UFOs, or unidentified flying objects, have been seen in the sky for millennia. However, in more recent times there has been a growing interest in UFO sightings – and what exactly UFOs are. Nigel Watson looks at the growing interest in ‘flying saucers’ and UFOs since World War II.
Nigel has published several books, most recently 'Captured by Aliens? A History and Analysis of American Abduction Claims' (Amazon US | Amazon UK).
A Swediah officer searches for a "ghost rocket" in Lake Kölmjärv, Sweden, 1946.
Since ancient times, strange lights, objects and celestial wonders in the sky have warned of impending doom or the dawn of a new era of revelation.
In the early 20th century mystery lights over Great Britain were interpreted as being caused by German Zeppelins spying out the land in preparation for invasion. During WWI any unusual thing in the sky was regarded as an enemy aircraft and as a consequence they produced scares in South Africa, Canada, the USA, and Britain.
In the 1930s, ‘mystery aircraft’ were often reported, but with the coming of WWII strange objects viewed by Allied pilots, which followed their aircraft, were dubbed ‘foo fighters’. After the war there was a huge spate of ghost rocket sightings over Scandinavia, but sightings of odd things in the sky only became perceived as a truly global phenomenon with the arrival of flying saucers in June 1947.
Flying saucers
The term ‘flying saucer’ was coined by newspapers after civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold saw nine glittering craft flying over Mount Rainier, Washington on June 24, 1947. He described them as thin, nickel plated, tailless, pie plate shaped objects with a convex triangular rear section. The objects flew in an unusual fashion like saucers skimming across water, travelling at an estimated 1,200 mph, a speed much faster than any known aircraft of that time.
This story from a reliable witness soon triggered many more sightings throughout the world. Yet, most people described seeing a disc or saucer-shaped craft in-line with what the term flying saucer inspires, rather than bat-shaped or tadpole like craft described by Arnold.
This was ‘coincidentally’ at the beginning of the Cold War. One of Arnold’s first thoughts was that he was seeing US jet planes. Yet, his sighting was so troubling he reported it to the media in an effort to find out what he saw.
When he discussed it with fellow pilots, he said ‘Some of the pilots thought it over and said it was possible. Some of them guessed that I had seen some secret guided missiles. People began asking me if I thought they were missiles sent over the North Pole. I don't know what they were, but I know this - I saw them.’
Sonny Robinson, a former Army Air Forces pilot who was operating dusting operations at Pendleton, Oregon, told Arnold: ‘What you observed, I am convinced, is some type of jet or rocket propelled ship that is in the process of being tested by our government or even it could possibly be by some foreign government.’
However, a Washington, D.C., army spokesman said that guided missiles like the V2 rocket travelled too fast to have been responsible for Arnold’s sighting and in any case no experimental tests were conducted in that area at that time.
In secret the Army Air Force was worried about these sightings, and in July 1947, Army Air Force intelligence officers Lt. Frank Brown and Capt. William Davidson interviewed Arnold and were convinced that he was an honest witness.
Inquiries were made to see if the Soviets had developed a saucer or flying wing aircraft using captured Nazi designs and scientists, but this drew a blank and it was equally clear that it wasn’t a US secret weapon either.
UFO Hysteria
Debunkers soon turned to claiming such sightings as misperceptions or the product of Cold War hysteria; believers soon started thinking the saucers were extraterrestrial craft on a mission to save us from starting an atomic war.
Concerned that UFOs sightings would block essential channels of communication, and be used as a psychological weapon by foreign enemies, the policy of US government agencies soon turned to providing mundane explanations for sightings or covering them up, to prevent the outbreak of UFO hysteria.
The longest running official UFO investigation was Project Blue Book, which was set-up by the USAF on March 25, 1952. It had a policy of demystifying UFO reports.
Blue Book became the public face for official UFO investigations, but it mainly operated as a repository of information and an outlet for debunking cases. After collecting 12,618 sighting reports, of which 701 remained unsolved, it ended on January 30, 1970, based on the view that: “Careful consideration of the record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”
At least 10,000 UFO reports collected by Project Blue Book have been put online and many other governments have released their UFO files. So we have an embarrassment of riches that have been largely ignored by UFO researchers, yet they could provide lots of information about types of sightings and their patterns over time and place.
Government Secrets
The problem is alien saucers and body parts remain as elusive now as they always have been, and it frustrates the hell out of conspiracy mongers and ufologists. To fill this gap there have been numerous whistleblowers about UFO secrets, plus various U.S. agencies have used the belief in UFOs to cover-up other nefarious or top-secret activities.
On the question of government cover-ups and the possibility that various authorities are spreading disinformation UFO researcher Kevin Randle agrees that the USAF has been involved in such activities. However, for him, ‘I think the real problem with tainted information is the UFO community." People can come along with impressive stories backed-up by documents just for the notoriety. It takes an enormous amount of time and effort to verify or disprove their claims that could be devoted to more productive areas of investigation. He added, "I’ve said for some time that those running the cover-up don’t need to do anything. We do it to ourselves all the time.’
Randle complains that: ‘No one inside the UFO community will look at evidence that some of the top 'whistleblowers' were inventing their tales. UFO research will improve if they start vetting the witnesses and making sure that the stories told are credible or that the information is of great importance.
‘Ufology, at least what I consider the scientific aspect, comes at the problem from the point of view that we don’t really know what is causing all these mysterious objects and lights but we believe them to have a physical existence. It is the study moving toward an answer rather than an answer moving toward questions.’
Yet, there is a burning hope that in June 2021 the U.S. government will finally reveal all. There has been a frenzy in the media that U.S. Navy figure pilots and sailors have seen and tracked Unidentified Aerial Objects (UAPs). So far only fuzzy pictures of UAPs and inconclusive radar data has been released but UFO expert Dr Bruce Maccabee believes: ‘The new radar and observational data confirm what has been reported ever since the first UFO sightings in the late spring of 1947, namely that these objects can undergo extreme acceleration and reach very high speeds.’
He thinks, like many other UFO experts and influencers, that the forthcoming disclosures will prove UAPs are vehicles controlled by non-human intelligence (NHIs). He goes as far as to say:
‘The origin(s) of these NHI is (are) unknown but they may come from other planets using transportation technology based on very advanced physical principles. President Joe Biden of the U.S.A. and leaders of other countries may find it necessary to develop a single, uniform, world-wide policy for co-existing and interacting with NHI. The policy should be world-wide because allowing various countries to develop their own policies could result in some form of disaster.’
From a historical perspective, this is nothing new. Countless predictions have been made about the proverbial flying saucer landing on the White House lawn, to prove the existence of aliens from outer space or some other exotic origin.
The subject of flying saucers offers a valuable insight into the impact of social expectations on how we interpret odd things seen in the sky, and it also helps show how it has evolved and changed into the conspiracy led state of ufology today.
What do you think of UFOs in history? Let us know below.
Nigel Watson is the author of the UFO Investigations Manual published by Haynes, and UFOs of the First World War published by the History Press. His latest book is 'Captured by Aliens? A History and Analysis of American Abduction Claims' published by McFarland, 2020 (Amazon US | Amazon UK).
References
A Different Perspective. Kevin Randle blog site: www.KevinRandle.blogspot.com
Dr Bruce Maccabee Research Website: www.brumac.mysite.com/
Sirius Disclosure website: siriusdisclosure.com/
Exopolitics Journal: www.exopoliticsjournal.com
