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.. S~atement of David N. Johnson
at Boise, Idaho , July 12 , 1947
To i1hoa It Jlay Concer n :
On the sixth day of July , 1947, I received from James L. Brown ,
gener nl manager or the Statesman Newspapers , incorpor ated in Ida.ho as
The StateS1!18.n Pri nting company, an assignment which was in substance :
11 Conduct an aerial sear ch or the northJirest states in an effort to
see and photogr aph a flyi ng disc . Conduct this pat r ol for so l ong a time
as you bel i eve reasonabl e , or until you see a flying disc .n
In accordance to these instruction s , I took the Stat est'lan ' s airpl ane ,
and with Kenneth Arno l d as pas senger, flew a seven and one - hal f hour mission
on the seventh day of July, 194 7 . This mission wa s without r esult . It
covered an area embr acin g the confi nes of the Hanford plant in ~ashington ,
and territory between and around !Jit . Rainier and Pt . Adams, where Arnold
first reported seeing objects hencefor th described as saucers or discs .
On the eighth dny of July , 1947 , I took an AT- 6 of the 190th Fighter
squadron , Idaho national Guo.rd , of which I nm a member , and flew to norther rt
I daho , into north,vestern Montana briefly, to Spokane , Vashington , e.nd back
to 3oise by vre.y of ~·lalla 'Walla , 17e.shington, and Pendleton, Oregon . This
sear ch also was negative .
On the ninth day of Jul y , 1947 • I continued the search, a.gain using a
national guard AT- 6 , this time centering n y efforts over the Ov,yhee mountains
west and south,rest of Boise , a portion of the ~ountain Home desert on a track
southeast of the Mountain Horne e.rmy ai r base , thence into the Sawtooth moun
tain s , and back in the gene r al direction of Boise on a line carrying me wel l
to t he nor th of the Shafe r butte forest service lookout station , into the
Borse5hoe Bend area, and t hence back in a soutlnvester ly direct ion to a point
between Boise and the vi llage of Mer idian , west of Boise a few mi l e s ,
Dur ing this search , which l asted approximately two and one - hal f
hours , I flow under and around r apidly forming cumulus clouds over that
ar ea known as the Cai:cas Prairie, east of Boise . The clouds were near the
village of Fairfield in that vall ey, and Fai rfie l d is 75 miles air line
distance east of Boise . At that timo I saw nothing in the vicinity of
t hese clouds .
At the time I reached the point between Boise and ?£eridian, I was
f l ying at an a l titude of 14, 000 feet mean sea l ovel, which woul d be a mean
aver age of 11,000 feet above the earth i n this area , not oonsidering errors
in the altimeter induced ei ther by barometr ic changes since my takeoff, or
by the temper atur e at that altitude .
I turned the aircraft on an easterly hes.dine , pointing toward Gowen
Field, and had f l ovm on that course for perhaps a minute when ther e suddenl y
appeared in the l eft hand portion of my fie l d of vision an object which was
bl ack and round .
I immediatel y center ed my gaze on the object . At that time . due to i ts
erratic movement , I thought I was seeing a weather bal l oon . I called the
CAA ' s comnuni cation stat i on at Boise , and asked if the weather stat ion had
r ecently r e l ea sed a bal loon. The repl y from communicator Al bert son was t hat
the bureau had not . I do not r emember his exact wor ds; I am under the
impr ession he said "not f o r several hours" or go.ve me the exact time of the
previous r elease • which ,va s around 08: 30 t hat day .