That Flying Saucer Is One Of Ours

This is from Extreme Tech. It seems that the US Air Force was trying to make a flying saucer back in the '50s.

Recently declassified, Project 1794 was a circular craft capable of up to Mach 4 speeds, had a 1000 mile range (that won't get you to Mars), an altitude limit of almost twenty miles and was capable of vertical takeoff and landing.

There are two boxes of declassified documents on project 1794, so it might be awhile before we know whether the craft ever flew. But the the Canadian company working on the project, Avro Canada, did develop a smaller version, the VZ-9 Avrocar, that apparently flew 35 mph and achieved the grand altitude of 35 feet.

VZ-9 Avrocar