I
can safely say that the
ìlaughter
curtainî has gradually been rising. Most people are ready to
listen
to the scientific data, which I present at lectures, and to agree with
my conclusions. The notion that most people and most scientists do not
believe in UFOs is pure fiction concocted and repeated over and over
again
by ancient academies, naysaying newsmen, and fossilized physicists who
form a very small, but very vocal, minority full of false platitudes,
illogical
reasoning, misinformation, and usually egotistical notions about their
own knowledge and importance. They are sure that if flying saucers were
real, they would know all about them, because the aliens would, of
course,
have already visited with them. Since these all-important persons have
not been visited, UFOs must not be real
As he was scanning the sky, he caught sight
of a ìdisappearingî star. The star only appeared to
ìblink
outî because it had been eclipsed, he claims, by a ìflying
saucerî (he described it as ìan oblate spheroid about
thirty
feet in diameter at the equator or largest partî). The
ìsaucerî
supposedly settled to the ground about seventy feet away, whereupon he
approached to investigate the surface of the highly polished metal. He
was startled to hear a deep voice, which he claims came out of the air
beside him, which said, ìBetter not touch the hull, pal.
Itís
still hot!î He was so taken aback by this, he says, that he
caught
his foot against a root sticking out of the ground and fell over onto
the
desert sand. Then, a chuckle filled the air as the invisible voice
supposedly
spoke again: ìTake it easy, pal. You are among friends.î
Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, former head
of the U.S. Air Force Project Blue Book, also had this to say:
ìHe
[Fry] hadnít told the Air Force about his ride before because he
was afraid heíd lose his job. But, at the press conference, he
did
plug his new book, The White Sands Incident. By this time Adamski had
already
published his book Flying Saucers Have Landed and it looked as if Fry
was
going to cut him out. But Fry took a lie-detector test on a widely
viewed
West Coast television show and flunked it flat.î (Ruppelt, 1956).
In his article Barker (1953) noted that
ìnumerous people in a 20-mile radius saw the illuminated objects
in the sky at the same time,î evidently seeing different objects
or a single one ìmaking a circuit of the area.î Barker
believed
the Flatwoods incident was consistent with other reports of
ìflying
saucers or similar craftî and that ìsuch a vehicle landed
on the hillside, either from necessity or to make observations.î
(At this time in UFOlogical history, the developing mythology had not
yet
involved alien ìabductions.î)
Johnny Lockard, 95, told me that virtually
everyone who had seen the alleged flying saucer in 1952 recognized it
for
what it was: a meteor. He, his daughter Betty Jean and her husband Bill
Sumpter said that the fireball had been seen on a relatively horizontal
trajectory in various states. In fact, according to a former local
newspaper
editor, ìThere is no doubt that a meteor of considerable
proportion
flashed across the heavens that Friday night since it was visible in at
least three statesóMaryland, Pennsylvania and West
Virginia.î
(Byrne, 1966) The meteor explanation contrasts with the fanciful
notions
of Sanderson (1967). He cites several persons who each saw a single
glowing
object. Although observing that ìAll of the objects were
traveling
in the same direction and apparently at the same speed and at exactly
the
same time,î he fails to draw the obvious conclusion: that there
was
one object, albeit variously described. (For example, one report said
the
object landed on a nearby knoll, while another described it as
ìdisintegrating
in the air with a rain of ashes.î) Instead of suspecting that
people
were mistaken or that they saw a meteor that broke apart, Sanderson
asserts
that ìto be logicalî we should believe that ìa
flight
of aerial machinesî were ìmaneuvering in formation.î
For some reason the craft went out of control, with one landing, rather
than crashing, at Flatwoods, and its pilot emerged ìin a space
suit.î
Observed, it headed back to the spaceship whichólike two others
that ìcrashedîósoon ìvaporized.î
(Sanderson,
1967)
At the time of the incident a few locals
who had been skeptical that a flying saucer had landed on the hill
attributed
the skid marks and oil to a farm tractor. When several others told Gray
Barker that the traces had actually been left by Max Lockard, he
recalled
his old high school chum and decided to telephone him. They had a
proverbial
failure to communicate and Barkerówho admitted to seeing
ìan
opportunity to get my name in print againîóconcluded that
Maxís truck had not been at the exact spot where the alleged UFO
markings were found.
They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers
(Tower Books, 1967).
ìBarn Owl.î 2000.
www.vetmed.auburn.edu.
Blanchan, Neltje. Birds Worth Knowing
(Doubleday,
1925).
Bull, John, and Farrand, John Jr. The
Audubon
Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region (Knopf,
1977).
Byrne, Holt.. ìThe Phantom of
Flatwoods,î
Sunday Gazette-Mail State Magazine (Charleston, W. Va.), March 6, 1966.
Clark, Jerome. The UFO Encyclopedia, second
edition (Omnigraphics, 1998).
Cloudsley-Thompson, John, et al..
Nightwatch:
The Natural World from Dusk to Dawn (Facts on File, 1983).
Collins, Henry Hill, Jr. Complete Field
Guide to American Wildlife: East, Central and North (Harper & Row,
1959).
Forshaw, Joseph. Encyclopedia of Birds
(Academic Press, 1998).
Jordan, E. L.. Hammondís Nature
Atlas of America (C. S. Hammond & Co., 1952).
Keyhoe, Donald E. Flying Saucers from Outer
Space (Henry Holt, 1953).
Marchal, Terry. ìFlatwoods
Revisited,î
Sunday Gazette-Mail State Magazine (Charleston, W. Va.), March 6, 1966.
Peterson, Roger Tory.. A Field Guide to
the Birds (Houghton Mifflin, 1980).
Reese, P. M. (1952) Cited in Sanderson,
1967.
Ritchie, David. UFO: The Definitive Guide
to Unidentified Flying Objects and Related Phenomena (Facts on File,
1994).
Sanderson, Ivan T. (1952) Typewritten
report
quoted in Byrne, 1966.
Uninvited Visitors: A Biologist Looks at
UFOís (Cowles, 1967).
ìflying saucerî An
expression
commonly used to describe an unexplained aerial phenomenon. The words
do
not always convey a just conception, since much of what is reported is
not saucer-shaped nor can it be assumed that they are solid bodies
utilizing
aerodynamic principles. This particular designation was coined on June
25, 1947, in the newsroom of the East Oregonian a newspaper serving
Pendleton,
Oregon. Newsman Bill Bequette denominated the phenomenon during an
interview
with private pilot Kenneth Arnold while the flyer was relating his
famous
sighting of strange, ìtailless aircraft,î an episode that
took place the previous afternoon over the Cascade mountains.
Some maintain that the distinctive
appellation
ìflying saucerî was derived solely from Arnoldís
description
of the undulatory flight of the things he saw, which, he said, traveled
through the air like a ìflat rockî skipped along the
surface
of a pond. Nonetheless, the Chicago Daily Tribune, as early as June
25th,
quotes Arnold as saying the objects were ìshaped like a pie
plate.î
Later, when questioned carefully, Arnold insisted that the objects he
spotted
were wide and flat, but none of the nine were true disks, one being
crescent
in outline and the other eight having curved leading edges and pointed
trailing edges. U. S. Air Force experts rightly doubted Arnoldís
ability to make out an objectís shape at a distance of
twenty-three
miles, a distance Arnold claims separated him from the flight path of
the
unknowns, an estimate he refused to retract.
The ìflying saucerî design
is actually not that modern; as early as 1918, the science-fantasy
magazine
Electrical Experimenter featured a saucerlike craft on the cover of its
March edition to illustrate R. and G. Winthropís novelette
ìAt
War with the Invisible.î It should also be noted that a year
before
the big UFO wave of 1947, the pulp magazine Amazing Stories had an
interesting
fictional illustration on its back cover showing a group of
ìflying
saucer spaceshipsî in V-formation.
óLoren E. Gross
Flying Saucer Occupants (Signet/NAL,
1967). Coral and Jim Lorenzen set forth their belief that three races
of
alien beings are visiting Earth, but the CIA and Air Force are probably
not aware of the problem. Conspiracy theorists who believe a cover-up
exists,
say this husband and wife team, exhibit a need for ìinstant
reassuranceî
which comes from a fear that no authority figures may be in control, or
even aware, that UFO visitors pose a problem for humankind.
óRandall Fitzgerald
Flying Saucers (Harvard University
Press, 1953). With this book Harvard University astrophysicist Donald
Menzel
became
the first scientist to craft a rational, natural phenomena explanation
for UFOs in a presentation tailored to a mainstream audience. Flying
saucers
are real, he says, as real as rainbows, sundogs, mirages and other
optical
tricks the atmosphere plays on the human brain. These
misidentifications
of natural phenomena account for both contemporary and Biblical
accounts
of UFOs. Ironically, with this 1953 discussion of ancient UFO
sightings,
Menzel would one day claim the dubious credit for having ushered in the
spate of ancient astronaut theories and books which flooded mainstream
literature more than a decade later.
óRandall Fitzgerald
Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things
Seen in the Skies (Routledge & Kegan Paul/Harcourt, Brace
&
Co., 1959; Signet/NAL, 1969). Psychologist Carl Jung sees UFOs as
projections
from the collective unconscious of humanity and a symptom of psychic
change
in our species.
Flying Saucers and the Straight-line
Mystery
(S.G. Phillips, 1958). AimÈ Michel, a French mathematician and
engineer,
recounts a wave of UFO sightings in France which included human
encounters
with alien craft and creatures. When he charted these sightings
chronologically
several patterns emerged. Sightings occurring on the same day were
found
to be in straight lines on maps. Aside from the extraterrestrial
hypothesis,
Michel wonders whether another explanation might be that human thoughts
actualized these visions in the sky.
óRandall Fitzgerald
Flying Saucers are Real, The book (Fawcett
Publications, 1950). This book by Retired U.S. Marine Major Donald E.
Keyhoe
was the first ever devoted to the flying saucer topic.
It was essentially an expanded version
of Keyhoeís seminal article for True magazine under the same
title.
In this book Keyhoe states his main conclusions, which defined the
modern
flying saucer era: ì (1) The Earth has been under periodic
observation
from another planet, or other planets, for at least two centuries. (2)
This observation suddenly increased in 1947, following the series of
A-bomb
explosions begun in 1945. (3) The observation, now intermittent, is
part
of a long-range survey and will continue indefinitely. There may be
some
unknown block to making contact, but it is more probable that the
spacemenís
plans are not complete.î
óRonald D. Story
Flying Saucers from Outer Space
(Henry
Holt, 1953). With this book retired Marine Corps Major Donald E. Keyhoe
became the first prominent and outspoken conspiracy theory proponent.
He claimed that flying saucers are piloted
by extraterrestrial visitors, the U.S. Air Force is aware of the truth,
it is engaged in a cover-up, and it is up to civilian UFO groups to end
this secrecy. He is also the first author to speculate that UFOs have
an
electromagnetic propulsion system.
óRandall Fitzgerald
Flying Saucers Have Landed (The
British
Book Centre/Werner Laurie, 1953) by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski.
Americaís first famous contactee, Adamski, collaborates with an
Irish journalist to tell how he met a Venusian with long sandy hair in
the California desert.
Flying SaucersñSerious
Business
Lyle Stuart, 1966). Radio broadcaster Frank Edwards wonders whether the
race to the moon between America and Russia has the ulterior motive of
being the first to contact aliens based there. He points out how the
shapes
of reported UFOs have been evolving over the years from dirigibles in
the
late 1890s to flying disks in the 1950s to egg-shaped craft in the
1960s.
óRandall Fitzgerald
Flying Saucers Uncensored (Cidadel
Press, 1955) by Harold T. Wilkins. Author catalogues UFO sightings and
incidents over the U.K., Western Europe, U.S., and Australia from 1947
through 1955 and speculates that extraterrestrial visitants are
possibly
established in bases on the moon and other planets; a cosmic general
staff
may receive reports on terrestrial affairs as well as biological and
ecological
samples from Earth for purposes of study and experimentation.
óLynn Catoe