Science fiction pulp magazines with pictures of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon were popular in the 1950’s and the sighting of flying saucers being reported in the daily news media wasn’t uncommon.
On February 11, 1953 the Toronto Star newspaper carried a front-page story with the headline “Takes off straight up, report Malton ‘Flying Saucer” to do 1,500 mph.”
The Toronto newspaper claimed that highly secret reports were circulating among British and U.S. defence scientists about a Canadian-built flying saucer. A second page in the front section of the newspaper carried further reports under a headline reading “Can even make brick fly if theory sound-experts.” The paper also reported that the design team had great difficulty devising gyroscopic stability control methods.
Further reports quoted United States Major-General Roger Ramey, USAF Operations Chief, as being aware of reports of flying saucers. “The Malton report had more credibility than the others and an investigation is being conducted at this time,” he told the media.
Additional coverage showed a number of cartoon illustrations. One, a winged car, was shown in advance of the weekend’s comic section. Another, the complete cartoon strip of Li’l Abner by Al Capp, was about a flying saucer visiting the imaginary town of Dog Patch. North Americans were certainly caught up in a flying saucer craze.
Look Magazine, a general-interest magazine published weekly in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, carried a ‘flying saucer’ story on pages 44, 45 and 46 of its June 14, 1955 issue, which read in part:
“Despite hundred of ‘eyewitness’ accounts of flying saucers, none has been captured and no government has come forward to take credit (or blame) for their reported aerial shenanigans. So, barring the possibility that the saucers are from other planets (a theory ardently supported by science-fiction fans), it seems reasonable to conclude that ‘there ain’t no such animal.