Page 5 of Flying Saucers Magazine - October 1959

The RED BUD,

(See Front Cover)

By DEAN MORGAN

Although this photo was taken on April 23, 1950, it has not been publicized until this date because of the original ridicule to which the photographer was subjected by his friends. At FLYING SAUCERS' request, he has made a print available to us.

0N April 23, 1950, I was walking through the woods in the hills near Red Bud, Illinois. I was a part-time photographer, hoping to get some wildlife shots. Of course, crashing through the brush in broad daylight was no way to get wildlife pictures; I really just wanted to hike through the woods. However, I took my camera along for appearances' sake. As I came down the south side of a hill, the woods broke away into a clearing on a gentle slope. Utility lines snaked their way across this clearing and on down the hillside on telephone poles. From here, I could see the green-and-brown hills about bathed in bright sunshine. It was then that I noticed that the clearing in which I stood was shaded, as though a small cloud were just overhead: I looked up.

I got the shock of my life. Suspended at what seemed a height of no more than twenty feet directly over me, with no visible means of support, the huge, round, shaded, metallic bottom of what proved to be a disc hung motionless in midair. I wouldn't dare to hazard a guess at how big the thing was. It looked enormous.

Very slowly, then, the huge disc began moving away from me, Southward. The bottom seemed convex and the upper surface likewise, but it seemed that the upper surface reached up to form a dome atop the middle of the circle formed by the disc's edge. This top semi-sphere was reddish in color, and the rest of the thing, below a distinct line where the dome started, seemed to be of clear metallic substance. The object stopped moving, and hovered, motionless, out over the hills After a few seconds, it again started moving slowly, this time to my left, east ward. Once more it stopped and hung in mid-air out over the hills. Only now did enough shock wear off to permit me to move consciously. I shoved my camera up to my face, caught the object in the viewer, and snapped the shutter.

Immediately, the thing took off There was no discernable sound or exhaust. It was just gone in a flash beyond the horizon. I 'wondered about the heat of the day, and my exertion in walking, and imagined that perhaps I hadn't really seen anything at all. My arm was trembling violently as I looked at my watch. It read 3:58.

I did not then know what I am about to relate, but this is the story they tell in De Soto, Illinois, about fifty miles roughly southeast of where I'd made my sighting.

It was about four o'clock of the same day. A newsboy named Donald Gene was, as usual, peddling his bicycle down U.S. Route 51- to make some deliveries south of town. He stopped before the Greene residence. which was right next to the highway in the open countryside. Mrs Greene was puttering with some plants in the yard beside the house. Mr. Greene was up on the roof, presumably fixing a leak. It was noticing Mr. Greene that caused the newsboy to look up. In the blue sky above, he saw what he later described as looking like the bottom of a silver saucer.

"Hey," he said, pointing at the object, "look at that!"

Puzzled, Mr. Greene from the root and Mrs. Greene from the ground first looked at him, and then followed his indication. They caught sight of the thing in the sky. The three observers stared with one accord as the saucer remained set in the air. After a short while, it took off, to quote the newsboy, "faster than any jet, straight south for Carbondale."

Later (I was still ignorant of this incident), my photographic print proved that what I'd seen from the hillside had not been a bizzare hallucination, but a bizzare fact.

I was, of course, most enthusiastic about my flying saucer. The first person with whom I conversed after my experience was a portly friend, whom I shall not name here, who came over to my house in East St. Louis for a visit one evening. He was seated on the couch, I on a chair across the room from it. After some small talk, which I determinedly kept to a minimum, we sat in silence for a few seconds while I collected my thoughts. How should I say what I had to say?

At length I blurted out: "Do you believe in ... uh ... flying saucers?"

"Of course," replied my stout associate in his booming voice, as though I'd asked him whether he believed in automobiles. I was stunned. This had been too much to hope for. I had certainly never believed in flying saucers myself before my unexpected revelation; and of all people I could not have visualized my friend as a "saucerer".

"Wait," I said, leaving the room in an excited rush. I returned with my photograph, handed it to him, sat on the couch beside him and rattled off my report with missionary zeal as he gazed soberly at the picture.

"You don't seem surprised," I said after the conclusion of my account.

"I'm not," he said softly. "I saw one of these once."

"You?" I was flabbergasted.

"Yes," he said. "It was purple, and orange. A ray gun shot out of its porthole and rayed me, and- that's what made such a mess of me. You must believe me!" He stared at me with a wild look in his rounded eyes.

I felt my face flush as I realized what he was doing. "All right!" I said hotly. "Knock it off!"

His mouth suddenly split his fat face open as he shook with roaring laughter. He gave his watch a glance that was too quick, and said, "I'm sorry, Dean Morgan old boy, I'd better go now." He got up to leave, handing me the photo. "I'll see you around."

"Yeah," I said, sitting where I was. He left.

He's never "seen me around" socially again.

I'd never been so angry; nor so frustrated, for my anger was force without direction. I couldn't blame him; I would have behaved in a similar manner had our situations been reversed.

I showed my photo to two more friends after that, and the responses it evoked were enough to make me shove the picture into a drawer and will myself into forgetfulness. At least, I tried to forget.

In 1956, the Reverend Don Holt became pastor of B u n k u m Road Baptist Mission, of which I was a member. Under his pastorage I became the mission's song leader. One day, after the morning services, I saw him talking with some of the members in the yard, as he was wont to do. When one of the members made a pointless joke about flying saucers and people who see them, I noticed that he did not laugh with the group, but assumed an unusually solemn expression After those members had left him, I ambled over and casually asked why he hadn't laughed at the joke I'd overheard.

He was reluctant to answer, but finally said, "I wouldn't lie to you," and revealed the following:

He had lived in De Soto, Illinois at the time of my sighting. It was now, from him, that I learned of the newsboy's sighting I have described. I was greatly edified to hear that this had occurred on the same day as my sighting; in fact, just a little afterward. But there was more to

his story than that. My pastor, a man of irreproachable character.. had himself seen the object! He had been going south on U.S. Route 51. North of Carbondale city limit, he had seen the object hovering in thesky for an instant before streaking away before him in the same manner in- which the newsboy and his husband-and-wife confirmants described it as streaking away from De Soto.

I managed to contact the erstwhile newsboy, whose story was as described.

My enthusiasm was revitalized, and I tried desperately to get my findings published. They were rejected by all popular magazines.

It was in August, 1957, that I discovered "Flying Saucers" magazine.

I realized that here was a publication that was open-minded, to say the very least. However, I was reluctant to write anything for it, because most of the things I found therein seemed so .... I hope the faithful will pardon my saying this .... crazy.

But I now feel duty-bound to tell my story, for I know the flying saucer legend is based on absolute fact. and if that hard truth is ever to be bared from beneath the layers of myth, those of us who have access to fact must disclose it.

The photograph was taken from a hillside, not far from Red Bud Illinois, facing south-southeast. The lines in the upper left foreground are utility wires, and the things in the lower right are the tops of bushy trees. The tops of two telephone poles can be seen as the ines wind down the hillside. The "saucer" is hovering, just prior to taking off.

I get a weird, creepy feeling every time I look at this picture. To para phrase something Editor Ray Palmer once said, "What have I seen? An Unidentified Flying Object."