by Tom Towers
Examiner Aviation Editor

"Flying saucers," much discussed and much maligned down through the years, came in for another local airing the other day, this time under the most favorable of circumstances.

More than 30 qualified aircraft industry engineers and interested businessmen, all above and beyond the extremist group which has often dabbled in "saucer" theory, met at the Encino home of Robert Karp, a Disney artist, to exchange views on the subject.

The meeting, which attracted such men as Dr. Robert Baker, of UCLA's astronomy department, was arranged by Zan Overall, a Rocketdyne instrumentation photographer, who is a key member of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena.

OTHERS THERE --

Others on hand were Harold Lamb Jr., a Rocketdyne engineer; Dr. Leslie Kaeburn, of the University of Southern California's medical department, and Robert Bulkley, of CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Also present were Ward Kimball, who heads Disney's advanced scientific project section, and engineers from Marquardt Aircraft and Thompson Ramo Wooldridge.

Kimball told the group of the Navy's concern over the asserted mystery disappearance of several of its jet planes and pilots off the coast of Florida in recent years.

He said that a Navy officer at the Pentagon had told him of the inference was that "saucers" might have been responsible for the "no evidence" disappearance of the aircraft.

Kimball also said that he has learned that the Air Force is fearful of disclosing all it knows about "saucers" because of the great burden of explanation it would have to face from the public.

After four hours of discussion, the high-level "saucerites" reaffirmed their belief that "saucers" are fact and not fiction, and that they have intelligence behind their control.

It was further agreed that those on hand at the meeting would lend all possible aid for a careful and scientific analysis of future sightings in the Greater Los Angeles area in order to arrive at an intelligent evaluation of the observation.