Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This item from “Shreveport Times,” June 19, 1953, is one of those difficult to categorize stories that go into the “Just Plain Weird” file.

Houston, June 18.--Five persons, all of whom live in the same house, complained to police they saw a combination of Superman and Captain Midnight perched in an oak tree outside their home early Thursday and said he disappeared in the light of a mysterious "rocket" and a second aerial display. 

Police said they were "investigating" the stories but admitted they were not equipped to handle such phenomena as the five persons described. 

Mrs. Hilda Walker, 23, accompanied by her husband, Lloyd, was the first to report the affair to authorities. She said it was 2:30 a.m., and, because it was so hot, her husband, the 14-year-old daughter of the landlady and herself were all sitting on a porch when the entire yard seemed wrapped in a heavy shadow.

"All of a sudden this shadow settled in a tree," she said. "We all looked up and saw a 'batman.' He was balancing himself on a tree limb and there was a dim gray light all around him."

She said the creature was about six and a half feet tall, wearing a black cape and skintight dark pants, quarter-length boots and looked like a white man.

"I could see him plainly and could see he had big wings folded at his shoulders," she said. Walker and young Judy Meyers, daughter of Mrs. Vivian Meyers, agreed in all respects.

They said after the batman perched in the tree a few moments while they sat paralyzed and watched, a mysterious white flame and smoke shot from behind him and a burning object, like a "flying paintbrush" scooted across the horizon, and the "batman" faded from view. 

Mrs. Meyers said she got home just in time to see the "flying paintbrush" scoot across the sky and another roomer, age 71, said he saw the weird shadowy fellow in the tree, though he said he merely "went back in and went to bed." 

The Walkers agreed it could not have been their imagination and said they were so upset they were thinking about returning to Bryan, Texas, from where they moved only three months ago.