Flying saucer

“ Many of them are not. The more dramatic phrase “flying saucer” is similarly misleading because not all the unknowns are shaped like a saucer, and not all of them are flying. Since no one has been able to devise a more accurate brief term that will apply to all reports in this category, both “UFO” and “flying saucer” have remained in common use.
Air Force investigators and scientists have been able to account for almost every reported “spaceship” as the result of failure to identify some natural phenomenon. ”

“ For a while after the Arnold sighting the term "flying saucer" was used to describe all disk-shaped objects that were seen flashing through the sky at fantastic speeds. Before long, reports were made of objects other than disks, and these were also called flying saucers. Today the words are popularly applied to anything seen in the sky that cannot be identified as a common, everyday object.
Thus a flying saucer can be a formation of lights, a single light, a sphere, or any other shape; and it can be any color. ”

“ The magazine has grown smaller, but its main theme is still flying saucers, which until recently have been interpreted as interplanetary vehicles. In December 1959, however, [II-23] Palmer announced in a lead article that flying saucers were not from outer space after all; instead, they came from secret earth bases located under the north and the south poles. The earth is actually shaped like a doughnut, not like a pear, he says, and has openings at both poles where the saucer people reside. Whether they are manned by dero or tero he has not said. ”

“ A Rolleiflex camera can easily be used for double exposures. A series of pictures of a model saucer against a dark background could be rerolled and exposed a second time to provide the background, an old and well-known photographic trick. The pictures themselves show internal inconsistencies. The Brazilian Naval Ministry never accepted the pictures as authentic records of a flying saucer. [C]
[C] During a visit to Rio de Janeiro in February 1963, Dr. Menzel discussed this case with some of Brazil’s leading astronomers; they concurred in the view that the Trindade saucer was a hoax. ”

“ While the saucer believers were keeping the story alive, applauding Captain Killian and denouncing the Air Force, the experts at ATIC had been collecting facts and trying to analyze them. The basic piece of evidence was Captain Killian’s own report to American Airlines, made a few hours after the incident took place. After describing the circumstances of the sighting, the appearance and behavior of the lights, the statement continues:
“The only possible explanation other than flying saucers could be a jet-tanker refueling operation. ”

“ Flying in a “stack” with the leading saucer on top, the individual saucers were oriented in horizontal planes, but each follower was lower than and somewhat behind its predecessor so that the entire formation was “like a stack of pancakes” leaning at about a 45-degree angle toward the direction of flight. (Note that this arrangement is the reverse analogue of that of the Chesapeake Bay UFOs.) The top saucer advanced more rapidly than the bottom one, so that as they flashed through the sky at the left of the observer they appeared to be in single file. ”

“ They almost never come within touching distance of the observer. The length of their stay varies greatly, from about two seconds to two or three hours.
Structure—Unknown. A saucer may be visible or invisible to the observer; visible to the human eye but not to the camera or radar; visible to the camera or radar but not to the eye. Some obey the laws of gravity and inertia, others do not.
Purpose—Unknown. No officials in the government, the press, the churches, or the universities have received any attempt at communication. No saucer has produced intelligible visible, audible, or radio signals. ”

“ Had a person inclined to the supernatural taken a good look, jumped in his car, and headed for home at high speed, he would steadfastly have believed he had seen a flying saucer which was evidently observing the earth preparatory to an attack from outer space. ”

“ No concrete evidence has yet reached us either to prove or disprove the existence of the so-called flying saucers. There remain, however, a number of sightings that the Air Force investigators have been unable to explain. As long as this is true, the Air Force will continue to study flying saucer reports. ”

“ Many persons, sincerely believing that flying saucers do exist, berate the investigator who denies their reality and characterize him as stupid, willfully obtuse, or intellectually dishonest because he does not accept the saucer reports at face value but weighs them by the same methods most of us use in weighing evidence in everyday life. ”

“ Objects need not be as large as Skyhook balloons or jets to start a flying-saucer scare. Brightly illuminated advertising blimps have caused many UFO reports. Unfamiliar circumstances or a faulty perspective can manufacture spaceships out of things as small as seeds, spider webs, scraps of paper, or toy balloons.
In the autumn of 1947, during the first months of the saucer scare, many such UFOs were reported. One experienced observer, formerly a combat pilot, reported a flying saucer overhead at a height he estimated as 5000 feet. ”

“ Berlin, July—Furnished with the sworn testimony of an eyewitness Oscar Linke, a 48-year-old German and former mayor of Gleimershausen, West Berlin intelligence officers have begun investigating a most unusual "flying saucer story. According to this story, an object "resembling a huge flying pan" and having a diameter of about 15 meters landed in a forest clearing in the Soviet Zone of Germany. ”

“ If successive sweeps show a spot of light that remains at position A, he usually concludes that it represents a stationary object. If the blip moves a very great distance in the interval between two sweeps or seems to jump erratically from one position to another, an amateur might interpret it as a spacecraft flying at incredible velocity—a flying saucer. ”

“ Two witnesses reported a flying saucer appearing above Meknes at 1300 hours on 7 June 1952. One or them said that he saw a bright spot in the sky moving at lightning speed. He was able to compare its speed with that of some T-33 planes flying near the Meknes base, for they seemed very slow by comparison, The unknown apparatus emitted a white trail of smoke and made no sound. ”

“ At about 4:56 P.M. C.S.T. a brilliant detonating fireball soared over an area including Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas, and left a large white cloud that was visible for about an hour afterward. Newspapers publicized the phenomenon as a flying saucer and a few excited witnesses agreed. One man affirmed that shortly before the explosion the strange craft hovered over his yard at eye level, belching fire and showering sparks, then suddenly took off, climbing fast, and exploded. ”

“ There is a great deal of interest in UFO's and the interest shows no signs of diminishing. Since the first flying saucer skipped across the sky in the summer of 1947, thousands of words on this subject have appeared in every newspaper and most magazines in the United States. During a six-month period in 1952 alone 148 of the nation's leading newspapers carried a total of over 16,000 items about flying saucers.
During July 1952 reports of flying saucers sighted over Washington, D.C., cheated the Democratic National Convention out of precious headline space. ”

“ If a flying disk were traveling at high speed, a blur could be expected. That all the pictures were not blank seems significant.
Later, another TRUE investigator put this question to several Air Force officials: "If all the flying saucers are bunk (as one top official declared) what is Project Saucer doing? ”

“ Two nights later a Los Angeles television station cut into a regular program with a special news flash; later in the evening the announcer said they would show the first photos of the real thing, our military’s flying saucer. The photos turned out to be of the Navy XF-5-U, a World War II experimental aircraft that never flew.
The public was now thoroughly confused.
By now the words “flying saucer” were being batted around by every newspaper reporter, radio and TV newscaster, comedian, and man on the street. ”

“ After mapping and correlating all the observations, ATIC completed the analysis and released the result to the press on July 14, only three days after the sighting, a remarkably efficient piece of work. Conclusion: the object was a fireball [V-20] .
107
The literature of flying saucers contains dozens of similar incidents that fit perfectly into the meteor pattern. Pointing to this list of “unidentified” flying objects, saucer addicts still abuse the Air Force for concealing the “fact” that these UFOs are actually spaceships! ”

“ In view of the past history of mankind, they should be alarmed. We should therefore expect at this time above all to behold such visitations.”
(In its April 22 report, Project “Saucer” stated that space travel outside the solar system is almost a certainty.)
On February 22, 1950, the Air Force again denied the existence of flying saucers. On this same date, two saucers reported above Key West Naval Air Station were tracked by radar; they were described as maneuvering at high speed fifty miles above the earth. The Air Force refused to comment. ”

“ These luminous birds, innocently fishing for dinner, probably account for many reports that flying saucers come and go from underwater [VI-4] .
Many of the erratically behaving UFOs observed at night over wooded areas, swamps, and marshes have undoubtedly been one of these will o’ the wisps—winged creatures glowing with borrowed fire. Unfortunately proof of this explanation is rarely possible. Before121 the startled observer can recover his wits the flitting “saucer” has gone, taking with it the evidence of its identity.
Fear of the unknown is not confined to Homo sapiens. ”

“ When echoes of their disagreement escaped the security screen, civilian saucer enthusiasts concluded with some justification that Air Force officials were “covering up.” They were. They were not hiding any proof that flying saucers came from outer space, however, as the saucer addicts charged, but were merely trying to conceal their own confusion and the panel’s criticisms.
As one member of the panel later stated to a correspondent, the explanation of UFO beliefs “lies in a logical defect. It is this: UFOs form a class of all celestial observations that cannot be immediately explained. ”

“ We as a group do not believe that it is impossible for some other celestial body to be inhabited by intelligent creatures. Nor is it impossible that these creatures could have reached such a state of development that they could visit the earth. However, there is nothing in all of the so-called “flying saucer” reports that we have read that would indicate that this is taking place.
The Tremonton Movie had been rejected as proof but the panel did leave the door open a crack when they suggested that the Navy photo lab redo their study. ”

“ Human beings now stand on the threshold of space. Visits to and from other worlds may occur in the future, bringing new facts and new interpretations of reality that we cannot now imagine. No evidence yet found indicates that such visits have begun. No fact so far determined suggests that a single unidentified flying object has originated outside our own planet.
[XIII-1] Keyhoe, D. E. The Flying Saucer Conspiracy. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1955.
[XIII-1a] Tacker, L. J. Flying Saucers and the U. S. Air Force. ”

“ How many of the UFOs listed in the saucer publications originate from birds, insects, and animals we cannot know, but the number must be large. Most of us have only a sketchy acquaintance with the non-human forms of life that share the earth with us. Seeing an unfamiliar creature suddenly, or a familiar creature under unusual circumstances, we often imagine it to be whatever we most fear—vengeful spirits of the departed, fire-breathing dragons, devils, parachutes, or flying saucers. ”

“ To avoid ridicule, most pilots and observers now make reports privately; these have been averaging twelve a month, and Project Saucer, in its own words, is making a "serious, scientific evaluation" of the entire picture.
Several of those interviewed by TRUE believe that the project experts do not have the full answer, but are anxiously trying to fit the puzzle together. The project's suspicions, however, are clearly evident. Planes whose pilots report close encounters with "flying saucers" are checked with Geiger counters for radioactivity. ”

“ A group of UFOs photographed with a movie camera near Tremonton, Utah (p. 130) .
July 5. A UFO reported over an atomic plant at Hanford, Washington. (A Skyhook balloon.) [VII-1, p. 203]
July 7. Flying saucer reported by hundreds of persons in the Pacific Northwest. (This spectacular daytime meteor was visible for a distance of 500 miles on either side of its path and was reported from Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. It made no sound and was so brilliant that observers called it the “Sunshine Fireball.”) ”

“ The people in the agency were very co-operative but stressed the fact that the activities I was investigating were strictly the extracurricular affairs of the scientists involved, had no official sanction, and should not be tied in with the agency in any way, shape, or form. This closed-door reaction was typical of how the words "flying saucer" seem to scare some people. ”

“ A bright blur, a ring of light, or a circular image something like the typical disk-shaped flying saucer sometimes appears on a film,248 much to the surprise of the photographer, who had not noticed any such object when he took the picture. These UFOs are usually caused by reflections from unnoticed drops of moisture in the air or by defects in the camera itself (see Figure 17) . If the source of the image is something peculiar, it may pose a real problem (see Plates VIIIa and b) .
Figure 17. Distorted images produced on film by lens defects. A, True image ”