Friday, August 25, 2017

Captured Flying Saucers: Saucer Engineers: Aug. 25, 1950 Reading, PA

August 25, 1950, Reading, Pennsylvania:
Police responded to excited reports of a captured flying saucer, one that looked like a military project gone astray. On the small unmanned disc were stenciled the words:  
Non-Explosive
Military Secret - USA
Air Force
S-4763
When the police arrived, they indeed found the disc the witnesses described, but also two individuals who were able to solve the mystery.


FALSE ALARM . . . Two Reading, Pa., boys, John Feick, 15, left, and Paul Fisher, 14, right, thought the "flying saucer" they built was quite a trick. Motorcycle Patrolman Floyd Auchenbach didn't share their admiration. The patrolman investigated reports that people had seen "a real flying saucer." He found this gadget, which the boys said they had constructed for fun and to fool people. It won't fly. 
The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky August 26, 1950

Feick and Fisher had further ambitions.



There had been other counterfeit flying saucers found before, and some were even counterfeit military projects. Billy Rose's column in the Riverhead, NY, County Review from June 15, 1950, reported on the claims by Radio commentator Henry J. Taylor. Not only were flying saucers real, they were secret USA military projects. 


The County Review, June 15, 1950

Chances are good that John Feick and Paul Fisher heard about Taylor's story and it influenced the creation of their disc. Despite their announcement of a sequel, no report was found of a later disturbance by a rocket launch in Reading, however. 

The object was determined to be of Earthly origin, and the identity of the hoaxers was determined, so this is one of the few cases definitively closed as solved.

As with so many of the most interesting UFO cases featured here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, Project Blue Book has no file on this incident.

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