Unidentified flying object

:UFO redirects here. For other uses, see UFO (disambiguation).

History

Strange unidentified apparitions in the sky and on the ground have been reported throughout history. The army of Alexander the Great in 329 BC saw "two silver shields" in the sky. Ancient Roman records occasionally mention "shields" and even "armies" seen in the sky. In 1235 the army of Oritsume in Japan saw the mysterious lights in the sky. The appropriate report was made for emperor, and other appearances occured in Japan in 1361. In 1896-97, unidentified "Mystery airships" were reported in the United States, though some of these reports are now known to have been deliberate hoaxes.

Related Topics:
Alexander the Great - 329 BC - 1235 - Japan - 1361 - Mystery airship

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Mystery airships were seen throughout Britain in 1909 and 1912 to 1913. These were thought to be German Zeppelins spying out the land prior to invasion. The same fears generated a similar scare in New Zealand and Australia in 1909. Airships and mystery aircraft were also seen over the USA in 1909 and 1910 and were thought to be the creation of Wallace Tillinghast, though this seems very doubtful. During the First World War there were mystery aircraft scares in South Africa, Canada, Great Britain and the USA. Most of these scares can be attributed to the misperception of stars, the work of hoaxers and their promotion by the media. These phantom airship scares are detailed in The Scareship Mystery edited by Nigel Watson (DOMRA, 2000).

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In his travelogue Altai-Himalaya, Russian artist and mystic Nicholas Roerich reported sighting "an oval form with a shiny surface" flying high above Amdo, eastern Tibet in 1926. Though Roerich did not express an opinion as to what he thought it might be, surrounding passages discuss the technology of ancient civilizations as recounted by Theosophical lore.

Related Topics:
Nicholas Roerich - Amdo - Theosophical

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There were several reports of unidentified aeroplanes in the Scandinavian countries in the 1930s. In Europe during World War II, "Foo-fighters" (luminous balls that followed airplanes) were reported by both Allied and Axis pilots. In 1946, there was a "wave" of "ghost rockets" seen over Scandinavia.

Related Topics:
Foo-fighters - Ghost rockets

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The modern phase in UFOs started with a claimed sighting by American businessman Kenneth Arnold on June 24 1947, near Mount Rainier, Washington. Arnold said he saw nine bright objects flying at "incredible speed" at 10,000 feet altitude. Though the UFOs Arnold witnessed were not by strict definition saucer-shaped, he described their movements as being similar to that of a saucer skipping over water, hence the origin of the term flying saucer. Arnold's claims subsequently received significant mainstream media and public attention.

Related Topics:
Kenneth Arnold - June 24 - 1947 - Mount Rainier - Washington

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Beginning in the 1950s, UFO-related spiritual sects began to appear. The Aetherius Society is an early example; more recent ones include Rael and Ashtar Command. Generally speaking, the aliens which sponsor such groups claim benevolent purposes such as warning humanity of the dangers of nuclear war, or inviting earth to join an interplanetary federation.

Related Topics:
Aetherius Society - Rael - Ashtar Command

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By the 1970s, popular sentiment (reinforced through movies such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.) had it that UFO's--if they existed--were alien spacecraft, and that the aliens involved were benevolent. This model was all but overturned during the 1980's, with the publication of books by Whitley Strieber (beginning with Communion) and Jacques Vallee (notably Passport to Magonia).

Related Topics:
Close Encounters of the Third Kind - E.T. - Whitley Strieber - Jacques Vallee

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Strieber, a horror writer, felt that aliens were harassing him and were responsible for "missing time" during which he was subjected to strange experiments. The cover of the paperback cover of Communion led to a new standard "grey" alien-head appearance (later satirized in Schwa). Both Strieber and Vallee were led to doubt that these beings were "extraterrestrials" as the term is ordinarily understood, and see more of a connection to elf and fairy lore. (Cf. Jung's comparison with angelic visions in his article Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies.) This newer, darker model can be seen in the subsequent wave of "alien abduction" literature, as well as in the X-Files background mythos.

Related Topics:
Schwa - Jung - Alien abduction - X-Files

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Etymology

On January 25, 1878, The Denison Daily News wrote that John Martin, a local farmer, the previous day had reported seeing a large, dark, circular flying object resembling a balloon flying "at wonderful speed," and also used the word "saucer" in describing it. http://www.ufoarea.com/keyhoe_flying_saucers_are_real_ch_7.html This would be the first known use of the word "saucer" to describe an unidentified flying object. Some seventy years later in 1947, the media used the term "flying saucers" to describe Kenneth Arnold's sighting.

Related Topics:
January 25 - 1878 - Denison

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The nine objects Kenneth Arnold said he saw were not strictly saucer-shaped. Arnold initially described and drew a picture of eight of the objects as being thin and flat, circular in the front but truncated in the back and coming to a point. (See Kenneth Arnold for drawing and verbal descriptions) Another, later drawing was of a ninth, somewhat larger object with a boomerang or crescent shape, more resembling a flying wing style aircraft. However, several years later, Arnold said he had described their movement as a kind of skipping, like a saucer skimmed over water. He complained that the press misquoted him, picking up the "like a saucer" phrase, and reported it as a "flying saucer".

Related Topics:
Kenneth Arnold - Boomerang - Crescent - Flying wing

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Another term commonly used by the media to describe the objects in the late 1940s and early 1950s was "flying disks."

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By mid-1950, a Gallup poll revealed that the term "flying saucer" had become so deeply ingrained in the American vernacular, that 94% of those polled were familiar with it, making it the best-known term commonly appearing in the news, easily beating out others like "universal military training" (75%), "bookie" (67%), or "cold war" (58%).

Related Topics:
Gallup poll - Vernacular - Bookie - Cold war

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Hollywood science fiction movies in the 1950s, such as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Forbidden Planet (1956), and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), all depicting flying saucer-like craft, further entrenched the term as a cultural icon. So did popular books on the subject such as Frank Scully's Behind the Flying Saucers (1950), Donald Keyhoe's The Flying Saucers Are Real (1950) and Flying Saucers From Outer Space (1953), and "contactee"-oriented books, such as George Adamski's Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953).

Related Topics:
Science fiction - The Day the Earth Stood Still - Forbidden Planet - Earth vs. the Flying Saucers - Donald Keyhoe - The Flying Saucers Are Real - George Adamski

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"Flying Saucer" was the preferred term for most unidentified aerial sightings through the late 1940s to 1960s, even for those that were not actually saucer-shaped. By the late 1960s, the term "UFO" was more commonly used. Use of "UFO" instead of "flying saucer" was first suggested in 1952 by Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, the first director of the U. S. Air Force's Project Blue Book, who felt that "flying saucer" failed to capture the diversity of the sightings. His suggestion was quickly adopted by the Air Force, who also briefly used "UFOB" through about 1954. Ruppelt recounted his experiences with Project Blue Book in his memoir, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956) online.

Related Topics:
Edward J. Ruppelt - Project Blue Book

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An unforeseen difficulty with the term "UFO" is that it often leads to semantic debates between skeptics and advocates. Skeptics often argue that "UFO" simply means that the object was "unidentified" by those making the sighting and doesn't mean the object is unexplainable, much less extraterrestrial. In contrast, researchers like Hynek have argued that the term should be strictly limited to those sightings that have been intensively investigated and still defy conventional explanation, which was the actual definition adopted by the Air Force in official directives in the 1950s.

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E.g., Air Force Regulation 200-2, issued in 1954, defined a "UFOB" as "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Furthermore, investigation of "UFOBs" was stated to be for the purposes of national security and to ascertain "technical aspects." Obviously such concerns would not apply to the usual explanations for most UFO sightings, such as natural phenomena or man-made conventional objects, except, perhaps, previously unknown foreign aircraft.

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Thus the "U" in "UFO," instead of standing for "Unidentified," would more aptly stand for "Unexplained" or "Unconventional." Along these lines, Paul Hill, an early NACA/NASA aerospace engineer, titled his 1970s book on the subject, Unconventional Flying Objects.

Related Topics:
NACA - NASA - Aerospace

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In Spanish, Portuguese, and French, the acronym for UFO is OVNI(e.g., in Spanish, Objeto Volador No Identificado, in French, Objet volant Non Identifié). In Italian and Japanese, UFO is an acronym instead of an initialism.

Related Topics:
Acronym - Initialism

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