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FinaSace fs sy ory Deflated By Air Force Experimental Craft Will Be Examined For Other Clues 4 The Air Force’s long search for ‘flying saucers” has turned up two contraptions almost as weird as anything. yet descri e mos wild-eyed ‘“‘witnesses” of two sum- mers ago. "Held for the examination of ex- perts’ are two _weather-beaten remnants of an inventor’s dream ‘incovered yesterday in a tobacco) ‘shed near Glen Burnie, Md., an’ outer suburb of Baltimore. An official Air Force statement issued today said “the two ex- perimental aircraft found ne Baltimore yesterday have abs jutely no connection with the re- ported phenomenon of flying sau- ers.” This does not mean, how- ver, that they will not be xamined for other clues by Air| orce representatives, it was said.| The relics are more than 10| years’ old, and so far as can be determined, only one of them ever ot oO power. round under its own) This occurred in Wash-| j almost years ago and ended in near-disaster after ‘a flight of about 60 seconds. * ilot Tells of Test Ho ‘The inventor, Jonathan Beat well, who is now over 70, if still Jiving, and his wife and son left | Glen Burnie in 1940 after Mary- jJand authorities ordered Mr. Caldwell to “cease and desist” from selling stock to finance his} © aeronautical ideas. None of the neighbors have heard from them | since. : 7 Willard E. Driggers of 1530 Olive | street N.E., now with the Civil! Aeronautics Administration at Na- tional Airport,’made the first and only test hop in Myr. Caldwell’s helicopter, the Gray Goose, at the old Benning Race track in 1940. Mr. Driggers said he helped de- | sign the helicopter. i The machine rose about 40 feet and after some 60 seconds in the! air, Mr. Driggers became aware| the controls were not operating | properly, he told The Star. | He decided if he took it any sigher he might not get do Jafely and he crash landed qa Ihe race track. He was uni- red, but the machine was dant - aged. a> in a tobacco) ‘Lived Here Several Years. riggers said the saucey ° he rotors was design atmos a wing after the sh ad attained cruising altitu ‘The rotor would then be stopp and the ship flown with the con- ventional propeller. He explained, however, that this was theory, because the ship was never flown | again. | Mr. Caldwell lived in Washing- ton for several years before his disappearance, and seems to have returned here briefly from Glen Burnie before dropping from sight. The model tested here was a small helicopter whose rotors , projected from a saucerlike disc | mounted on a tripod above the} cockpit. Tattered remnants of this disc, covered with cloth, and the bat- tered fuselage were found in the shed, along with a ‘plywood box, like a huge circular cheesebox, those top and bottom sections rere designed to revolve in oppo- ite directions with short rotors vojecting from the rims. The pilot was to have ridden in the middle, near the motor mount. Capt. Claudius Belk, head of the Baltimore office of Special Investi- gation of the Air Force, revealed that his office has “been investi- gating the machines for months” as possible prototypes of the flying saucers reported so frequently. He said efforts are being made to locate Mr. Caldweil in the hope of | getting engineering data on his roto-plane ideas. The remains of the two ma- chines were placed in storage by Maryland State police, who helped locate them at the request of the Air Force. The material will be held, it was said, until it can be fight wingless ge with ropeller’ in front and a tripo yer the cockpit which mounte he saucer-like rotor and it projecting blades. Except for the pancake struc- ture around the inner sections of| | Builder Was gorpenter. | The helconta ipsa of i | the rotor, the model was much the same as other experimental jobs of that time. | Mr. Caldwell, a former carpen- ter, whose friends said he nad | studied the science of aeronautics! in several books, had a far less) conventional idea in his ‘flying cheesebox.” : | The upper and lower lids, con-| taining short rotor blades jutting | from their outer rims, were sup- posed to rotate in opposite airecr| tions, giving rapid life and some stability in flight, Mr. Caldwell’s friends said. They admitted the 1,500-pound contraption neve fiew, but said Mr. Caldwell ha claimed that a light model prove successful. The inventor earlier had trie¢ 2 third model. This looked something like a complicated hay rick on wheels, and had rotors designed to fan the airgsomewhat after the fashion of the paddle wheels on old steam- boats. There were no claims that this machine ever left the ground, and Mr. Caldwell abandoned it in} favor of later ideas. Attorney Robert E. Clapp, who was Assistant Attorney General of Maryland at the time of Mr. Caldwell’s disappearance, and helped administer the blue-sky laws, conducted a hearing in 1940 into the affairs of two of Mr. Cald- ell’s’ companies— Gray Gogse determined if experts from the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base at Dayton, Ohio, wish to exam- evita Ses Afways, Inc:, and Rotor Plangs,| jinc. He later restrained the firmhs| |from selling stock in Maryland. “All he had was models,” Mr. Clapp said, “and whenever one failed and he needed more funds, he went out and sold stog A In his report, Mr. Clappssaid: “The literature used sonnec- | _tion with these stock sdlészelearly | indicates that the publictWas led to believe that tHe invention was on the verge-of perfection and would be completed and ready for general production within a very short! time, whereas, ‘the fact as testi- fied by Mr. Caldivell indicate that no machine on which he had ever . worked had been successfully flown 4) oS : : - OS Soangealine — ‘os = - = a NWOT RKECOR Dw 4 SEP 23 1949 WASHINGTON STAR Page___A 18 _ or was in any condition for manu.) facture and sale upon 4 Satisfac tory commercial basis. * * * _"The history of the develop ment:of these companies indicate that they were organized merely for the purpose of raising money to develop the ideas of Mr, Gajq-| well, and that as soon as this) money was raised, it was treated : ee Sesaed Soren to him and as e subject of any use whi copied proper. ine “No meeting of stockhol is eyer been held by either cehaet and no financial report to stock- holders has ever come out sir organization” om " id ] »Tolson Cxagg) V@legg Glavin vA Nichol Rosen Tracy Harbo Mohr Tele. 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