[go: up one dir, main page]
Wikipedia

Flying saucer

For unexplained aircraft sightings, of which many are described as flying saucers, see Unidentified flying object.
For other uses, see Flying saucer (disambiguation).

A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported disc-shaped UFO. The term was coined in 1947 by the news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed flew alongside his airplane above Washington State. Newspapers reported Arnold's story with speed estimates implausible for airplanes of the period. The story spurred a wave of hundreds of sightings across the United States, including the Roswell incident and Flight 105 UFO sighting. The concept quickly spread to other countries. Early reports speculated about secret military technology, but flying saucers became synonymous with aliens by 1950. The term has gradually been supplanted by the more general military terms unidentified flying object (UFO) and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).

An alleged flying saucer seen over Passaic, New Jersey in 1952

In science fiction, reported UFO sightings, UFO conspiracy theories, and broader popular culture, saucers are typically piloted by nonhuman beings.[1] Descriptions in reported sightings vary considerably. Early reports emphasized speed but the descriptions shifted over the decades to the objects mostly hovering. They are generally said to be round, sometimes with a protrusion on top, but details of the shape vary between reports. Flying saucers have been described as silent or deafening, with lights of every color, flying alone or in formation, and twenty to thousands of feet in diameter. Sightings are most frequent at night. The majority of reported saucers have been identified with known phenomena including astronomical objects like Venus, airborne objects like balloons, and optical phenomena like sun dogs.

1950s pop culture embraced flying saucers. These discs appeared in film, television, literature, music, and other minor aspects like toys and advertising. The shape became visual shorthand for alien invaders. During the 1960s, they waned in popularity. Discs ceased to be viewed as the standard shape for alien spacecraft but are still often depicted, sometimes for their retro value to evoke the early Cold War era.

History

edit

Precursors

edit
 
A "flying saucer" on a 1929 issue of Science Wonder Stories.[2]

Reports of fantastical aircraft predate the first flying saucers.[3] In antiquity, mysterious lights in the sky were interpreted as spiritual phenomena.[4] In the 1800s, many newspapers reported massive airships with glowing lights and humming engines. These are often seen as precursors to "flying saucer" and "UFO" sightings.[5] On January 25, 1878, the Denison Daily News printed an article in which John Martin, a local farmer, reported an object resembling a balloon flying "at wonderful speed". The newspaper said it appeared to be about the size of a saucer from his perspective, one of the first uses of the word "saucer" in association with a UFO.[6] During the 1940s, allied pilots reported encountering foo fighters they believed were advanced axis aircraft.[4]

Many aspects of the typical flying saucer first appeared in science fiction. French sociologist Bertrand Méheust noted, for example, Jean de La Hire's 1908 novel La Roue fulgurante [fr] (The Lightning Wheel). In the novel, a flying disc-shaped machine abducts the protagonists via a beam of light.[7][8][9]: 206–8  Science fiction magazine Amazing Stories began publishing "The Shaver Mystery" in 1945. Written by Richard Sharpe Shaver and edited by Raymond A. Palmer, they were science fiction tales about technologically-advanced "detrimental robots" that abducted humans, but the stories were presented as a true account of Shaver's life.[1][10]: 1  Until the magazine ceased printing Shaver's stories, Amazing Stories's letter column was regularly full of readers sharing their own purportedly true sightings of the robots.[10]: 3 

Before the term "flying saucer" was coined, fantasy artwork in pulp magazines depicted flying discs.[2] Commentators like Milton Rothman have noted the appearance of the "flying saucers" concept in the fantasy artwork of the 1930s pulp science fiction magazines, by artists like Frank R. Paul.[11][12] One of the first depictions of a "flying saucer", by illustrator Frank R. Paul appeared on the cover of the November 1929 issue of Hugo Gernsback's pulp science fiction magazine Science Wonder Stories.[2] Science fiction illustrator Frank Wu wrote:

The point is that the idea of space vehicles shaped like flying saucers was imprinted in the national psyche for many years prior to 1947, when the Roswell incident took place. It didn't take much stretching for the first observers of UFOs to assume that the unknown objects hovering in the sky had the same disk shape as the science fictional vehicles.[11]

Origins

edit
See also: 1947 flying disc craze
 
Kenneth Arnold's report to Army Air Forces (AAF) intelligence, dated July 12, 1947, which includes annotated sketches of the typical craft in the chain of nine objects

The modern flying saucer concept, including the association with aliens, can be traced to the 1947 Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting.[13][4] On June 24, 1947, businessman and amateur pilot Kenneth Arnold landed at the Yakima, Washington airstrip. He told staff and friends that he'd seen nine unusual airborne objects.[14] Arnold estimated their speed at 1,700 miles per hour, beyond the capabilities of known aircraft.[13] Newspapers soon contacted Arnold for interviews. The East Oregonian reported his supposed aircraft as "saucer-like".[15] In a June 26 radio interview, Arnold described them as "something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear".[16][17] Headline writers coined the terms "flying saucer" and "flying disk" (or "disc") for the story.[13][18] Arnold later told CBS news that the early coverage "did not quote me properly [...] when I described how they flew, I said that they flew like they take a saucer and throw it across the water. Most of the newspapers misunderstood and misquoted that, too. They said that I said that they were saucer-like; I said that they flew in a saucer-like fashion."[19] The circular shape of typical flying saucers may be due to reporters mistaking Arnold's "saucer-like" description of motion.[13]

Arnold's story incited a wave of hundreds of flying saucer reports.[13] The next widely publicized report was the sighting by a United Airlines crew on July 4 of nine more disc-like objects pacing their plane over Idaho.[20] On July 8, the Army Air Force base at Roswell, New Mexico issued a press release saying that they had recovered a "flying disc" from a nearby ranch, the so-called Roswell UFO incident, which was front-page news until the military issued a retraction saying that it was a weather balloon.[21]

The public was divided on the potential origin of the saucers.[22]: 206  Newspapers initially reported that Arnold suspected them to be experimental Soviet aircraft.[14] A Gallup Poll found that 90% of Americans were aware of the saucer stories, 16 percent believed they were secret military weapons, and less than one percent believed they were alien craft.[22]: 206  One report from Seattle, Washington, described a hammer and sickle painted onto a flying disc.[22]: 207  Throughout 1947, the saucers became increasingly associated with the idea of extraterrestrial life.[13] The stories spread to other countries, where they were influenced by local political and social concerns. In Europe, which was still recovering from the Second World War, saucers were often reported with rocket-like features. German newspapers reported flying saucers that exploded or had tails of fire.[23] The names for the discs were largely derived from the English "flying saucer" including the French soucoupe volante, Spanish platillo volante, Portuguese disco voador, Swedish flygande tefat, German fliegende Untertasse, and Italian disco volante.[3]: 84 

Flying saucer reporting declined by the end of summer. Newspapers had reported hoaxes by those looking to profit from the saucers and the Roswell incident, which was quickly retracted as balloon debris.[24] In the July 7 1947 Twin Falls saucer hoax, a widely reported crashed disc from Twin Falls, Idaho, was found to have been created by four teenagers using parts from a jukebox.[25] The Air Force's Air Materiel Command collected over a hundred reports at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.[26] Air Force General Nathan Twining established Project SAUCER, later renamed Project Sign,[27] the first in a series of UFO investigations by the US Government.[28] In the following years, other national governments would follow suit. Canada began Project Magnet and the United Kingdom launched the Flying Saucer Working Party in 1950, which attributed saucer reports to meteorological phenomena, astronomical phenomena, misidentification, optical illusions, misconceptions, or hoaxes.[29][30]

Development

edit
 
Magnification of second McMinnville UFO photograph from 1950.

By 1950, the term flying saucer was widely associated with extraterrestrial life. In a 1950 interview on flying saucers, Kenneth Arnold said, "if it's not made by our science or our Army Air Forces, I am inclined to believe it's of an extra-terrestrial origin".[13] This extraterrestrial hypothesis was accompanied by a range of other unusual theories. Meade Layne speculated that they came from an alternate dimension.[31]: 16  Under editor Ray Palmer, Amazing Stories had run Richard Sharpe Shaver's purportedly true stories. Fred Crisman had written to Palmer about fighting Shaver's purported evil beings in an underground cavern. Within a month of the first flying saucer reports, Crisman sent Palmer metal fragments and an account from his employee Harold Dahl about a malfunctioning flying saucer.[32][33] Palmer recruited Kenneth Arnold to investigate Crisman and Dahl's Maury Island incident. The metal turned out to be slag from a local smelter, but the men in black that Crisman and Dahl claimed were following them would become a common element of later UFO accounts.[32][33] Gray Barker popularized "men in black" who intimidate or silence UFO witnesses in his book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.[34] Palmer launched Fate (magazine) in 1948, claiming to offer "the truth about flying saucers".[3]: 54  It was the first in a wave of non-fiction paranormal magazines that would thrive in the 1950s.[10]: 3 

 
The Integratron

A flying saucer movement developed during the 1950s.[3] It was influenced by scientific research, occult practices, pop culture, existing religions, and earlier myths.[35]: 275  In reports and in popular media like the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still, saucers and their pilots were characterized as messengers.[35]: 275  The first wave of so-called contactees, George Hunt Williamson, George Van Tassel, Truman Bethurum, George Adamski, and Orfeo Angelucci claimed to have ridden aboard the saucers and brought back messages for humanity.[31]: 103–119  New religions and institutions arose around the contactees.[31]: 4  Van Tassel's Aetherius Society built the Integratron, a domed structure near Landers, California, intended to facilitate further contact with aliens, physical rejuvenation, and time travel.[31]: 132  According to George King, he founded the Ashtar Command—a new religious movement influenced by theosophy—at the direct instruction of an extraterrestrial.[31]: 140  Some existing religions began to incorporate flying saucers.[35]: 280  The Nation of Islam taught that the end of the world would be brought about by the "Mother Wheel" or "Mother Plane", a flying saucer half a mile wide.[35]: 280–281  During the same time that Margaret Murray's "Old Religion" or witch-cult hypothesis was being discredited in academic circles, its core idea—a lost civilization remembered in myth—was being embraced in pulp fiction, occult groups, and the growing UFO movement.[36] Several authors speculated that ancient astronauts piloting UFOs were the cause of myths and religions. Schoolteacher Robert Dione wrote God Drives a Flying Saucer to reframe biblical miracles and the Miracle of the Sun as the work of humanoid aliens piloting flying saucers. Later, Erich von Däniken released Chariots of the Gods?, a work of pseudoscience that attributed ancient artifacts and monuments to its purported ancient astronauts.[37]

 
1952 spike in UFO reports

Ufology developed as a parallel social movement.[38]: 63  Well-known Variety columnist Frank Scully published Behind the Flying Saucers in 1950. The book presents the Aztec, New Mexico crashed saucer hoax as the true account of an alien craft that "gently pancaked to earth like Sonja Henie imitating a dying swan" and was recovered by the United States government. It describes one of the hoaxers—who were convicted of fraud for selling nonfunctional dowsing equipment to the oil industry based on the claim that it was derived from alien technology—as a doctor with "more degrees than a thermometer".[39][31]: 34  Donald Keyhoe took a more serious "nuts and bolts" approach to the idea of the government covering up alien life in his 1950 book The Flying Saucers Are Real.[31]: 18, 109  When the popular and respected Life magazine ran "Have We Visitors From Space?" in 1952, taking seriously ideas of alien visitors, a wave of sightings followed.[40]: 123  The 1952 sightings spurred Leonard H. Stringfield to form an early UFO investigation group called the "Civilian Investigating Group for Aerial Phenomena" and to publish research on UFOs.[3]: 96  Albert K. Bender started his own "International Flying Saucer Bureau" in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1952.[3]: 97  Influenced by these works, James W. Moseley began to tour the country interviewing witnesses and distributing a newsletter for the growing saucer subculture.[3]: 98 

Within a decade of the first saucer sightings, reports had spread to many countries where local groups and ufologists emerged.[3]: 103  Antonio Ribera started Centro de Estudios Interplanetarios in Spain, and Edgar Jarrold founded the Australia Flying Saucer Bureau.[3]: 104  In France, UFO groups overlapped with occult groups and the anti-nuclear movement.[3]: 108  Reports have been more often made in the countries where UFO groups are in operation, such as the United States, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina.[41] By the end of the decade, The Case for the UFO author Morris K. Jessup reflected on his field, "This embryonic science is as full of cults, feuds, and dogmas as a dog is of fleas. There are probably more opinions about the nature and purpose of UFO's as there are Ufologers."[42][3]: 115 

 
 
German scientist Walther Johannes Riedel said George Adamski faked this 1952 UFO photo (top) using General Electric light bulbs for landing struts. Adamski is believed to have also utilized a portion of a popular 1930s gas lantern (bottom).

UFO photography emerged as a subgenre of documentary photography, showing often blurry or abstract discs framed by otherwise everyday settings.[43] Notable examples include the McMinnville photographs,[44][45][22]: 207–208  the Passaic UFO photographs,[46] and the photographs of contactee George Adamski.[43] Some of the alleged flying saucer photographs of the era were hoaxes, done with everyday objects like hubcaps.[47] German rocket scientist Walther Johannes Riedel analyzed George Adamski's UFO photos and found them to be faked. The UFO's "landing struts" were General Electric light bulbs with logos printed on them.[48][49] UFO researcher Joel Carpenter identified the body of Adamski's "flying saucer" as the lampshade from a 1930s pressure lantern.[50][51]

Flying saucers are now considered retro and emblematic of the 1950s and of B movies in particular.[52][47] The term "flying saucer" was gradually supplanted by "UFO" and later "UAP".[53] Discs ceased to be the standard shape in UFO reports,[54][55] and a broader variety of objects were reported.[56] Recent reports more often describe spherical and triangular UFOs.[57][58]

Description

edit

Reported sightings

edit
 
Sketches of reported flying saucers (from the UK National Archives)

Flying saucer sightings differ in their descriptions of appearance, movement, and purpose of the saucer.[59] In a 1963 overview of flying saucers, astronomer Donald Howard Menzel found some broad traits across sightings, but noted that "no two reports describe exactly the same kind of UFO."[59] Menzel found saucers were usually reported as round, but included objects shaped like dining saucers, teardrops, cigars, kidney beans, the planet Saturn, and yarn spindles.[59] Saucers often were reported with a dome or knob-shaped protrusion on the top side.[59] Size estimates ranged from 20 feet to thousands of feet in diameter.[59] Menzel found saucers reported in nearly every color, often glowing or flashing.[59] The sightings had little consistency in reported movement or sounds. Some witnesses reported silent objects; others reported a roar or thunderclap.[59] Sightings were most often during the night.[59] If the saucer's crew was described by the witness, they were usually extraterrestrial.[60]

Flying saucers have been consistently described and depicted as ahead of contemporary technology.[22]: 209  When comparing the 1947 saucer reports to the mystery airships of the 1800s, sociologist Robert Bartholomew found that the claimed observations "reflected popular social and cultural expectations of each period".[22]: 209  The mystery airship sightings of the 1800s included details like metal hulls, propellers, searchlights, and large wings.[22]: 195  The 1947 sightings—occurring months before Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier—emphasized the "incredible speed" of flying saucers.[61]: 171  The majority of 1947 reports emphasized speed.[61]: 173  This fell to 41 percent in 1971, and 22 percent in 1986.[61]: 173  In the 1950s, hovering flying saucers were associated with contactees and hoaxes;[61]: 174  by 1986 almost half of reported UFOs were claimed to hover slowly or motionlessly.[61]: 174 

Identification

edit
Main article: Identification studies of UFOs
 
A sun dog caused by ice crystals, visible to the left of the sun

The majority of flying saucer and broader UFO reports have been identified with known phenomena.[62] Investigations by the British government in th 1950s found the vast majority of reports to be misidentifications or hoaxes.[3]: 111  Some causes of saucer sightings include Venus, ice crystals, balloons, and airborne trash.[63] The US Government and General Mills launched thousands of top-secret Skyhook spy balloon during the 1950s. These massive balloons floated at high altitudes, making it difficult to judge their speed, and were widely reported as flying saucers.[64] During the Mantell UFO incident, a pilot died while pursuing an unknown round object that was later identified as a Skyhook balloon.[65]

Beginning in the mid 1950s, psychologists began to study why people believed in flying saucers if the evidence was so limited. French psychiatrist Georges Heuyer considered the movement to be a kind of global folie à deux, or shared delusion, used to navigate anxieties.[3]: 182  In the 1970s, French UFO researcher Michel Monnerie examined reports that were later identified and reports that remained unidentified. Monnerie found no difference in the frequency of paranormal phenomena reported alongside the sightings identified later as mundane known objects. This led him to develop the thesis that the saucer-specific experiences were a "psychosocial" process of myth-making triggered by but not caused by aerial phenomena. This Psychosocial UFO hypothesis became a popular explanation in France.[66][3]

Fictional portrayals

edit

Flying saucers in popular media underwent a similar change in movement.[61]: 173–175  Early films like The Flying Saucer (1950) and film serials like Bruce Gentry – Daredevil of the Skies (1949) show saucers streaking past at high speeds.[61]: 175  The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) mentions high speeds tracked by radar but also includes a slow landing scene.[61]: 175  The 1960s television series The Invaders prominently features a slow landing scene in every episode.[61]: 175  Many later iconic flying saucer films, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Fire in the Sky (1993), depict hovering and slow movements.[61]: 175 

edit
See also: UFOs in fiction
Earth vs. the Flying Saucer (1956)

Since the late 1940s, flying discs have increasingly become associated with a cultural conception of aliens that reflects the social and political anxieties of the 20th century. Fictional flying saucers reflect concerns around atomic warfare, the Cold War, loss of bodily integrity, xenophobia, government secrecy, and whether humanity is alone in the universe.[67] No correlation has been found between the release of major UFO films and spikes in sightings.[3]: 222  A disc, often domed or shining down a ray of light, has become visual shorthand for aliens.[47] It has been used in modern times to signify pop culture aliens. The aerial disc motif has been misinterpreted in much older art, created when it had different connotations.[68] In 2017, the flying saucer emoji was added to Unicode.[69]

Literature

edit
 
1946
 
1957
Flying disc-shaped craft depicted on pulp magazines from 1946 and 1957

There were several precursors to the modern flying saucers in science fiction literature, like The Shaver Mystery. Richard Sharpe Shaver's stories about a secret technologically advanced civilization of "detrimental robots" inside the earth were published as a true account of his life.[70] Backlash from the science fiction community carried over to UFO literature.[10] Saucers did appear in conventional science fiction,[71] but a genre emerged that treated fantastical stories as either true or plausibly true.[72] The debut issues of Mystic magazine asked readers, "When you read this story, you will tell yourself that it is fiction; the editors assure you that it is. But what if—it isn't?"[73] The Fortec Conspiracy, a science fiction novel, both drew from and fed into the UFO rumors surrounding the Roswell incident debris.[74]

Aliens and flying discs were common in the 1950s science fiction comics that flourished after the Golden Age of Comic Books.[75] The comic book anthology UFO Flying Saucers, launched in the 1960s, published illustrations of supposedly real sightings.[75] The opening to its first issue declared, "Our scientists have seen them! Our airmen have fought them!"[76]

Advertisements in the 1950s and 1960s referenced flying saucers as purported alien spacecraft and reflected the diversity of attitudes towards their plausibility. The major attitudes towards UFOs invoked in print advertisements were the potential for advanced technology, awe towards their potential pilots, and skepticism about hoaxes.[77] Much of the former pulp reader base shifted their attention to the growing medium of television during the 1950s.[78]

Film and television

edit
 
Forbidden Planet advertisement poster for a drive-in theater

Many early portrayals of flying saucers linked them to the Cold War.[3]: 65  The 1949 film serial Bruce Gentry – Daredevil of the Skies featured a man-made flying saucer,[79] and the 1950 film The Flying Saucer focused on Cold War espionage. The first novel to explicitly use the term "flying saucer" was Bernard Newman's The Flying Saucer, released in 1950. The novel's craft was a hoaxed alien ship intended to end military tension by giving humanity a common enemy.[3]: 65 

 
A small flying saucer leaves its larger mothership in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957).

Two early 1950s films, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing from Another World, were financial successes that established the market for an "alien visitor" subgenre of science fiction that merged flying saucers into existing space opera tropes.[3]: 66  Slowly hovering discs, like the one from the landing scene in The Day the Earth Stood Still, appeared throughout science fiction including It Came from Outer Space (1953), Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), and the television series The Invaders.[61]: 175  While contactees described aliens as benevolent messengers, Hollywood films often depicted them as monstrous antagonists.[3]: 222 

Other localities adapted the largely American phenomenon at different times, adding elements of the local culture. Early British films were low-budget productions like Devil Girl from Mars (1954) and Stranger from Venus (1954).[80][81] Japanese filmmakers incorporated flying discs and alien invaders into the tokusatsu tradition in mid-50s films like Fearful Attack of the Flying Saucers and Warning from Space.[82][83][84][85][86] Indian cinema began to incorporate alien invaders in the 1960s, starting with the Tamil-language Kalai Arasi.[87] An adaptation of Bankubabur Bandhu by Satyajit Ray was never completed but may have influenced other works of science fiction.[88] In Spain, alien-themed television shows became popular in the 1960s.[3]: 174 

Flying saucers quickly spread to other genres. In Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's big-budget Forbidden Planet, a futuristic 1956 adaptation of William Shakespeare's play The Tempest, humans travel through space in the United Planets Cruiser C-57D, a ship resembling a 1950s flying saucer.[89] The Twilight Zone episodes "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", "Third from the Sun", "Death Ship", "To Serve Man", "The Invaders" and "On Thursday We Leave for Home" all make use of the iconic saucer from Forbidden Planet. [90] The C-57D was followed by other disc-shaped spaceships in broader science fiction, like the Jupiter 2 from the television series Lost in Space (1965-1968).[91] Saucers appeared in the television series Babylon 5 (1994-1998) as starships used by a race called the Vree.[92] Doctor Who has featured different designs of flying saucers, like those used by the Daleks in Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. or the Cybermen in "The Tenth Planet".[93][94] Aliens in the film Independence Day (1996) attacked humanity in giant city-sized saucer-shaped spaceships.[95]

As the flying saucer was surpassed by other designs and concepts, it fell out of favor with straight science-fiction moviemakers, but continued to be used ironically in comedy movies, especially in reference to the low-budget B movies, which often featured saucer-shaped alien craft.[96][47] The 1964 Italian comedy Il disco volante centered around a flying saucer.[97] The image is often invoked retrofuturistically to produce a nostalgic feel in period works,[67] especially in comic science fiction.[96] For example, Mars Attacks! (1996) draws on the flying saucer as part of the larger satire of 1950s B movie tropes.[98]

Architecture

edit
 
The Theme Building in Los Angeles, California, is an example of Googie architecture.

The sleek, silver flying saucer in particular is seen as a symbol of 1950s culture.[47] The motif is common in Googie architecture and Atomic Age décor.[99] Notable flying saucer structures include Seattle's Space Needle and Los Angeles International Airport's Theme Building.[100][101] Googie architecture in California, like the Chemosphere home, influenced the futuristic structures in the 1960s cartoon The Jetsons. The cartoon popularized the style to such an extent, that it is often referred to as the "Jetsons look".[102] Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who collaborated on the design of the flying saucer in "The Day The Earth Stood Still", went on to use the flying saucer as an architectural motif.[103][104] Wright's circular Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, United States, is capped by a flattened dome over a hundred feet across.[105]

 
Exhibition model of a flying saucer (2022)

Spaceships are also one of the subjects of novelty architecture. Novelty architecture, also known as mimetic architecture, is the practice of creating structures shaped like other existing objects.[106] The Communist-era Kielce Bus Station in Kielce, Poland, was designed by architect Edward Modrzejewski to resemble a UFO.[107] Other modernist and brutalist UFO structures include the Ukrainian Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information,[108] Bulgaria's concrete Buzludzha monument,[109] the Most SNP in Bratislava,[110] and The Flying Saucer in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.[111] The Westall UFO was commemorated with the Grange Reserve UFO Park, featuring a UFO with red slides modeled after the reported sighting.[112] Roswell, New Mexico, is a UFO tourist destination in the Southwestern United States. Many structures in the town, including the streetlights and the McDonald's, are designed around alien themes.[113] Moonbeam, Ontario has an alien for its mascot and a prominent roadside flying saucer at its welcome center.[114] UFO-shaped homes include the Futuro pods designed by Matti Suuronen,[115] the former Sanzhi UFO houses from the Sanzhi District, New Taipei, Taiwan,[116] and artist Harry Visser's iconic home in Roodepoort, Johannesburg.[117]

Broader pop culture

edit
 
Battery-operated tin UFO

Flying saucers were a ubiquitous part of pop culture from 1947 into the mid 1970s.[75] Flying disc motifs were used in toys and other novelties soon after the earliest reports. The frisbee was introduced in 1948 and initially branded the "flying saucer".[118] Flying saucer candy was introduced in the 1950s when a Belgian producer of communion wafers had a dip in sales.[119] Along with other vintage candies, they have since seen renewed interest from customers as "retro".[120] In the 1950s and early 1960s, Japan was a major manufacturer of tin toys often with space themes like robots, rockets, and flying discs.[121] Throughout the 1950s, musicians like Billy Lee Riley, Jesse Lee Turner, and Betty Johnson released novelty songs about flying discs and alien invaders. Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman released the first break-in record, "The Flying Saucer", which took the form of a mock news broadcast covering an alien invasion.[122] Disneyland introduced Flying Saucers, an attraction where guests could pilot a hovering disc by tilting their own body.[56]

 
Disc-shaped candy

Video games have a long history of depicting flying saucers, typically as antagonists.[123] In the arcades, the popular early shooting games Asteroids (1979) and Space Invaders (1978) featured flying saucers as "bonus" enemies that only emerged briefly.[124] Super Mario Land, one of Nintendo's launch titles for the original Game Boy, contained spaceships modeled on the photographs of George Adamski and set among various monuments falsely attributed to ancient astronauts, like the Egyptian pyramids and the monolithic Moai of Easter Island.[125] The XCOM series tasks players with countering an invasion of aliens landing on Earth in flying discs. Saucers have appeared as a craft that players can control in Fortnite, Destroy All Humans, and Spore.[123]

References

edit
  1. ^ a b Britt, Ryan (13 September 2016). "Meet the UFO Expert Who Doesn't Believe in Aliens". Inverse. Retrieved 13 July 2024.
  2. ^ a b c Prothero, Donald R.; Callahan, Timothy D. (2 August 2017). UFOs, Chemtrails, and Aliens: What Science Says. Indiana University Press. pp. 319–321. ISBN 978-0-253-03338-3.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Eghigian, Greg (2024). After the flying saucers came: a global history of the UFO phenomenon. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190092054.
  4. ^ a b c Bader, Christopher D.; Mencken, F. Carson; Baker, Joseph O. (2011). Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture. NYU Press. pp. 49–50. ISBN 978-0-8147-8642-0.
  5. ^ Welsch, Robert (1979). "'This Mysterious Light Called an Airship': Nebraska 'Saucer' Sightings, 1897" (PDF). Nebraska History. 60: 92–113.
  6. ^ "American Chronicle | Before the Wright Brothers...There Were UFOs". 19 August 2012. Archived from the original on 19 August 2012. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
  7. ^ Meheust, Bertrand (1978). Science Fiction et Soucoupes Volantes. Mercure de France.
  8. ^ "Early 20th Century magazine covers with "flying saucer"-like craft". Ufopop.org. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  9. ^ Kripal, Jeffrey J. (2010). Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred. University of Chicago Press.
  10. ^ a b c d Mckee, Gabriel (18 July 2020). ""Reality – Is it a Horror?": Richard Shaver's Subterranean World and the Displaced Self". The Journal of Gods and Monsters. 1 (1): 1–17. doi:10.58997/jgm.v1i1.1.
  11. ^ a b Wu, Frank (1998). "Gallery of Frank R. Paul's Science Fiction Artwork". www.frankwu.com. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  12. ^ Darr, Jennifer (3 July 1997). "Coming To A Sky Near You". Philadelphia Citypaper. Archived from the original on 1 October 2015. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g Garber, Megan (15 June 2014). "The Man Who Introduced the World to Flying Saucers". The Atlantic. Retrieved 14 July 2024.
  14. ^ a b Wright, Phil (16 June 2017). "The sighting". East Oregonian. Retrieved 14 July 2024.
  15. ^ Lee, Russell (24 June 2022). "1947: Year of the Flying Saucer". airandspace.si.edu. Retrieved 18 July 2024. He told his story to reporters Bill Bequette and Nolan Skiff of the East Oregonian newspaper the day after his sighting. Skiff used the words 'saucer-like aircraft' when he published a short print article that same day. After suggesting to Arnold that a wire story might generate comments from the military on flights of experimental aircraft that could explain Arnold's sighting, Bequette published a brief story picked up by the Associated Press wire service, using the words 'nine bright saucer-like objects' to describe what Arnold said he saw.
  16. ^ Arnold, Kenneth (26 June 1947). "12:15 news" (Radio). Interviewed by Smith, Ted. Pendleton, Oregon: KWRC.
  17. ^ Meyer, Dave (24 June 2011). "64th anniversary of flying saucers at Mt. Rainier". KNKX Public Radio. Retrieved 18 July 2024. Arnold described the shiny objects as 'something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear' and that they flew 'like a saucer if you skipped it across the water.' The term 'flying saucer' made it into a newspaper headline and the rest, as they say, is history.
  18. ^ Perhaps the earliest example was the Chicago Sun on June 26, whose headline for the AP story read: "Supersonic Flying Saucers Sighted by Idaho Pilot".
  19. ^ Sagan, Carl (1997). The Demon-Haunted World. London: Headline. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-7472-5156-9.
  20. ^ Renshaw, Eric. "Argus Leader Subscription Offers, Specials, and Discounts". Argus Leader. Archived from the original on 17 May 2023.
  21. ^ Goldberg, Robert Alan (2001). "The Roswell Incident". Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p. 192. ISBN 978-0300132946.
  22. ^ a b c d e f g Bartholomew, Robert E. (2000). "From Airships to Flying Saucers: Oregon's Place in the Evolution of UFO Lore". Oregon Historical Quarterly. 101 (2): 192–213. ISSN 0030-4727. JSTOR 20615052.
  23. ^ Eghigian, Greg (3 July 2014). "'A transatlantic buzz': flying saucers, extraterrestrials and America in postwar Germany". Journal of Transatlantic Studies. 12 (3): 282–303. doi:10.1080/14794012.2014.928032.
  24. ^ Wright, Susan (1998). UFO Headquarters: Investigations on Current Extraterrestrial Activity in Area 51. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9780312207816.
  25. ^ Weeks, Andy (2015). "Fooled by a ... UFO". Forgotten Tales of Idaho. Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press. ISBN 9781625852465.
  26. ^ Dick, Steven J. (1998). "Chapter 5: The UFO Controversy and the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis". Life on Other Worlds: The 20th-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 141. ISBN 0521620120.
  27. ^ "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 — Central Intelligence Agency". www.cia.gov. Archived from the original on 13 June 2007. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  28. ^ Eghigian, Greg (19 December 2017). "That Secret Government Program to Track UFOs? It's Not the First". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on 9 July 2023. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  29. ^ Posted, Chris Rutkowski (21 May 2022). "May 2022: Disdain, confusion around officials' handling of UFO reports". Winnipeg Free Press. Retrieved 22 August 2024.
  30. ^ Blackshaw, Ethan; O'sullivan, John (25 June 2024). "UK's hidden UFO probes by MoD and their strong verdicts unveiled". Irish Star.
  31. ^ a b c d e f g Reece, Gregory L. (2007). UFO Religion: Inside Flying Saucer Cults and Culture. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1845114510.
  32. ^ a b Harrison, Albert A. (2007). Starstruck: Cosmic Visions in Science, Religion, and Folklore. Berghahn Books. pp. 123–. ISBN 978-1-84545-286-5. Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  33. ^ a b Gulyas, Aaron John (2015). "Paranoid and Paranormal Precursors from the 1960s to the 1990s". The Paranormal and the Paranoid: Conspiratorial Science Fiction Television. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 30–31. ISBN 9781442251144. Archived from the original on 27 July 2021. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
  34. ^ "The Legacy of Men in Black". CNN. 24 May 2012. Retrieved 4 September 2024.
  35. ^ a b c d Partridge, Christopher (2003). UFO religions. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-26323-9.
  36. ^ Card, Jeb J. (2019). "Witches and Aliens: How an Archaeologist Inspired Two New Religious Movements". Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. 22 (4): 44–59. doi:10.1525/nr.2019.22.4.44. ISSN 1092-6690. JSTOR 26770451.
  37. ^ Peters, Ted (1993). "Chariots, UFOs, and the Mystery of God". Religion Online.
  38. ^ Zeller, Benjamin E. (1 November 2021). "(Dis)Enchanted Ufology". Nova Religio. 25 (2): 61–86. doi:10.1525/nr.2021.25.2.61.
  39. ^ McAndrew, James (1997). The Roswell Report: Case Closed (PDF). Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. pp. 84–85. ISBN 9780160490187.
  40. ^ Mazur, Allan (2017). Implausible Beliefs: In the Bible, Astrology, and UFOs. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-51322-7 – via Google Books.
  41. ^ Todd, Iain. "Historian Greg Eghigian looked at the history of reported UFO sightings. This is what he found". www.skyatnightmagazine.com. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  42. ^ Dirda, Michael (12 April 2023). "'Flying Saucers Are Real!': Womack's new book looks at the heyday of UFO lore". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 14 October 2022. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
  43. ^ a b Joseph, Branden W. (2015), "Nose-to-Nose with a Mutant: UFO Photography", Imponderable: The Archives of Tony Oursler, Zurich: LUMA Foundation
  44. ^ Sheaffer, Robert (10 September 2010). "The Trent UFO Photos McMinnville, Oregon - May 11, 1950". The Debunker's Domain.
  45. ^ Sheaffer, Robert (10 September 2014). "The Trent UFO Photos -". www.debunker.com. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  46. ^ "Ronald Reagan Sees a UFO". HowStuffWorks. 1 January 1970. Retrieved 4 September 2024.
  47. ^ a b c d e Barber, Nicholas (14 July 2022). "The UFO sightings that swept the US". BBC. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  48. ^ Nóng, Xã Luận Tin (4 August 2021). "Do you remember Dolores Barrios, the woman from the planet Venus??". www.xaluannews.com. Retrieved 21 August 2024.
  49. ^ Moseley, James W.; Pflock, Karl T. (2002). Shockingly close to the truth! Confessions of a grave-robbing ufologist. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Bks. p. 69. ISBN 1-57392-991-3.
  50. ^ Carpenter, Joel. "Preliminary Notes on the Adamski Scout Ship Photos" (PDF). Retrieved 8 June 2017.
  51. ^ Hallet, Marc (2015). A Critical Appraisal of George Adamski The Man Who Spoke to the Space Brothers. Self-published. p. 70.
  52. ^ Kelly, Jon (12 June 2014). "The lasting allure of the flying saucer". BBC News.
  53. ^ Eghigian, Greg. "UFOs, UAPs—Whatever We Call Them, Why Do We Assume Mysterious Flying Objects Are Extraterrestrial?". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
  54. ^ Rao, Smriti (28 June 2023). "UFO Sightings: The Shapes They Are A-Changing". Discover Magazine. Retrieved 22 August 2024.
  55. ^ Wiley, Chris (4 August 2023). "The Enticing Mysteries of U.F.O. Photography". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 4 August 2023.
  56. ^ a b Gnerre, Sam (1 April 2019). "South Bay History: Flying saucers land with a vengeance in 1950s pop culture". Daily Breeze. Retrieved 4 October 2024.
  57. ^ Gottschalk, Molly (20 March 2018). "These Drawings Show How Pop Culture Has Changed the Way We See UFOs". Artsy.
  58. ^ "Flying Saucers Are So 1947. This Is the New Shape of the Modern UFO". Popular Mechanics. 17 May 2023. Retrieved 12 October 2024.
  59. ^ a b c d e f g h Menzel, Donald Howard; Boyd, Lyle Gifford (1963). "Descriptions of UFOs". The World of Flying Saucers: A Scientific Examination of a Major Myth of the Space Age – via Project Gutenburg.
  60. ^ Menzel, Donald Howard; Boyd, Lyle Gifford (1963). "A 'Baedeker's Guide' to Saucerdom". The World of Flying Saucers: A Scientific Examination of a Major Myth of the Space Age – via Project Gutenburg.
  61. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Kottmeyer, Martin S. (2017). "Why Have UFOs Changed Speed Over the Years?". In Grossman, Wendy M.; French, Christopher C. (eds.). Why Statues Weep: The Best of the "Skeptic". Oxfordshire, England: Routledge. ISBN 978-1134962525.
  62. ^ Huang, Nancy (21 March 2022). "UFO Sightings Are Real, but Aliens Are Not Responsible". Northrop Grumman.
  63. ^ Achenbach, Joel (11 August 2021). "Dear Earthlings: Please stop obsessing about UFOs". Washington Post.
  64. ^ Baker, Nicholson (31 January 2024). "No Aliens Haven't Visited the Eart". Intelligencer. Retrieved 9 October 2024.
  65. ^ Graff, Garrett M. (8 February 2023). "A History of Confusing Stuff in the Sky". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 9 February 2023. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  66. ^ Monnerie, Michel (1977). Et si les ovnis n'existaient pas? [What if UFOs do not exist?] (in French). Paris: Les Humanoïdes Associés.
  67. ^ a b Horton, Adrian (25 June 2021). "How pop culture has shaped our understanding of aliens". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
  68. ^
  69. ^
  70. ^ Maughan, Tim (10 August 2016). "Your Coffee Table Needs This Lavish Collection of Retro UFO Pulp Fiction Art". VICE. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  71. ^ Asimov, Isaac; Greenberg, Martin Harry; Waugh, Charles Gordon (1987). "Introduction". Flying Saucers. Fawcett Crest. ISBN 978-0-449-21400-8.
  72. ^ Stupple, David; Dashti, Abdollah (1977). "Flying Saucers and Multiple Realities: A Case Study in Phenomenological Theory" (PDF). Journal of Popular Culture. 11 (2): 479–493. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.1977.00479.x.
  73. ^ Crumm, David (29 June 2013). "Amazing Ray Palmer, the Pulp Pioneer Behind the Flying Saucer Craze". Read the Spirit. Front Edge Publishing. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  74. ^ Smith, Toby (2000). Little Gray Men: Roswell and the Rise of a Popular Culture. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. p. 82. ISBN 978-0826321213.
  75. ^ a b c Reece, Gregory L. (19 June 2014). "Where Do They Come From? What Do They Want?". PopMatters. Retrieved 1 October 2024.
  76. ^ Dorfman, Leo (w), Certa, Joe (a). "The UFOs and Flying Saucers!" UFO Flying Saucers, no. 1, p. 1 (1968). Gold Key Comics.
  77. ^ McAllister, Matthew P.; Eghigian, Greg (2022). "Flying Saucers and UFOs in US Advertising During the Cold War, 1947–1989". Advertising & Society Quarterly. 23 (3). ISSN 2475-1790.
  78. ^ "Out of this world". The Sydney Morning Herald. 23 April 2005. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  79. ^ Greer, John Michael. The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation. Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 2009. ISBN 978-0-73871-319-9. p.33
  80. ^ "Devil Girl from Mars". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
  81. ^ Lenera, Dr (7 January 2024). "Devil Girl From Mars [1954]". Horror Cult Films. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  82. ^
  83. ^ Erickson, Glenn (29 September 2020). "Warning from Space". Trailers From Hell. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  84. ^ Lenera (29 October 2020). "Warning From Space [1956]: On Blu-ray Now". Horror Cult Films. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  85. ^ Galbraith, Stuart (1994). Japanese science fiction, fantasy, and horror films : a critical analysis of 103 features released in the United States, 1950-1992. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. pp. 21–23. ISBN 978-0-89950-853-5.
  86. ^ Galbraith, Stuart (1996). "Shinichi Sekizawa". The Japanese filmography : a complete reference to 209 filmmakers and the over 1250 films released in the United States, 1900 through 1994. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-7864-0032-4.
  87. ^ Fritzsche, Sonja, ed. (2014). The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film. Oxford University Press. p. 56. ISBN 978-1-78138-038-3. Archived from the original on 7 June 2021. Retrieved 18 October 2020.
  88. ^ Khan, Murtaza Ali (16 June 2018). "Did Steven Spielberg plagiarise Satyajit Ray's The Alien?". Newslaundry. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  89. ^ Wilson, Robert F. (2000). Shakespeare in Hollywood, 1929-1956. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp. 71, 101–109. ISBN 0838638325.
  90. ^ Braukman, Stacy; Maderer, Jason (28 August 2018). "Out of This World".
  91. ^ Seibold, Witney (7 March 2018). "How Netflix's Lost in Space Compares to the Other Lost in Spaces". IGN.
  92. ^ Nizalowski, Ursula (12 July 2019). "Babylon 5: The 10 Fastest Ships In The Universe, Ranked". ScreenRant. Retrieved 28 September 2024.
  93. ^ Mount, Paul. "Daleks – Invasion Earth – 2150 AD (1966)". Starburst. Retrieved 28 September 2024.
  94. ^ Blair, Andrew (20 November 2023). "Doctor Who: The 60 Best Episodes". Den of Geek. Retrieved 28 September 2024.
  95. ^ "8 Things We'll Never Forget From Alien Invasion Blockbuster 'Independence Day'". New York Film Academy. 28 June 2019.
  96. ^ a b Anders, Charlie Jane (3 March 2009). "Alien Trespass: The Ultimate 1950s Nostalgia Trip". Gizmodo. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
  97. ^ Bernstein, Adam (2 February 2022). "Monica Vitti, multifaceted actress who symbolized Italian mystique, dies at 90". Archived from the original on 2 February 2022.
  98. ^ Busack, Richard von (18 December 1996). "Alien Notions". Metro. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  99. ^ Suaya, Stacy (27 October 2022). "9 UFO-Inspired Homes Around the World".
  100. ^ "Astronomers and the Space Needle". Astroprof's. Archived from the original on 28 February 2007. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
  101. ^ Ethington, Philip J. (2000). "The "Theme Building," Los Angeles International Airport". University of Southern California. Archived from the original on 13 March 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2008.
  102. ^ Novak, Matt. "Mid-21st Century Modern: That Jetsons Architecture". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
  103. ^ Walla, Douglas (9 May 2016). The Essential Paul Laffoley: Works from the Boston Visionary Cell. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-31541-6.
  104. ^ Hamilton, Tierney (19 July 2019). "Imagining the Future Through Frank Lloyd Wright's Work". Marin Cultural Association.
  105. ^ "9400 W Congress St". Architecture and History Inventory. Wisconsin Historical Society. 1 January 2012. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
  106. ^ Campbell, Tori (29 January 2021). "The Art of Imitation: Novelty Architecture".
  107. ^
  108. ^ "Institute of Scientific & Technological Research & Development, Kyiv". Kathmandu & Beyond. 7 January 2019. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  109. ^ Salem, Jarryd (18 January 2017). "Inside Bulgaria's crumbling communist UFO". CNN. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  110. ^ Majumdar, Debashree (28 June 2019). "Rough Edges of Bratislava". Open The Magazine. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  111. ^ Ravenscroft, Tom (28 September 2020). "Sharjah's brutalist Flying Saucer turned into arts centre". Dezeen. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  112. ^ "The Grange Reserve (UFO Park)". kingston.vic.gov.au. Kingston City Council. Archived from the original on 21 June 2021. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  113. ^ Siegler, Kirk; Baker, Liz (5 June 2021). "The Truth Is (Still) Out There In 'UFO Capital' Roswell, New Mexico". NPR. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  114. ^ Dunne, Nick. "Roadside-attraction showdown: Moonbeam's Flying Saucer". TVO Today. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  115. ^ Terzon, Emilia (3 September 2015). "Australia's lost Futuro: The tropical UFO shaped ski chalet". ABC News. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  116. ^ Morrison, Geoffrey (23 September 2018). "The sci-fi future stands derelict: Taiwan's abandoned UFO houses". CNET. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  117. ^ Patrick, Alex (15 February 2019). "If you've got a UFO obsession & R50k for rent, we've got a Jozi house for you". Sunday Times. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  118. ^ "On this day (Jan. 23) in history – 1957 – Toy company Wham-O produces first Frisbees". Herald Chronicle. 12 September 2024. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  119. ^ Banim, Julia (10 April 2023). "People astounded over history behind flying saucer sweets from their childhood". The Mirror. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
  120. ^ Salter, Katy (6 August 2014). "Sherbet dips, flying saucers and the British retro sweet revival". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
  121. ^
  122. ^ Blevins, Joe (26 April 2016). "Let's celebrate Alien Day with crazy late 1950s novelty songs". AV Club. Retrieved 7 October 2024.
  123. ^ a b Winchester, Jonah (14 August 2022). "8 Iconic Flying Saucers In Gaming". TheGamer. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
  124. ^ Jozefowicz, Gabriela (30 December 2023). "The Rise of the Arcade". theboar.org. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
  125. ^ Lambie, Ryan (22 April 2019). "Super Mario Land: The Brilliance of an Underrated Classic". Den of Geek. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flying_saucer&oldid=1258597560"