Rhodes UFO photographs

The Arizona Republic published a story on July 7 about Tempe resident Francis Howell, who reported seeing a "circular object about two feet [60 cm] in diameter floating to the earth" near his home.

The newspaper characterized the object depicted in the photographs as "the shape of a heel of a shoe, with a small hole in the center".

[2][11] On August 29, Rhodes was interviewed by Special Agent Brower of the FBI and George Fugate Jr. of the Army's Counterintelligence Corps at Hamilton Field.

[12][14] In 1949, the Air Force internally published its first secret study of UFOs, titled Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the United States.

The report also noted that Rhodes referred to himself as chief of staff of a laboratory, the specialties of which included photography; "Yet, the negative was carelessly cut and faultily developed.

Well, what's more natural than some piece of tar paper picked up by a little miniature twister and being carried a few thousand feet up into the clouds and it was coming down, that's all. ...

"[17] On the same day that Rhodes claimed to have taken his photographs, it was reported that the FBI was investigating a letter received by the Los Angeles Examiner, asserting that the flying discs that had been widely sighted were atomic-powered Soviet craft.

The alleged Russian device was said to be only 18 inches [46 cm] thick and of a kidney-shape outline with the pilot in a prone position while guiding its flight.

Generally, this matches Rhodes' U-shaped object with the 'nonprotruding' canopy, thus was it an accident that the first good saucer photo compared so well with the supposed Communist design?

This could confirm the Russian rumor, or it could mean Rhodes faked his story and pictures since the Soviet missive saw print the same day as the claimed Phoenix UFO flyby".

[22] In the first issue of his magazine Fate, published during the spring of 1948, Palmer reprinted the Rhodes photographs, along with the text of the original article from The Arizona Republic.

He cited the photographs, along with "a great many witnesses," as "proof positive that these objects were ... flying disks of an aeronautical design unrecognizable by experts".

Palmer questioned the lack of subsequent reporting by other newspapers on the photographs, which he claimed "were the hottest news in the world" on the day that they were printed in The Arizona Republic.

[26] In a 1952 article, an Arizona Republic reporter stated that he had sighted a flying disc in 1947 near White Sands, New Mexico, and later "was startled to see the tremendous likeness between what I had seen and the object photographed by William A.