At 8,000 Miles An Hour Scientist Claims He Flew In Martian Flying Saucer
By Ben Metcalfe
The Calgary Herald
July 23rd, 1956, front page.

VANCOUVER – When the first Canadian flying Saucer Club was founded here this month they did things in style.  They imported as their first lecturer, Daniel W. Fry, a leading U.S. space technician who claims to flown in one of those controversial interplanetary dishes.  For 48 weeks of the year, Dan Fry works in the tightly sealed laboratories of Crescent engineering and Research Company at El Monte, California.  He is superintendent of the experimental production, part of which will contribute to the US launching in 1958 of the first man-made satellite to circle the Earth’s stratosphere. In his spare time he stumps the continent telling without fee of his ride in a flying saucer operated by friendly Martians.

NOBODY LAUGHED

When he repeated his fantastic story before a Vancouver audience of 250 businessmen, teachers and university students, nobody laughed. How many believed him, is beside the point — Mr. Fry is convinced of the reality of his experience.  I probed the “facts” with him for two hours before his lecture.  I found him incredible but unshakable, a modest matter of fact scientist who doesn’t in the least mind being a martyr to ridicule.

Born in 1908 at Verdon, Minnesota, he was orphaned early and penniless.  He took his early scientific training in the public library at Pasadena, later graduated from UCLA and entered advanced U. S. science research immediately.  Countless top security screenings for hush-hush war work have left him cautious and quiet except on the controversy of flying saucers.

NEW NAME

Dan Fry — as the Martians now call him — doesn’t use the term “flying saucers” nor “unidentified flying objects”.  He calls them extraterrestrial aeroforms.  He says they are real.  He says they are operated by beings much like ourselves, though a little more intelligent.  He says they are friendly.  And, of course, he says he has flown in one, from White Sands New Mexico, to New York and back in 30 minutes at a speed of 8000 miles an hour.

PROOF?

“There is no such thing as absolute proof of anything,” he says, “proof is merely evidence of a nature and degree sufficient to bring conviction to the mind.”

SIX YEARS AGO

This kind of evidence presented itself to Dan Fry during a hot evening of July 4, 1950 while he walked the desert to get away from a steaming room.  Down came the THING, landing within 70 feet of the scientist, frightening him, but also exciting his curiosity enough to make him approach it and touch it.  It was silvery in color, seemed to be metallic, though with a surface so smooth as to baffle earthly identification of the metal.  It was 30 feet in diameter and about 16 feet high.

And while he studied it, Dan Fry heard the VOICE though he could see no one and did not see anyone throughout the experience.  It spoke English and U.S. idiom.

PLANNED TO VISIT

The voice identified itself as that of A-lan, a Martian, and explained the ship was only a small cargo vessel controlled by a mother ship in the stratosphere.  A-lan offered the scientist a flip, adding that the encounter was by no means accidental, but planned by the Martians in order to bring themselves without alarm to the earth man’s notice.

“It seemed to be speaking inside my head rather than from outside”, Dan told me.  He said he felt little discomfiture from the great accelerations of the Aeroform and that he viewed the earth on a screen inside the small four seater compartment.

RUNNING COMMENTARY

“New York looks like a bed of coals from 22 miles up”, he said.  A-lan gave me a running commentary all the way.

During the return trip, A-lan told him the ship was energized by magnetic field propulsion, which Dan Fry revealed is now under advanced experimentation in the U.S.  However, A-lan told him that man would have to recant his whole approach to science before he could conquer space.  The Martian *****ed <indecipherable> that we earth men must learn political understanding as the Martians know it, or we can be certain of early annihilation.

Dan Fry did not write his book — The White Sands Incident — until 1954.  He kept his secret from all but a few friends because he was afraid of disbelief and ridicule.  But his feelings change when A-lan contacted him again in 1953 — without a ship this time  — and convinced him that it was his duty to tell the world of his experience.

FUTURE LANDING

The Martian said he and his race would land here “someday” — when earth men signified they desired it.  Naturally, Dan Fry is waiting anxiously for that day. Meanwhile he will not entertain the suggestion that he dreamed or hallucinated the entire experience.

He agreed it may be possible that the THING was of this earth and may have been experimenting with the reactions of the people.  However, he believes he is close enough to U.S. space research to know what is still possible and impossible on our planet.  This leaves him again with the redoubtable conclusion that his visitor was from outer space.

NO ROMANTICIST

“I have never been famous for romanticizing on making fantasies,” he said.  “Quite the opposite, a little to practical and down to earth.  And I’m not a science fiction reader.”

He said that his only recreational reading was shared between Earl Stanley Gardner and P. G. Wodehouse — “A mixture of the mysterious and the humorous.”  But though he admits this flying saucer business may be mysterious to some, it’s no joke with him.  I asked him before he went on stage how his experience and his insistence on its reality was affecting his job with such a serious outfit as  Crescent Engineering Research.  “Oh, I’m all right with them,” he said, with the suggestion of a smile.  “The president himself claims to have seen a flying saucer.”