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Flying Saucer

Flying Saucer

Extraterrestrial Entities of the Pacific Northwest

Extraterrestrial Existence

Some assume that UFOs are a modern invention, but since ancient times men have reported seeing strange things in the sky. An increasing interest in air machines no doubt helped promote reports of strange "airships" in the 1890s. After World War I, "the world's first ufologist," Charles Fort, stirred interest in mysterious phenomena, including unidentified objects in the sky that Fort believed indicated visits from space aliens (Clark 1992, 21-23). In the 1920s through the 1940s, science-fiction pulp magazines became popular, especially Amazing Stories which debuted in 1929. When its circulation lagged, a new editor, Ray Palmer, boosted sales with wild stories of extraterrestrial visitations and decorated the covers with occasional illustrations of strange, circular spaceships.

he term flying saucers was coined after a sighting-in the Pacific Northwest-that triggered the modern wave of UFOs. On June 24, 1947, businessman Kenneth Arnold was flying his private airplane over the Cascade Mountains in Washington State when he saw a chain of nine tailless objects streaking south over Mount Baker and heading for Mount Rainier, each flying with a motion like "a saucer skipped across water" (quoted in Ruppelt 1956, 27). The name "flying saucers" was thus born, and Ray Palmer's fiction had become a reality. By the following year, Palmer had helped create Fate, a mystery-mongering magazine that promoted UFOs and other "true" mysteries.

Edward J. Ruppelt, former head of the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book, which investigated UFOs, wrote of the controversy, noting two factions' arguments at the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC). One side thought Arnold simply saw jet airplanes flying in formation:

The "Arnold-saw-airplanes" faction maintained that since Arnold said that the objects were 45 to 50 feet long they would have had to be much closer than he had estimated or he couldn't even have seen them at all. Since they were much closer than he estimated, Arnold's timed speed was all wrong and instead of going 1,700 miles per hour the objects were traveling at a speed closer to 400 miles per hour, the speed of a jet. There was no reason to believe they weren't jets. The jets appeared to have a skipping motion because Arnold had looked at them through layers of warm and cold air, like heat waves coming from a hot pavement that cause an object to shimmer. The other faction at ATIC noted Arnold's claim that the UFOs had passed behind one mountain peak, thus supposedly helping establish their correct distance from him. (This faction thus thought the objects must have been about 210 feet long instead of Arnold's estimated 45 to 50 feet. However, physicist/UFOlogist Dr. Bruce Maccabee has noted: "Geological survey maps show that mountain peaks behind which the objects could have disappeared have altitudes of 5,000 to 6,000 feet. Thus it appears that they were lower than 6,000 feet and that Arnold overestimated their altitude." More recently, other evidence has shown that Arnold must have been mistaken about the objects traveling behind a peak.

In any event, the Arnold case is instructive. The implication of UFO proponents that-because the objects are "unidentified" and the incident "unexplained"-the Arnold sighting is therefore evidence of extraterrestrial visitation is absurd. Not only is such an attitude mystery mongering, but it is also an example of a logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance: One cannot draw a conclusion from a lack of knowledge. The problem is not a failure of science nor of excessive skepticism but rather Arnold's own conflicting versions of what he saw and the serious misperceptions he quite obviously made. Such is often the case with reports of alien sightings, just have a look here for a concise history of morbidly genuine Alien encounters.

About the Author

The author, StunnerCold (Alias), is an Electrical engineer specializing in cutting edge semiconductor technology with an eye out for the long overdue galactic rendezvous. Checkout the nifty blog on Alien Civilizations for a thorough scientific account of the Life Beyond, without the speculative conjuncture.

Should I join with the Flying Saucer people or fight back?

A squadron of flying saucers landed and not to pleasant hideous looking space aliens took control of the town. About all the women and wimps switched over to the seemingly victorious invaders.I'm not to happy about the restrictions on my movements.My cousin is hidden in the woods with a few other guys.It's not too late to take my Daddy's 30 caliber M1 rifle and blast a few gray thick skin party crashers back to Orion. Should I capitulate or join the rebels ?

Ah..What the Hell..!?...go out in a Blaze of Glory....

JFL Hidden Camera Gags: Flying Saucer