Date 7-9-47

Flying Disc 'Bigger Than Automobile' Photographed By Youth Who Is Amazed Because No One Else Saw It

The flying disc was lots bigger than an automobile," and 15-year- old Bill Turrentine of 410 West Fourteenth Street doesn't under- stand why almost everybody in Norfolk didn't see it.

In fact, when he came to the Ledger-Dispatch with a photograph he had taken of the object, he wanted to know why the newspa- pers hadn't already taken a pic- ture of it. "I thought your photo- graphers were fast," he told a re- porter.

few seconds later didn't look any- thing like saucers." Looked Like Football The boy stuck to his football comparison, explaining that the object was sort of rounded, more oval than disc-like, and that though it wobbled in its northeastward flight it was traveling very rapidly, about 600 miles an hour.

He guessed that the altitude of the thing was about 5,000 feet, just below the clouds. In color it was "gray, almost black," and looked like a "burned crisp," or

(Editor's Note: Although the Ledger-Dispatch has had many re- ports of flying discs and saucers in recent days, no other person re- ported seeing the object which Tur- rentine photographed.)

However, Bill said he had done one fast moving himself shortly before noon Tuesday, when he stood on his front porch and saw the large gray object, "rocking and spinning like a football" and coming from the southwest.

"I had just returned from Sum- mer school classes at Maury," he said, and with all the talk about "flying saucers," had gone out with his camera to see if he could get anything.

"I don't see why they call them flying saucers," he said. "The big one I took a picture of and the two little ones that came behind it a

maybe a rock or stone. The edges glittered, he said, and seemed to be trailing dust. Neither it nor the two which followed made any sound.

Bill said he wasn't very sur- prised when he saw the object,

and staff reporter George Herbert (left) of the "lucky" circumstances which enabled him to take the photograph at f disc. However, the boy said the object pictured here is looked and moved more like a football, being rounded and oval, rath than disc-like. Bill took this picture from the porch of his home 410 West Fourteenth Street between 11 o'clock and noon Tuesda said the "flying football" shown here was followed by two small ones, all moving at about 600 miles an hour and he guessed they we about 5,000 feet high, just below the clouds. The photograph reprodu ed here is an enlargement made by Photo Craftsmen. In the fo ground of young Turrentine's picture is the porch rail of his home.

but "almost killed myself" getting shots of it with his camera, set at 1/100th of a second."

He called his 18-year-old sister, Josephine, to come and look, but apparently she didn't believe him. As the "flying football" passed over, Bill said he took three shots of it, but when he hurriedly devel- oped the film, after legging it to Sidney Road for a vial of developer, only one negative came out well enough for reproduction.

He showed a reporter a contact print he had made himself, and the picture reproduced here is an

enlargement made by Photo Crafts- men.

Photo experts of this firm are convinced that the boy did a fine job with the old camera he was using. Having closely examined the negative, they said the only flaw was in the kind of film, which perhaps didn't bring out enough detail. They pointed out, however, in view of the fact that Bill's photo- graph, with the object partly af- forded by the front porch rail and the trees, was certainly the best one taken since the mysterious discs were first reported.