HE NOMENU P
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED FBI
VOL. UX No. 143 NOME, ALASKA, MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1957 Per Copy—15^
Sputnik I Rocket Believed Down
But Reports Conflict as to Where
WASHINGTON, UP>—U.S. and<3
British scientists say there is
every indication Russia’s satellite
rocket—which put Sputnik I into
orbit Oct. 4—plunged to its death j
Saturday night.
But where it fell, and when,
remained a mystery in the face
of widely scattered claims to see
ing it fafl.
There were several reports of
flaming objects being sighted
over the weekend. One of these,
from Fairbanks, Alaska, coincided
with the predicted passage of the
rocket over that city, and it was
being investigated further.
But the other sighting appar
ently involved something other
than the rocket. Some experts also
discounted the Fairbanks report,
saying the object probably was a
giant fireball, or meteor.
Russia has had nothing official
to say about the rocket’s fall. But
a Moscow radio broadcast said
the rocket had completed 894 or
bits as of 10 p.m. EST Sunday.
A spokesman for the Moscow
Planetarium told correspondents
in the Soviet capital the rocket
would burn out “very soon, per
haps tomorrow or the day afteir.”
He said the carrier was not
sighted over the weekend and ap
parently was ready to plunge into
the stratosphere and disintegrate.
Prof. Alfred Lovell, director of
the radio telescope station at Jod
rell Bank, England, also said he
concludes the rocket no longer
exists. Lovell discounted the Mos
cow reports, and said the Russians
“were probably fishing for infor
mation.”
Japanese astronomers also said
they did not spot the rocket yes
terday. The last confirmed obser
vation of the rocket was made by
the radar telescope at Palo Alto,
Calif., at 7:11 p.m. EST Saturday.
At about the same time, a mem
ber of the Smithsonian’s moon
watch team at Los Altos, Calif.,
said he saw a very bright object.
Other reports included:
1. A teirific explosion, a green
ball and a white flash over north
east Montana.
2. An exploding object spotted
at 5:39 a.m. EST yesterday over
Portland, Maine.
3. At least 10 persons reported
seeing a red hot object plunge
into a swamp near Grossmoor, a
village south of Hamburg, Ger
many, yesterday.
A search for the object turned
up nothing except a three-foot
wide hole in the ground. A mine
detector did not record anything.
The object was believed buried
about 15 feet and digging was still
going on.
NOW OPEN AT
NOME HARDWARE!
Order Your Christmas Trees Early
Christmas Seal
Sale in Nome
Started Today
In the continuing struggle by
the nation to combat tuberculosis,
the 51st annual Christmas Seal
Sale got under way in Nome this
morning.
Student volunteers from Nome
High School again are selling the
seals on the second floor of the
Federal Building and a door-to
door canvass of business estab
lishments will be made.
The Alaska Department of
Health last year discovered 955
new cases of unsuspected TB. The
Alaska Tuberculosis Assn, says
the new-case rate is not declining
and points up where emphasis
needs to be placed.
By buying and using Christmas
seals on your holiday mail and
packages you will be helping to
continue the program to make
Alaska a healthier place to Jive.
The seals are only $1 a sheet:
Checks can >be made payable to
the Alaska Tuberculosis Assn.,
Juneau, Alaska.
The sale will continue thru
this week,
YOUNG ENGINEER
FEARED DEAD
ON MT. RAINIER
MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL
PARK, Wash., (B—Low clouds en
veloped snowy Mt. Rainier this
morning, preventing renewal of
the fruitless search for a young
Seattle engineer missing three
days on the storm-swept peak.
Hopes for finding 2 3-year-old
Lowell Linn alive neared the van
ishing point.
Blizzard and snow showers had
added to the 48 inches of snow
cover since the lightly clad Linn
was last seen by a fellow hiker
Saturday morning at the 6,500
foot level on the 14,408-foot peak.
Linn, an engineer with the Boe
ing Airplane Co., and a compan
ion set out on snowshoes from
Paradise Inn at the 5,500-foot
level early Saturday.
700,000 Soviet Youth
Resettled in Siberia
MOSCOW, \B—Pravda said to
day 700,000 Soviet youth volun
teers have been resettled in re
cent years on new lands in Si
beria and at construction sites.
The Communist Party cited the
figure as evidence that young
Communists are cooperating in
building Soviet strength.
SPUTNIK ROCKET OR METEOR
FALLS NEAR FAIRBANKS
FAIRBANKS, Iff)—The Army
reported yesterday the Sputnik I
rocket was believed to have fall
en 100 miles southeast of here,
'but scientists quickly called the
flaming object a giant fireball.
The Geophysical Institute of
the University of Alaska de
scribed it as a “one in a million
chance” that the fireball, or me
teor, passed over Alaska at “plus
KEEL LAID
FOR FIRST U.S.
ATOMIC SHIP
QUINCY, Mass., (3—The keel
of the Navy’s first guided-missile,
nuclear-powered surface ship was
laid today at the Fore River ship
yard of Bethlehem Steel Co.
The vessel will be the first U.S.
cruiser to be designed and built
from the keel up since the second
world war.
The cruiser—the Long Beach—
will be armed with the most mod
ern surface-to-surface and sur
face-to-air guided missiles, in
cluding Talos, Terrier and Regu
lus.
She will be 721 feet long, will
have an extreme beam of 73 feet
and a standard displacement of
11.000 tons.
The laying date—Dec. 2—is the
15th anniversary of the first occa
sion when energy from nuclear
fission was Obtained in usable
amounts.
The power plant of the Long
Beach will be a direct descendant
of the experimental reactor un
veiled in Chicago on Dec. 2, 1942,
by Enrico Fermi.
Ship Rams Iceberg;
28 Scientists Safe
LONDON, UP—Twenty-eight
antarctic-bound scientists have'
been removed safely from the
British polar research ship Shack
leton, which rammed an iceberg
1.000 miles south of Cape Horn.
The Shackleton, her crew of 30
still aboard, headed for South
Georgia in the South Atlantic for
repairs.
With temporary patches on her
torn hull the ship began the 500
mile voyage escorted by a British
whaler.
The British Navy ship Protec
tor radioed that she reached the
Shackleton last night and took off
her passengers. They are des
tined for British scientific bases
in the antarctic. There were no
casualties, it was reported.
on minus five minutes” of the
time the rocket satellite was due
over Fairbanks Saturday after
noon.
A1 George, administrative as
sistant to the institute director,
Dr. Christian E. Elvey, said calls
came in steadily for three hours
yesterday from persons who had
sighted the falling, glowing ob
ject.
He said several scientists at the
institute also saw the object, and
said its direction and speed put it
in the meteor class.
George said the occurrence of
fireballs of the size described here
was extremely rare, and only two
or three are seen thruout the
GILLIS FILES SUIT
AGAINST MMM BANK
FOB $25,000 DAMAGES
A suit was filed in the U.S. Dis
trict Court by Will Gillis against
the Miners and Merchants Bank
claiming damages to the amount
of $25,000.
The plaintiff alleges that he was
unable to order the necessary
building materials on the last boat
to carry on his business because
the “defendant held, retained,
converted to its use $11,225.00”
due him on contracts.
Hurricane Nina
Lashes Hawaii
HONOLULU, UP)—Some 1,100
persons were evacuated from the
low-lying coastal areas of Kauai
today as gale winds of up to 90
miles an hour from hurricane
Nina battered that northernmost
of the Hawaiian Islands.
Those evacuated, mostly fisher
men and cane field workers living
near mouths of swollen rivers,
were moved to public schools.
The Kiluea lighthouse on the
north shore of Kauai reported
winds of 90 miles an hour. Two
feet of rain was registered in a
seven-hour period on the island.
TAXES TURN ELMER INTO
"BULL IN A CHINA SHOP"
LOS ANGELES, UP>—One look
at his county tax bill turned El
mer A. Hamler, 41, into a wild
man, his wife, Margaret, 41, says
in a suit for divorce.
After looking at his greatly in
creased bill, said Mrs. Hamler,
her husband began “ranting and
raving,” then knocked her from
her chair, threw eight of her best
dishes on the floor and stamped
on them, and then dragged her
back when she tried to escape
from the room.
world each year.
The Army report from Fort
Greeley 100 miles to the southeast,
said the rocket was believed to
have fallen on the military reser
vation at 3:20 p.m. Central Alas
ka time.
This was only one minute after
the Geophysical Institute had said
the rocket would pass over the
Fairbanks area.
The Army report gave this ac
count:
Victor Carrado, one of a num
ber of eyewitnesses, said the
glowing object whistled down
from the skies, hit a grove of
trees, ricocheted off one of them
and fell to the ground.
Carrado said he though the
“thing” was going to hit him, and
came so close that he ducked.
A search for the object was
hampered by high winds yester
day but will be resumed today.
Christmas Program
Meeting Set For
Wednesday Night
The annual Community Christ
mas Tree meeting is to be held
Wednesday evening at 8 o’clock
at the City Hall.
Committees will toe appointed
to prepare the annual events
which include the town tree, the
Christmas program, baskets for
the needy, stockings for the chil
dren, and collection of funds to
finance the project.
The Nome Christmas Tree pro
gram has been a community proj
ect for over 30 years.
Help is needed to put it over
successfully and new ideas are
solicited. Everyone interested in
the program is urged to attend
the meeting Wednesday evening.
Stevenson’s Work as
Adviser on NATO to End
‘Sooner Than Expected’
WASHINGTON, UP>—Adlai E.
Stevenson may end this week his
work as an adviser to the Eisen
hower Administration on NATO
policies. ' ^
Conceding the end was coming
“a little sooner than expected,”
Stevenson said last night he has
no plans to join the U.S. delega
tion to the Dec. 16-18 meeting of
the heads of state of North At
lantic Treaty countries, at which
closer allied scientific and defen
sive collaboration will be sought.
Stevenson did not foreclose the
possibility he still may go to Paris
but he said a Paris trip “hasn’t
even been discussed.”