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UFOs and the Media
The San Francisco
Chronicle
August 3, 1947
Plane Crash Linked to
Flying Disc Inquiry
Two Army Air Force Intelligence officers from the Bay Area,
killed early Friday when their B-25 bomber crashed into a
hillside near Kelso, Wash., were on a mission apparently
connected with flying discs.
Brigadier General Ned Schramm chief of staff, Fourth Air
Force, said at Hamilton Field the two officers had been in
the north to talk with Kenneth Arnold, pilot.
Arnold was the man who first reported seeing the flying
discs last June 25.
"Arnold had contacted our people," Schramm said, "saying he
might have something interesting to tell them. I don't know
what he told them."
PILOT PRESENT
The dead officers were Capt. William L. Davidson, 587
Twentyfourth avenue, and First Lieutenant Frank M. Brown, 21
Sunset street, Vallejo.
Although the Army did not mention CaptainE. H. Smith, United
Airlines pilot who chased nine discs on July 4, he
apparently was present when the Army officers talked to
Arnold.
The Idaho Statesmen of Boise, according to Associated Press,
said last night that Smith phoned in Tacoma, where the
conference was held, and said he had given the dead officers
six pieces of "metal or lava" to take back to Hamilton Field
for inspection.
Smith the Statesmen added, had gone to Tacoma with Arnold in
connection with an investigation of a report that a disc or
some object had struck a boat in that area and that the two
boat owners had salvaged pieces of the "metal or lava" from
the accident.
CLASSIFIED MATERIAL
This was in keeping by the United Press that the plane was
carrying fragments of what might have been a disc aboard at
ther time of the crash The fragments were identified as
"classified material"-an Army term for restricted or secret.
The plane was enroute from McChord to Hamilton Field.
However, Major George Sanders, public information officer at
McChord, denied that the "classified material" was pieces of
a flying disc.
"The 'material' was merely personnel records," he said.
McChord officials, however allowed no one to take pictures
of the wreckage until the 'material' had been removed and
returned to McChord field.
Maurice Roddy, aviation editor of The Chicago Times
reporting on the explosion which wrecked the boat, said it
took place June 24 on Murray Island, off the Washington
coast.
"The explosion came to the attention of Raymond Palmer,
Chicago magazine writer, who began an investigation," Roddy
said.
"The explosion took place the same day Arnold reported
sighting the first of the flying discs."
"Palmer commisioned Arnold to go from Boise to Murray
Island, and he did so."
"He obtained photographs, interviews with all persons in the
area at the time and specimens of what Palmer described as a
'lava oxide metal.'"
"The specimens were analyzed by University of Chicago
scientists. They identified the stuff
 
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