E.J. Smith

* United Airlines Capt. E. J. Smith had aerial sighting during flight from Boise to Portland on evening of July 5, 1947.
* Reported in press by July 7.
* July 31 - E.J Smith joined Kenneth Arnold to investigate the Maury Island Incident.

## United Airlines flight 105

Historian Ted Bloecher report:

July 4, between Emmett, Idaho and Ontario, Oregon: United Air Lines Flight Trip 105 left Gowan Field, Boise, bound for Seattle, at 9:04 p.m. MST, with Captain Emil J. Smith at the controls and First Officer Ralph Stevens in the co-pilot's seat. Before they boarded the plane in Boise, someone had asked them if they had seen any flying saucers, and Smith jokingly retorted, "I'll believe them when I see them." Eight minutes later, both he and Stevens were converted into believers. As they flew over Emmett, Idaho, approaching a cruising altitude of about 7,000 feet, Stevens reached over to blink his landing lights, believing he had seen a plane ahead at about the same level as the airliner. He called Smith's attention to it. They immediately saw four more, arranged in a "loose formation."

"At first I thought it was a group of light planes returning from some Fourth of July celebration," said Smith, "but then I realized the things were not aircraft, but were flat and circular." Not believing their eyes, they called the stewardess, Miss Marty Morrow, forward. Without telling her what to look for, they directed her attention to the sky ahead of them. Looking out the cockpit window, Miss Morrow exclaimed, "why, there's a formation of those flying discs!"

The objects appeared "huge" and were dark grey, silhouetted against the bright evening sky. The pilots thought they were much larger than ordinary aircraft, although they couldn't be certain since they didn't know how far off they were. At no time was there any possibility of colliding with them. The discs were "smooth on the bottom, and rough on top," according to the witnesses.

As soon as Miss Morrow had confirmed their observation, Smith called the control tower at Ontario, Oregon, giving his position and flight direction. He asked the tower operators to step outside to see if they could see anything unusual in the direction from which the plane was approaching. The tower operators saw nothing, which led Smith to believe that the discs were larger and farther away than they originally estimated -- possibly as far away as 30 miles.

The objects appeared to "merge," and then disappeared to the northwest. No sooner had they gone out of sight when another group came into view to the left and ahead of them (Case 286). By this time the airliner had reached its cruising altitude of 8,000 feet, and was flying over rugged country toward the Blue Mountains, in eastern Oregon. In the second group, the discs were arranged in a straight line, three together and the fourth off by itself. "This group seemed to be higher than our flight path," reported the pilot, "and when they did leave, they left fast!"

The nine objects had been in view for at least twelve minutes, seen over a distance of more than 45 miles. Smith was certain that the objects had to be considerably larger than a DC-3 to have been seen for such a great distance. "They were nothing from the ground in the way of fireworks, reflections, or anything like that," he asserted. "They weren't smoke and I know they weren't aircraft. . . . They were bigger than aircraft."

These objects may fall into the category of Satellite Object Cases, as they were described as "merging" and separating at one point during the observation. The sighting is Unidentified in the Air Force files. Dr. McDonald was able to contact Captain Smith and learned he is currently Flight Manager for UAL at Kennedy Airport in New York City. Smith emphasized that he hasn't kept up with the UFO problem, and his recollections of that early sighting were somewhat vague. He did confirm having seen two separate groups of discs, neither of which could have been aircraft. He recalled that Stevens had spotted them first and mistook them for aircraft, flashing his landing lights as a warning. Smith asked him why he'd flashed them, and Stevens called his attention to the objects. In his phone conversation with Dr. McDonald, he said it was difficult to recall the details but he thought that they had passed rather quickly out of view. They saw the second group just southeast of Ontario, Oregon, This time both he and Stevens saw them simultaneously. He recalled having called the stewardess up to the cabin, and she verified their observation. The sky was clear at the time -- not a cloud anywhere. They had radioed the tower at Ontario and asked the operator to step outside, but he must have looked toward the UAL plane, rather than into the twilight sky, for he saw nothing. Their radio conversation with the Ontario tower was overheard by other stations, so when they arrived at Pendleton for a scheduled landing, reporters were waiting for their story. He told McDonald that he recalled the bottoms of the objects as being flat, but their upper surfaces were less distinct. They might have been rounded or might have had some kind of superstructure, he thought. Smith had no UFO theories and emphasized that he did not wish to be tied in with any “suppositions," although he was willing to discuss as much of the sighting as he could remember with Dr. McDonald.

1. ↑ https://www.newspapers.com/image/564369192