saucers" over the west.
Richard Rankin, veteran of more than 7000 hours in the air, said he saw the much-debated mystery disks high over Bakersfield, Cal., and going "maybe 300 or 400 miles an hour."
There were 10 in formation flying north, he told the reporter, but when "they returned on the reverse course, headed south, there were only seven . . .
"I couldn't make out the number or location of their propellers and couldn't distinguish any wings or tail. They appeared almost round." he said.
Rankin said he saw them June 23, but hesitated to describe what he saw until he noted others were reporting the same thing.
At first, he continued, he assumed he had seen the XF5U-1, the experimental navy "Flying Flapjack." The navy since has announced it has only one XF5U-1, and it has not left Connecticut.
Rankin, ex-Portlander who now lives in Palm Springs, Cal., and is brother of late John G. "Tex" Rankin, pioneer stunt flyer, said he observed the "planes" from the ground.
New reports meanwhile came in from 3 Oregon cities, Astoria, Madras, and Portland.
At least 10 or 12 of the mystery craft tipped noiselessly from side to side as they moved along the course of the Columbia river Tuesday noon to convince two Portland skeptics that Kenneth "Saucer" Arnold of Boise was telling the truth when he first reported the disks a week ago.
"We didn't believe the story when we saw it in the papers but we definitely saw the flying objects at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday," reported Mrs. Herbert Baillet, who with her husband is building a house near NE 74th Ave. and Prescott St.
"I first saw three of them as we sat down to lunch and called my husband's attention to them. Later there were 10 or 12 of them, flying low below the foothills and apparently over the Columbia river or just on the Washington side. There was no noise and they did not appear to be flying fast."
07/05/1947 Oregonian
[Photo shows man in front of house holding up a large piece of crumpled paper.]
[Caption: This blank piece of low-quality paper, 23 1/2 by 36 inches, held by Sherman Cook, 2000 N. E. 65th Ave., fluttered down from a great height Friday afternoon to a landing on the Rose City golf course, where Cook retrieved it. During the paper’s descent, it was reported by numerous observers as a “flying saucer,” hovering. Earlier, a flurry of “saucer” reports had coincided with a flight of army jet planes over Portland.]
Airborne Writer Winds Up Disc-Gusted After Fast Sky Search for Flying Discs
By PAUL F. EWING, Staff Writer, The Oregonian
AT 10, 500 FEET OVER PORTLAND WITH THE OREGONIAN’S “FLYING SAUCER” HUNTING EXPEDITION. July 4 (Special) — There’s nobody up there but us and the birds. On second thought, there are no birds, either.
Persistent and widespread reports of scads of “flying saucers” over the city — the Vancouver, Wash., sheriff’s office reported 20 in a line “going like hell toward the west” — sent our scientific party scrambling aloft.
Lonely Up There
Armed with a camera in the trembling (but eager) hands of Harold Gazin and the airplane in the hands of Bryce Piper, instructor at Oregon City’s Sky Park airport, we circled upward over Oaks Amusement park where the flitting phenomena first were sighted.
No balloons, no “flying saucers,” no other planes were in sight.
We leveled out at 10,500 feet and flew westward on the trail of the 20 saucers, peering eagerly for the first sight of the sun-reflecting, weaving discs.
Over the crest of the Coast range hung a scanty fringe of clouds. We joined the clouds and looked westward. Ahead of us was Tillamook backed by a sizable chunk of Pacific ocean, but no discs. The only interesting sight was a lone plane, flitting toward Astoria in the distance.
Lots of Scenery Seen
Turning back over the Willamette valley, the expedition checked visibility. To the south we could see Salem and Albany. To the east were the Three Sisters, Mt. Jefferson, and Mt. Hood with few intervening clouds.
Northward across the Columbia were Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams and the base of cloud-shrouded Mt. Rainier. But no saucers.
The expedition returned to Portland, where it suddenly occurred to a scientific mind that the discs might be a modern version of the flying rugs popular in Arabian Nights days — if they had days with their nights.
Real Planes Sighted
That might mean a silver foil rug too thin to be seen from the same altitude. The expedition plane dipped down 8000 feet, still circling for a glimpse of the elusive saucer.
No soap. Our scientific eager beavers spotted two or three light planes going about their business at an altitude of 1500 feet, but no discs.
At that altitude there was nothing else for it. We landed satisfied there were no discs. And immediately reports of a new saucer infestation began to flood The Oregonian’s city desk.
Saturday, 07/05/1947 Oregonian [Front page]
Air Liner Crew Confirms Flying Discs Over State
Many Seen During Day Over City
Reports of two to 20 fantastic “flying discs” over the Portland-Vancouver area Friday were confirmed by the crew of a westbound Boise-to-Portland United Airlines plane.
Their report, detailed enough to shake the most incredulous, left them equally shaken.
“No object I know of could disappear so quickly,” Capt. E. J. Smith, veteran pilot of the plane, reported in an interview at Portland.
Three Sight Objects
He, First Officer Ralph Stevens and Stewardess Marty Morrow all saw the objects, which appeared to be 30 or more miles away, eight minutes after take-off from Boise at 9:04 PM, and had them — nine in all — under observation for an estimated 10 to 15 minutes.
Seen from approximately the same altitude, the UAL crew could give no clue to their shape, other than that they were “very thin, very flat on the bottom, and appeared to be rough or irregular on top. They are not aircraft. They are bigger than aircraft.”
Scores of persons in the Portland area Friday reported seeing, “flying discs” or something like them. Most observers agree the objects were moving rapidly, apparently in formation at about 10,000 feet.
Coincidentally, the Associated Press and army officers at Fort Lewis, Wash., announced a flight of six bombers and 24 P-80 jet-propelled Shooting Stars were making a holiday demonstration flight at great altitude over Portland about the time the first “discs” were reported.
Police Cars Alerted
The first “saucers” sighted were said to be “right over” Oaks amusement park. Don Metcalfe, Oaks employee, told William LeRoy, park superintendent, that he had seen them.
An “all car” alert by Portland police radio brought reports from Patrolman Earl Patterson, in car 13, and Patrolmen Walter Lissy and Robert Ellis, in car 82, that they had spotted them.
Patterson, an air corps veteran who was at S. E. 82nd avenue and Foster road, said the discs came from the west, passed under the sun and proceeded southwesterly. They were either aluminum or eggshell white, did not flash or reflect the sun, and were traveling fast, Patterson said. It was his opinion they were not airplanes and would have to be radio controlled. They were erratic in flight, wobbling and weaving, he said.
Veterans Spy Objects
Lissy and Ellis, both veterans and civilian pilots, said they saw three discs which remained in sight about 30 seconds. They could not judge speed or height because the objects near Oaks park were traveling at “terrific speed.” They heard no sound but said they saw flashes and noted erratic flight including sudden changes of direction.
Capt. K. A. Prehn of the harbor patrol, Harbor Pilot A. T. Austed and Patrolman K. C. Hoffi, who were at the Irving street headquarters of the harbor patrol, said they saw the discs going south over the Globe mills at about 10,000 feet. They seemed to oscillate, weave and turn until sometimes a full disc, sometimes only a crescent was visible.
All three said they were undecided, whether there were three or six discs because of the flashes. Captain Prehn described the sight as a “wobbling hubcap.” A regular plane was in the sky at the time, but these were not planes, they agreed.
Deputies Report Streaks
Sgt. Claude Cross reported seeing two objects from state police headquarters, 9200 S. E. McLoughlin boulevard. They looked like toy balloons, almost pure white and traveled sidewise with no flashing lights, he said.
Sheriff’s Deputies John Sullivan, Clarence McKay and Fred Krives of the Clark county, Wash., sheriff’s office, reported seeing 20 streak over Vancouver in a straight line, traveling west and south. They heard a low hum or “drone,” and described the objects as “dark, not flashy and more like a bunch of geese.”
Harry Hale, production manager of The Oregonian, said he saw a shiny object in the sky just west of Beaverton, while driving toward Portland Friday morning. The object was moving swiftly in a southerly direction, but disappeared suddenly.
Additional details and other eyewitness accounts, page 11.
