UFOS | Mission Street Mystery

Thusday's supposed to be a nice day, so in honor of that, a post that occured on "a bright midsummer" day.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, 16 July 1952

Mission's Flying Mystery

8 Isosceles, Some Cops, A Reporter

A bright midsummer sun shimmered yesterday in the periwinkle skies and anyone could plainly see tht it was a perfect day for a flying saucer story.

Happily, we have one for you-every cogent fact documented by a Chronicle reporter who was off with flying coattails to the Mission Police Station the moment the news of the mysterious find crackled over the phone wires.

The first bulletin came through a few minutes after noon:

"Here," he said, 'is the background. i'll start it chronologically. This thing--call it The Thing if you want to--was found by John Sneddon, of 3451 26th street.

"Sneddon is a janitor at Horace Mann High School (sic), at Valencia and 23d streets. He was coming to work at 7 a.m. when he found The Thing in the boys' courtyard at Horace Mann.

"He sayd he usually gets in early to raise the Flag, but now he forgot all about the Flag, and picked up the The Thing and took it down to the boiler room. It looks like a silver tent, kind of like a kite, you might describe it. Nobody knows what it is.

"About 8 a.m. the head janitor came in. He is John F. Connelly of 44 Peralta avenue. he took one look and he said: "My gawd, it looks like a flying saucer."

"Connelly called the supervising janitor of the Board of Education. He is Stanley Laevell, and he said, 'Call the police.'

"By this time it was 11:45 a.m. the cop who got the call as Patrolman Allan Rosenbaum of Mission Station. That's also at Valencia and 23d streets.

"Patrolman Rosenbaum sent Patrolman Herbert Jackson over to investigate and make a report. By that time The Thing was up in the principal's office-will get his name later.

"Now they're taking it across the street to the police station. The janitors are not going with the patrolman. I'll call you back."

The next bulletin crackled through with further details of The Thing:

"Patrolman Jackson is an Air Force veteran. He says, and you can quote this, 'I never saw anything like it But it looks like a radar detection kite. Don't let that influence you, though. Because there's another Air Force man here from one of the other papers, he's gone out now to call for a photographer, and he says it's like what they use in lifeboats. But I've got one better than that. Wait a minute. They're getting the armed forces in on this."

The next call:

"Patrolman Jackson has called the Armed Services Police. They're on the way. Now this other fellow says this could be a flying saucer, but it's got markings on it. Sure I can read them. No. Sorry. They're not in Russian. But you never know. Some of those guys speak English.
"The markings say ML 307 C dash AP. That's the marking. Hold on now, here's the Armed Services.

Then, five minutes later:

"The armed services man is Machinist's Mate First Class William Hale. He's stumped. He can't make anything out of it. Completely mystified. So he's going through channels. Hold on a minute.
"Now Machinist's Mate First Class Hale has called Captain J.L. Austin. The captain has ordered a detail to come down and investigate. Soon's I'm through with this call, I'll check the captain further.

"The Thing seems to be made out of water-repellant plastic, a kind of aluminum stuff. it was a four-sided figure on it, made out of eight isosceles triangles, all equal sided. They're isosceles all right. There are eight fellows standing around me now, and they all agree that's what they are, een if the are all equal sided. I'd better call Captain Austin."

Then:

"Well, I called Captain Austin, and he won't give. he says he refers all calls to the Public Information Officer, Sixth Army, the Presidio. I called them and they don't know anything about it. Hey. Here comes the detail. Call you back."

"Well, the detail arrived. Two men in civillian clothes. One tall, thin, and dark. The other short, blond, and medium-sized. Very mysterious. They showed their CID cards to Patrolman Robert Ferroggiaro. CID-Criminal Investigation Division. Both men are unsmiling and unspoken. They've got The Thing now. Taking it out to their car. "I'll call you back."

And finally:

"The CID men took The Thing off in their car. They are Robert Boyles and Robert Middlemass of the 60th CID Detachment, Presidio, San Francisco. they don't talk. They whisper.

"Looks like that's about all out here for now. Ask the desk shall I come in."

Addendum:

"Memo to desk: Rod Ireland, a PIO at the Presidio, says the Army called the Air Force and the Air Force says the Army can take it home and use it for a toy. Army doesn't know what it is, and CID agents haven't turned it in and Air Force won't talk. Ireland says as far as Provost marshal is concerned the case is officially closed, but he'll check around further and call us tomorrow. Ireland says maybe it's a weather kite. Anyhow, not a real flying saucer. At least so far as he knows.

Ah, mid-summer.

Ah, balmy dog days.

Publicly, Mysterious SF says: Curious, after all those years, what the object was. "ML 307 C" stumps even mighty Google. I expected to get even just one hit out of that one. 

Privately, Mysterious SF says: This one really does sound like a weather balloon...or kite for that matter.