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SAUCERS are OLD STUFF
"One for the birds" was the eagle-powered device patented j in 1887 by C. R. E. Wulff as a "means and apparatus for propelling and guiding balloons."
By M. JEANNE BAKER
THE debate over "flying saucers" continues to rage. Scientists dis,gree as to what they may be : Visitors rem other worlds, from the unliartered realms of space. Hallucinaions. Phenomena produced by light jid heat and other tricky aspects of Nature's handiwork. All agree, howwer, that, real or imagined, the ob' ects are the product of the age of et propulsion and cracked atoms. All, hat is, except Custodian Elton H. 3rown of the United States Patent Office.
"We've been seeing 'flying saucers' lere for years," he states, "even before ny time", and he indicates stacks »f musty files, some dating back fifty 'ears. The files contain patent appli' ations on hundreds of plans for weird ontrivances designed to lift man into he air. Some put the most weird vriters of science-fiction to shame. Others inspire awe. And many, of :ourse, cause a snicker and a sneer. Vnd yet . . . flying saucer? Who can ell?
TAKE the contraption patented by one John H. Wilson, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1909. Today's re)orted "saucers" are generally of disc hape. Wilson's invention consisted if not one, but four discs. These were nounted on a shaft, horizontally, .bove the motor, and would revolve
at 125 r.p.m. At such speed, a set of blades attached to the discs would open and, whirling in conjunction with the discs, lift the machine into the air. So the inventor hopefully predicted, claiming also great maneuverabihty for the craft.
A Californian, Samuel Montgomery, in 1911 patented a craft that (if it could get into the air) would resemble a saucer. This was in the shape of a huge umbrella, the umbrella to revolve, much on the order of the canvas top of a circus merrygo-round. Suspended from the umbrella was a wire-mesh basket which contained a steam boiler, the engine to move the contrivance, and the operator.
Montgomery thoughtfully provided a parachute for emergency landings, and for air bags in case of a landing in water. The papers of patent-application guaranteed, in the words of the inventor, this to be "a simple and inexpensive device, and one which can readily be constructed for the use of every class of people, and one which can well be used for transporting freight as well as persons with ease and accuracy."
Cigar-shaped "saucers"? An Ohioan, of 1910 vintage, patented a contraption of that type, consisting of a gondola suspended from a set of blades which, controlled by motor