ATLANTA, GEORGIAJuly 1953

On the night of July 7, 1953, three men driving on Highway 78 near Austell, Georgia, claimed they saw a red, saucer-shaped object in the middle of the road. They said three small creatures were near the object. As the men's car approached, two of the creatures entered the "saucer," which then rose into the air at a 45-degree angle and turned blue before disappearing. The third creature was struck by the car and knocked unconscious. The men took the animal to an Atlanta newspaper office. It was about 21 inches long, hairless, had long ears, and had no tail.

A local veterinarian examined the creature and said he had never seen anything like it before. The animal died about 30 minutes after being hit. Scientists at Emory University and the State Crime Laboratory quickly identified it as a monkey that had been shaved and had its tail removed. One anatomy professor at Emory noted that she was certain the monkey once had hair because small hairs and hair follicles were still visible on its body.

The three men confessed the story was a hoax designed to win a ten-dollar bet. Edward Watters, one of the men and a 28-year-old barber, had bought a monkey for fifty dollars, anesthetized it with ether, killed it with a blow to the head, and then shaved it carefully. He even boasted that he shaved it so well that scientists could not see any hairs without a microscope. Watters said he had tried spreading stories about flying saucers in the days before the hoax and found that people were eager to believe and repeat such rumors. The men placed the dead monkey on the highway and waited for someone to stop. When a car arrived, they told their story for the first time.

The Air Force investigation confirmed the hoax. Watters pleaded guilty to obstructing a highway and was fined forty dollars. The judge dismissed charges of cruelty to animals because the monkey was killed in Fulton County, not Cobb County where it was found. Watters later expressed surprise that anyone had believed his story, saying he thought people were smarter. The Air Force case file notes this was one of many similar hoax reports received by Project Blue Book. The full case file is reproduced below as held by the National Archives across 12 pages of microfilm.