*** g90 11/8 pp. 4-7 UFO’s—Ancient and Modern ***
UFO’s—Ancient and Modern
From the most ancient of times, men have reported seeing strange objects in the sky. A Pharaoh was supposed to have seen fiery circles in the heavens, and American Indians have legends of flying canoes. The early Romans reported seeing flying shields. According to some interpretations of Aztec carvings, the god Quetzalcoatl supposedly arrived on earth wearing a beaked space helmet and in a serpentlike airship.
In 1561 and 1566, according to ancient accounts, “multitudes” of inhabitants of Basel, Switzerland, and Nuremberg, Germany, reportedly saw unusual sights in the sky. However, during 1896 and 1897, a most extraordinary thing happened in the United States. People throughout the country reported seeing an airship cruising overhead. It was said: “America had never before experienced anything quite like the excitement generated by the mystery airship.” These sightings occurred at major cities as well as at villages across the United States, beginning in California. The interesting point is, says the book The Great Airship Mystery, that “the known history of flight contains nothing about a wide-ranging dirigible in the United States in the late 1890s.”
One of the most elaborate and widely published stories came from a small town in Kansas, U.S.A., in 1897. The account relates how a citizen of the area, Alexander Hamilton, described an airship that came down in his cow lot. When the ship finally took off, the crew took along one of the heifers. Later on, three or four miles [5 or 6 km] down the road, a neighbor “found the hide, legs and head in his field.” However, many years later, the story was reprinted and was exposed as a hoax.
Accounts such as the above, whether fabricated or supposedly real, have been reprinted in recent books on the subject. Many of the reports from that period prior to the turn of the 20th century might have been forgotten in dusty newspaper files except for some striking parallel events that began happening over 40 years later. Then it was that people began to recall and research these earlier events and began noting marked similarities.
UFO’s in Modern Times
The subject was revived in more modern times during World War II when Allied bomber pilots reported that they saw “strange balls of light and disc-shaped objects [that] followed them as they flew over Germany and Japan.” The American pilots called them foo-fighters, a term that was derived from the French word feu, for “fire.” Although World War II (1939-45) came to an end and along with it the foo-fighters, stories of strange sights continued to be related.
In Western Europe and the Scandinavian countries, wingless craft called ghost rockets were reportedly seen. They were often described as trailing flames across the sky. In response to these reports, even the United States “felt compelled to send two top intelligence experts to Sweden.” The above stories were only the beginning. The account that seemed to startle the world and that initiated the flying saucer era was told by Kenneth Arnold, a private pilot and a businessman. On June 24, 1947, it was reported that he saw “a chain of nine peculiar aircraft approaching Mt. Rainier [Washington State, U.S.A.].” They were described as “saucer-like things” and as being “flat like a pie pan and so shiny they reflected the sun like a mirror.” He was reported to have clocked their speed “at about 1,200 miles an hour [1,900 km/hr].” This was much faster than jet aircraft flew at that time.
The use of the word “saucer” caught the imagination of the press and resulted in the now common term “flying saucer.” After this account was published worldwide, many who had seen strange objects in the sky began to tell their varied stories. This, along with other sightings, caught the attention of military authorities.
United States Government Investigates
Apparently at the recommendation of a high-ranking military officer, UFO’s eventually received official attention by the U.S. government. The result was the setting up of Project Sign, which began work on January 22, 1948. This investigative group was assigned to carry out work under the direction of the Air Technical Intelligence Command, located near Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A. The project had hardly begun when tragedy struck. Captain Thomas Mantell, a military pilot, lost his life in a plane crash while in pursuit of a then unidentified object. He could have become unconscious while going too high without the benefit of supplementary oxygen. Later, it was learned that he may have been pursuing a Skyhook research balloon.
However, a new sighting by two Eastern Airlines pilots, coupled with the death of that Air Force pilot, further fueled the growing concern with UFO’s. According to the report, an Eastern Airlines plane had left Houston, Texas, and was headed for Atlanta, Georgia, when suddenly the pilot was compelled to take quick evasive action in order to miss a “wingless B-29 fuselage” that passed him on his right. A passenger and several ground-based observers seemed to add credibility to the story.
The Project Sign group finally issued a report that disappointed some. Later, some staff members who were sympathetic to the viewpoint that UFO’s were real were replaced, and a new title, “Project Grudge,” was given to the project. However, during this period, belief in the existence of UFO’s reached a new high when retired major Donald E. Keyhoe wrote an article entitled “The Flying Saucers Are Real.” The account was published in the January 1950 issue of True magazine, and the issue enjoyed wide circulation. Then, to add to the already wide interest, True published a further article by Navy commander R. B. McLaughlin. This article was entitled “How Scientists Tracked the Flying Saucers.” The enthusiasm was short-lived—other magazines, Cosmopolitan and Time, published articles debunking UFO’s. With these new articles and a lull in sightings, interest subsided. Then came 1952, a remarkable year in UFO history.
1952—The Year of UFO’s
The greatest number of UFO sightings received by the U.S. Air Technical Intelligence Command was recorded in 1952: 1,501. Early in March 1952, with increased numbers of sightings, the U.S. Air Force decided to create a separate organization called Project Blue Book. During that year of intense UFO activity, the sightings were diverse and many.
One of a series of especially notable sightings began over Washington, D.C., during the midnight hours of July 19 and 20. It was reported that “a group of unidentified flying objects appeared on two radarscopes at the Air Route Traffic Control Center at Washington National Airport. The objects moved slowly at first . . . then shot away at ‘fantastic speeds.’” The visual sightings corresponded with the radar returns. It was further reported that an interception was attempted, but “the objects disappeared as the jets neared.”
In 1966 Gerald R. Ford, then congressman from Michigan, was credited with calling for another federal investigation of UFO’s. This was in response to a number of UFO sightings in his state. The result was that another study was set up at the University of Colorado. Dr. Edward U. Condon, a prominent physicist, assumed oversight of the work. In 1969, at the conclusion of the study, the Condon Report was issued. Among other things, it said that “nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge . . . that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”
This ended the official involvement of the U.S. government in the study of UFO’s and, in addition, tended to cool public curiosity. It did not, however, end the UFO controversy, nor was it the end of UFO sightings. According to one report, “20 percent of the ninety-five cases discussed in the document remained ‘unexplained.’”
Interest in UFO’s seemed to rise and fall along with waves of sightings. Outstanding were the years 1973 and 1974, when UFO’s were observed. With the arrival of the 1980’s, reports were again in the news. But what have scientists and other experts concluded in more recent years?
Bangalore