Flying Disk Crashes in Long Lake!

by

Wally Lee Parker

 

Reprint from the June 2021 issue (#158) of the Clayton/Deer Park Historical Society’s newsletter, the Mortarboard.  See the editor's "Letters, Email, Bouquets & Brickbats" segment. 

 

            One Christmas present from my daughter this last year was a tee-shirt printed with a picture of a flying saucer and the notation, “The Truth is Out There” — that being a catchphrase from the classic ‘90s television show, the X-Files.  As past editor of the Clayton/Deer Park Historical Society's newsletter, the Mortarboard, over the years I’ve snuck a couple of pieces about flying saucers into the pages.  If you go back and look at those — links provided below — you might understand why I was tickled pink to get that shirt.  By way of further explanation, I proffer another catchphrase from the X-Files, that being “I Want to Believe.”  In my case the problem with belief is that just like the show’s fictional distaff FBI agent, Dana Scully, I have to have scientifically verifiable proof before I’ll accept that UFOs are alien spacecraft.  And the sad truth is, I’ve yet to see such.

            One of the above “snuck” stories appeared in the Mortarboard’s Letters/Brickbats column for April, 2016 — that under the lead “a round loaf of flying fire.”  In said article, I mentioned that my research had drawn up a piece from the August 23^rd, 1965 edition of the Spokesman-Review headlined “Flying Saucers, Fiery Balls Claimed Seen by UFO Buffs.”  The author of that article, staff writer Jerry Wigen, stated that the crash of one such aerial phenomenon into a stretch of Spokane’s Long Lake near Tum Tum had been outlined in an eyewitness account — said account printed in one of the Review’s July, 1948 issues.  Mr. Wigen hadn’t mentioned on which day it had appeared in the paper, and I hadn’t been able to find it prior to that specific Mortarboard’s deadline.

            Knowing it was a story worth pursuing, I added this plea to my 2016 article. “If anyone can recall the name of the above noted (witness), or any other information regarding this specific tale, such might prove useful in locating the original account.”

            There was always something else in need of research, so the Long Lake story has lain dormant for the last five years.  But then very recently, while tracking through the Review’s archives in pursuit of a different story, there it was.  Tum Tum’s own X-File.

            In form, it’s a letter to the editor tucked into page six of the newspaper’s July 30^th edition.  The missive’s author, Mrs. Harold Higgins, stated she had “lived in Tum Tum for the last 17 years.”  She reported the incident had occurred on the Sunday prior — that being July 25^th, 1948 — at approximately 4:30 in the afternoon.  To quote, “It was round and flat, shiny like a mirror, belching puffs of black smoke, hissing like a pressure cooker; it veered to the left and disappeared into the water.”  Rowing out to the site where the disk had sunk, she reported nothing could be seen below the surface, however “bubbles were coming up all around and rainbow-colored oil spots were everywhere.”

            In totality, it was certainly a well-written, well-thought-out letter.  And if there’s any truth to it, it leaves open the possibility that there’s a flying saucer somewhere beneath the waters impounded behind Long Lake’s dam.  I don’t know how deep the lake is in the Tum Tum area.  Reportedly its maximum depth is about 180 feet, that probably within spitting distance of the dam.  Of course, the maximum anywhere along the lake should be the Spokane River’s original bed, though one wonders about the reality of that after just over a century’s worth of silt has settled in the now stilled waters.  As for how far down the saucer might be, Tum Tum is just over ten miles upstream from the dam, meaning the maximum depth there is doubtless quite a bit less than the above noted 180 feet.  But from the description of the crash, the best we can say is that the saucer’s resting somewhere below the point at which a mirror-like object would still be visible from the surface.  From what I can recall of trolling with spinners on Long Lake, that point isn’t that far down — leaving a lot of obscure territory to search.

            Now I don’t know how quickly flying saucers are likely to rust — assuming they rust at all.  To find out we’d need to consult the nonexistent experts in the equally nonexistent Area 51.  But considering said nonexistent experts haven't said anything of substance since Roswell, it’s doubtful they’ll start now.

            Forced by governmental recalcitrance to invent an answer, I would guestimate that any saucer that belches black smoke and leaves an oily ring after sinking probably not only rusts, but likely does so very quickly.  As of this writing, that alien vehicle has been down there for just shy of 73 years.  If it’s ever located, it might be hard to tell the difference between it and anything else of metallic composition and noteworthy size submerged in Long Lake by happenstance or design — for example, something like a Model T touring car, of which the lake doubtless contains at least several.  If the in-line four-cylinder engine isn’t a dead giveaway, telling the difference between two rusting hulks — one from Gliese 581c, the other from Highland Park, Michigan — still shouldn’t be that big a problem.  After a few tests, any competent metallurgist should be able to distinguish between the vanadium alloy used in a Model T’s body and an even more exotic alloy clearly not manufactured on planet Earth.

            As noted, I want to believe.  In that vein, there is a potential solution.  Currently there are any number of more or less reality-based television shows that specialize in things like searching for evidence that most ancient megalithic structures such as the pyramids, Stonehenge, etc., were actually built by extraterrestrials, or that are attempting to prove ghosts exist by employing a new generation of electronic gizmos of questionable efficiency, or that specialize in tracking mythical creatures universally dismissed by science — bigfoot being a fan favorite.  The utterly amazing thing is that these shows go season after season without actually finding anything, but still get renewed.  Could any of them be convinced to come search for Long Lake’s lost saucer?  Chronically coming away empty handed doesn’t seem a ratings problem — meaning they quite literally have nothing to lose.  Or prove, for that matter.

            All that said, it was good to find that pesky letter.  It’s been vexing me for a long time.  And now it can be added to the society’s collection of odd historic footnotes.  You know, the ones we also file under “X.”

Links

… a round loaf of flying fire …

Mortarboard #96, April, 2016 — page 1258 — Collected Newsletters, Volume 26.

http://cdphs.org/uploads/3/4/2/0/34204235/mortarboard_issue_96_doublepage_web.pdf

 

… a burning sky …

Mortarboard #88, August, 2015 — page 1126 — Collected Newsletters, Volume 24.

http://cdphs.org/uploads/3/4/2/0/34204235/mortarboard_issue_88_doublepage_web.pdf