Kenneth Arnold really started something when he reported those saucers in 1947. Soon, the rest of America had UFO fever. Newspapers were crammed with the latest sightings of saucers and "men from Mars." And it didn't stop with boring old disc-shaped stuff. Several newspapers in Southwest Washington carried stories of "flying men" in 1948, the most famous being in Chehalis and Longview.
In Longview, laundry workers described a trio of flying figures in drab uniform-like flying suits cruising casually over the city on April 10th. Some have theorized that what the workers saw was actually an early attempt at paragliding, though that would be about 14 years before the earliest known prototypes.
So, was it men from the (not-too-distant) future? Aliens? A secret government program? Others might argue that dry-cleaning chemicals should be handled with care.
CK
