ALEXANDER WEYGERS
THE MAN WHO

DESIGNED

A UFO IN

1927

By

Søren Nielsen

2019

This is the "Discopter" made by an unknown artist named "Alexander Weygers".

And amazingly, Alexander Weygers was a world-class engineer who in the late 1920s designed a flying saucer, a machine he called the "Discopter".

This is about a genius artist who’d invented the flying saucer almost a century ago.

The idea was for the disk-shaped craft to take off vertically on jets of air. In flight the air could be directed forward or backward by a series of louvers in slanted positions, with all the steering done from a central cockpit.

There is more drawings of the "Discopter"— lots more. 

The idea first came to Alexander Weygers in 1927; from the start he’d envisioned the machine transforming cities. Hunter’s next exhibit, a drawing that depicted how San Francisco might look in the faraway future of 1985, showed massive, transoceanic "Discopters" with rooms for hundreds of passengers moored at docks along the bay.

Smaller commuter models, docked by the hundreds at office buildings, could detach carlike vehicles for getting around town.

The drawings of the crafts interiors were remarkably ornate, showing everything from tennis courts and bunks down to a slice of cheese on a tiny sandwich.

After settling in, Alexander Weygers turned back to the "Discopter". 

He received a patent from the U.S. Patent Office Patent No. 2,377,835 A for his discopter in June 1944. 

He hoped to gift the patent to the U.S. military and then try to commercialize the technology and his design has served as the prototype for other similar disk and hovering aircraft that have been developed up to the present day.

He assembled large binders of information about the "Discopter" and mailed them off to branches of the military, airplane makers, helicopter makers, and even carmakers to gauge interest. 

He received a handful of encouraging notes back, with engineers saying the vehicle appeared sound but too advanced for the time. 

(It would need lighter-weight materials and more efficient propulsion systems.) 

Most of the letters were disappointing. "Our technical people have reviewed this design and stated they have no interest," one U.S. Air Force colonel wrote.

"Your thoughtfulness in bringing this to the attention of the Air Force is appreciated."

In 1947 a flurry of stories appeared in the popular press, discussing UFO sightings and carrying the flying saucer into mainstream consciousness. 

The "Chicago Sun" ran one in June of that year with the headline "Supersonic Flying Saucers Sighted By Idaho Pilot"; "Newsweek" and "Life" published pieces along these lines within a week of each other that July. 

There seemed to be a flying saucer outbreak across the U.S.

Tales of mysterious flying objects date to medieval times, and other inventors and artists had produced images of disk-shaped crafts. Henri Coanda, a Romanian inventor, even built a flying saucer in the 1930s that looked similar to what we now think of as the classic craft from outer space.

Historians suspect that the designs of "Coanda" and "Weygers", floating around in the public sphere, combined with the postwar interest in sci-fi technology to create an atmosphere that gave rise to a sudden influx of UFO sightings. 

Then, in the 1950s, NASA and other companies and organizations actually attempted to build vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicles with saucerlike designs.

As all the talk of UFOs heated up and the military got serious about the craft, "Alexander Weygers" became convinced his designs had been stolen. The local press agreed with him.

The Avrocar, a one-man flying saucer style aircraft

In April 1950, the "San Francisco Chronicle" ran one of the first stories about the "Discopter" with the headline 
"Carmel Valley Artist Patented Flying Saucer Five Years Ago: "Discopter" May Be What People Have Seen Lately."

Rather matte-of-factly, the paper stated, "The invention became the prototype for all disk-shaped vertical take-off aircraft since built by the U.S. armed forces and private industry, both here and abroad." 

"Alexander Weygers" sent a note to the U.S. Navy, accusing it of infringing on his patent, and he sent more letters to magazines and newspapers, asking them to correct articles about UFOs that failed to mention his invention.