The article below was published in the daily newspaper The Houston Post, Houston, Texas, USA, page 1, on July 7, 1947.
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A Houston former B-17 navigator speculated Sunday that the so-called "flying discs" might possibly be modified versions of radio-controlled "crystal balls" which the Nazis sent into the air over Europe during World War II.
The ex-navigator, Charles Odom, 23, of 8210 Garland, said the "crystal balls" flew up to the altitude of 1,000 feet, where apparently magnetized and flew along with the plane formations. Through electronically-operated devices, the "crystal balls" while in midair would send back to a radar screen on earth the altitude, speed and other data on the bombers.
Odom, who was a captain in the Fifteenth air force and is now employed here by the Pan-American Airways, said that he and other American airmen frequently saw the "crystal balls."
The army air forces intelligence corps briefed airmen on the "balls," he said, and explained how they fired at the balls. Odom added, "We used to see them all the time, especially around Vienna. Munich and the other larger targets." Odom continued, "They were about the size of basket balls, crystal clear, like fortune tellers' crystal balls."
Odom has not seen any of the so-called "flying discs," but when he and several other ex-A. A. F. men at the airways read reports of them, they began speculating on whether they were not some version of the "crystal balls," he said.
The first "crystal ball" was sighted by an American pilot in about September, 1944. Odom said.
"When he reported it at headquarters," Odom continued, "everybody said he was goofy. Some doctors even examined him and said he was suffering from battle fatigue."
But later, he said, other airmen began reporting seeing the objects. Some of the balls came within approximately 300 feet of the plane formations, always on the outside. It was then that the army air forces intelligence corps briefed the airmen on the "crystal balls." Odom said.
"The balls would shoot up and stop at our altitude," Odom said. "Then they would seem to become magnetized to our formation and fly alongside. They never came closer than about 300 feet."
"After a while, they would peel off like a plane and leave."
While some air force men claimed to have seen them at night, Odom said he saw them only during daylight hours.
