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The specter of alien spacecraft hovering over the United States became almost a national obsession in 1947.

That was the year the Air Force announced it had retrieved a crashed "flying disc" near Roswell, N.M., only to retract the statement hours later, saying the object really was a high-altitude weather balloon.

Official denials of the presence of strange aircraft did not stop a growing epidemic of UFO (unidentified flying object) sightings in the United States, however. And with the advent of the Atomic Age and the Cold War, newspapers around the country treated the subject with more seriousness than amusement.

In 1950, an unlikely source tried to solve the flying-saucer mystery. My Weekly Reader, a current-events publication used as an educational supplement in many elementary schools, explained what UFOs were in terms that young readers could understand and assured youngsters they had no reason to fear flying saucers.

According to reports that year from The Times-Dispatch and The Richmond News Leader, fourth- and fifth-graders in the area had learned from My Weekly Reader that flying saucers were real and easy to recognize.

"Some are raised in the middle like a pie. Others turn up around the edge like a saucer," My Weekly Reader said. They varied greatly in size, from a few inches to several city blocks, and produced no noise or fumes.

Some were built of a substance that dissolved slowly with exposure to Earth's atmosphere. "For this reason, the saucers disappear soon after they hit the ground. You probably will never find one."

But in case one remained intact long enough to be discovered, it carried a label: "Military secret of the United States of America Air Forces." Flying saucers, My Weekly Reader said, were made in the United States.

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(Thanks to Deborah on the TWZ2012 list!).