User:Feoffer/sandbox Emil J. Smith

Emil James Smith Jr ( August 23, 1910 - March 28, 2000) was a pilot, first flying for the Air Transport Command during World War II and later having a 40 year career with United Airlines.

Early life
Emil J. Smith Jr. was born to Emil J. Smith Sr. and his wife Agnes McInnis Smith (nee Melnnes). They had been married on March 27, 1909 in Elizabeth, NJ. Emil Jr. was born on August 23, 1910 in in Elizabeth, N. J.  Emil Jr. had a younger brother, Richard.

Career
Emil J. Smith Jr. married Anna Rader Smith on May 26, 1931. In 1933, Emil began working for United Airlines. The couple had three children -- a son and two twin daughters.

In 1936, Emil J. Smith piloted Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli on a tour of the United States; Pacelli was elevated to the papacy in 1939, serving as Pope Pius XII.

In August 1948, divorce petition filed in case of Emil J. Smith Jr. and Anne Rader Smith. April 1958, Isidor Podolsky sues Emil J. Smith over alienation from wife Clara Podolsky. Emil and and Clara Podolsky married in 1959.

By 1959, the pilot Emil J. Smith Jr. was serving as Captain for United Airlines and as a flight manager at Idlewild Airport.

In 1975, Smith moved to Sarasota, Florida, where he was active in the Retired United Pilots Association. In 1979, Smith served as technical advisor to the film The Pilot.

Emil J. Smith died on March 28, 2000, aged 89.

In UFO folklore and popular culture
Captain Emil J. Smith Jr. achieved brief celebrity after July 4, 1947, when he and two crewmates reported witnessing nine "flying discs" on United Flight 105 near Boise, Idaho. Weeks later, Smith joined original "flying disc" witness Kenneth Arnold to investigate the Maury Island UFO hoax.

Smith's experience was detailed in Frank Scully's 1950 work Behind the Flying Saucers. In 1952, Smith's encounter and subsequent investigation was discussed in Kenneth Arnold's 1952 book The Coming of the Saucers. A fictional version of Smith appears in the novel The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost.