Alternate Perceptions Magazine, February 2025
The Saucer Files
by: Rick Hilberg

Advent of the Flying Saucers - 1951- 1952
"Silvery Disks" Over International Falls, Minn. May 22, 1951- Scores of local residents claimed to have seen silvery disks streaking through the skies on the 22nd. Bill McClellan of radio station CKFI was one of many who spotted the disks at Pither's Point Park that day.
McClellan said that the object he saw resembled a jet plane flying at tremendous height and great speed. Every once in a while, the object would stop and remain stationary.
The sun's rays glinted off the thing and it looked silver in color, McClellan was quoted as saying. It would travel fast, then stop, drop and rise again. The thing was joined by another and the two disappeared behind a cloud. Estimates of their speed was up to 700 mph
Reports of similar objects came from Duluth radio stations. The sightings were even reported on the CBS morning newscast out of New York.
Mystery Object Reported Sighted in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada April 16, 1951 - A mysterious object, variously described as a blimp and a saucer-like object, was seen in Hamilton and its environs that evening by dozens of spectators at widely separated points. It finally vanished at terrific speed after hovering motionless for some minutes at around 7:00 p.m.
Some forty members of a smelt fishing party at Burlington Beach, several Hamilton women, and a Beamsville man all saw the phenomenon at about the same time.
Mrs. M. Woodland was traveling in a car along with four other women on Beach Boulevard and said, “It appeared at first to be a dirigible. Then we noticed it wasn't moving but simply standing stationary against the evening sky.
"As we watched it, it seemed to be circular, and a lighter color than the sky itself. Suddenly, a ring of brownish vapor appeared around it and it literally vanished as it moved off at what must have been a terrific rate of speed," she said.
Mrs. Woodland's details lend authenticity to a story from one of the smelt fishermen, Gordon Cordiner.
"We spotted it around seven, and it hovered around at a low altitude for what seemed like thirty minutes. It disappeared for a short time - then reappeared. The second time we saw it, it looked whiter, or at least a lighter color, " said Cordiner.
Cordiner's explanation of the change in color was that as the evening sky darkened, the flying object would appear lighter in comparison.
Only two days before this report, four non-commissioned RCAF aircrew members claimed that they had seen a saucer-like object cruising above North Bay.
Saucers Flit in Tacoma, Washington Skies June 19, 1952 - Four mysterious silver objects were sighted by many Tacoma residents at about 1: 30 p.m. that day, and for the second time in three days the McChord Air Force Base switchboard was flooded with calls from curious area residents.
Observers claimed that the objects were round and silver, traveling swiftly at a high altitude and making no noise. McChord officials declined comment, but had earlier reported they were taking names and addresses of those who had sighted the four "fireballs" on June 17th.
The McChord public information office said that the matter was being investigated by Air Force intelligence and the 25th Air Division.
Unofficial sources told reporters that the four objects on the 17th apparently were seen by hundreds of Tacoma residents and had shown up on military radar screens. There were also Unofficial reports that McChord jet fighters had unsuccessfully pursued the mysterious lights.
Eyewitnesses said that the objects of the 19th were seen clearly in the sky southeast of Tacoma, then swiftly disappeared one by one.
Those observing the lights on the 17th stated that the four mysterious lights moved slowly northward over the city in single file, then changed formation and moved out of sight.
East German Escapees See Landed "Warming Pan" July 11, 1952 - One Herr Linke, mayor of an East German city, an escapee from the Soviet Zone, swore in an eight-page affidavit which was communicated to Western Intelligence officers, that he and his daughter, aged 11, had seen at Hasselbach close to the West German border, a "50-foot saucer, like a large oval warming-pan." It emitted green and red colors and had landed in a forest glade.
"Round its sides were two rows of ports...and a conning-tower on top, 10 feet high...Standing by it were two figures, one carrying a breast-light, in shimmering metal dress, and bending down studying something in the ground...Hearing my daughter call from the road, the figures swiftly clambered up the sides of the object, vanished into the conning- tower...a vibration rose to a roar, the machine rotated, and a device like a cylinder on which the object had rested on the ground, receded into its body. Round it, a ring blazed into flames and rotated. It whistled over the treetops and ascended in the direction of Stock Heim, across hills and woods," said Herr Linke.
A shepherd, George Derbat, saw it from a mile away. He thought it was a comet. Also, a night-watchman at a nearby sawmill saw it.
Where the thing rested in the glade was a depression in the soil and disturbed vegetation.