THE BIRTH OF THE UFO CRAZE

The flying disc craze began on June 24 1947, when media nationwide reported civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold's story of witnessing disc-shaped objects which headline writers dubbed "Flying Saucers". Such reports quickly spread throughout the United States; historians would later chronicle at least 800 "copycat" reports in subsequent weeks, while other sources estimate the reports may have numbered in the thousands.

On July 8, 1947, Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release stating that they had recovered a "flying disc". The Army quickly retracted the statement and clarified that the crashed object was a conventional weather balloon.The Roswell incident did not surface again until 1978, when ufologist Stanton Friedman interviewed Jesse Marcel.

In late July, Palmer contacted Kenneth Arnold and asked him to investigate a "flying disc" report from Fred Crisman near Maury Island, Washington.. In June 1946 and again in May 1947, Palmer had published fantastical letters from Crisman, who claimed to have battled inhuman underground monsters in Burma.  Arnold agreed and Palmer wired him $200 to fund the investigation.". Arriving in Tacoma, Arnold interviewed Crisman, who told a tale of a flying disc that emitted rock-like debris and a visitation from mysterious black-clad stranger who gave ominous instructions not to speak of the disc.

Arnold summoned two Air Force investigators who took possession of the supposed debris, described as lava rocks, from Crisman. Is the investigators returned to base, their B-25 caught fire and crashed. A local paper ran a story suggesting the plane had been sabotaged or shot down to prevent the shipping of the flying disc fragments. Though Crisman later confessed to a hoax, Peebles argues the story was the "first to give a sinister air" or "conspiratorial atmosphere" to the flying saucer myth...