1949: These Flying Discs Are At It Again, Virginians Report – Newspaper

The Lynchburg Advance May 13th, 1949

Zounds! Here we go again! Interplanetary spaceship? Visitor from Mars? A new Russian rocket ship? Air Going submarine? Just take your choice, your guess is as good as the next one, according to reports of various sections of Virginia and Tennessee on last nights strange phenomenon.

What it was , where it came from, and where it was going, no one knows, but even the Civil Aeronautics Administration officials were puzzled and had no answer.

Whatever the thing was, it resembled along cigar, with a bright red nose, and trailing smoke. Reports coinciding with the description came from localities along an almost direct line through Tennessee and Virginia and seemed sufficient to convince even the most skeptical that what the callers had said they had seen was no figment of the imagination.

The descriptions generally indicated the object came over the southwest horizon and resembled a streak of fire. There seemed to be red lights or a powerful red glow in the nose of the object. Far back at the tail there was fire and smoke.

The first report came from Roanoke about 8 o’clock when J. S. Mays and W.F. Mullins, both of that city said they noticed the object.

“It looked like a streak of fire,” said Mays, “and appeared to be going almost straight up and was stepping on it.”

Suddenly, he said, it appeared to level off and head eastward, resembling “a snake wriggling on water.”

Other reports followed from Kingsport, Tenn., Bristol, Pulaski, Christiansburg, and points west of Roanoke.

William C. Flanik, chief aircraft communicator, CAA, at Preston Glenn airport, said none of the Lynchburg tower men had sighted any unusual objects in the sky.