Let me begin my posting of the day by answering that question at the top. There is no convincing truth about flying saucers and extraterrestrial alien being real, or not.- In one corner are scientists who work in this field. That would include me, for I spent time at NASA's Ames Research Center on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. But that was half a century ago.
- From Wikipedia:
- These researchers mostly believe that there must be life somewhere in the universe, and most probably, there should be some intelligence.
- But when I was at Ames, you would be laughed out of the room if you even talked about flying saucers. In other words, belief was very, very low.
- Today, I would think that belief remains low, but my sense is that there would be some increased interest in in being involved in some type of research on this topic.
- In the other corner, the American public. I'll mention world views later.
- The latest Gallup poll:
About half of Americans, 49%, think all UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) sightings can be explained by human activity on Earth or natural phenomena, while 37% believe at least some UFOs have been alien spacecraft visiting Earth from other planets or galaxies.
- 17% say they have personally seen a UFO.
- 37% say UFOs are alien spacecraft visiting Earth.
- 78% believe that the U.S. government knows more about UFOs that it is telling.
- Keep in mind that around 70% of Americans believe in angels, which jumps to 84% if with any religious affiliation.
To bring you up to date, the use of the term UFO, first coined by the U.S. Air Force, was in 2020 replaced by UAP, for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, as established by the Department of Defense.
- Halley's Comet was recorded as far back as 467 BC in China, and again in 240 BV as a strange and unknown guest light in the sky.
- Seneca the younger around the time of Christ, mentioned luminous phenomena.
- A generation later, Pliny the Elder mentioned flying objects in the sky.
- Shen Kuo (1031-1095) of Cina talked about an unidentified flying object.
- A woodcut by Hans Glaser in 1561 showed a celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg.
- A Texas newspaper on 25January1878 printed an article in which John Martin, a local farmer, reported seeing a saucer flying at high speed, from where came flying saucers.
- In the 1896/7 period, U.S.newspapers carried reports of mystery airships.
- In World War II, Europe and the Pacific theaters reported on foo fighters and ghost rockets. Most turned out to be meteors.
- There was a media frenzy surrounding the 24June1947 sighting by civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold of a group of bat-like aircraft flying in formation at high speeds near Mount Rainier.
- This led to almost daily sighting, and the Roswell incident in New Mexico later that year.
- The U.S. Air Force investigated 250 UFO cases with Project Sign in 1947, which was replaced by Project Grudge into 1951.
- UFO enthusiasts formed saucer clubs in the early 1950s.
- Books were published suggesting extraterrestrial influence.
A UFO scare in Washington, DC in 1952, no doubt triggered by the late 1951 film, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Watch the whole 1 hr 27 min film by clicking on that. Rated 21/27 by Rotten Tomatoes. so maybe not.
- There was a 1966 TV special hosted by Walter Cronkite, with Carl Sagan and J. Allen Hynek, UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy.
In 1968, the Condon Report concluded that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years.- The U.S. Air Force cataloged 12,618 sightings of UFOs in Project Blue Book, terminating its efforts in 1969.
- Field gained additional popularity in the 70s with two films, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien.
- The X-Files aired from 1993 to 2016 in ten seasons.
- A Harris poll in 2009 found that 32% of Americans believed in UFOs.
- National Geographic reported that the number was 36% in 2012.
The federal government spent $22 million from 2007 to 2012 on a secret Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, that was publicized in 2017 by the New York Times.
While in 2019 Gallup found that 33% of adults believed some UFOs involve alien spacecraft from other planets, this number jumped in 2021 to 41%.
- In 2021, Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb announced the creation of his Galileo Project, following his book Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth, where he speculated they the interstellar comet Oumuamua might be an artifiicial light sail made by an alien civilization.
- Loeb might have spurred two government sponsored programs, and on 17May2022, a House committee held congressional hearings on the subject, the first time the U.S. Congress hosted such an encounter in over 50 years.
- In 2023, the RAND Corporation published a study reviewing 101,151 public reports of UAP sightings in the U.S. from 1998 to 2022.
On 14 September 2023, NASA reported the appointment, for the first time, of a NASA Director of UAP Research (known earlier as U.F.O.), identified as Mark McInerney, to scientifically, and transparently, study such occurrences.[171]
So far, then, the only truth about flying saucers is that they were once called Unidentified Flying Objects, and today UAP, for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. Are they real or not? To come. Tomorrow, Part 2, including a review of a movie I just saw, Disclosure Day by Steven Spielberg, and Out of the Shadows, a book on this subject by Jay Stratton, released earlier this week.
- ALCS Game 3 (Tampa Bay Rays vs. Cleveland Guardians): Moved up five hours from 6:00 p.m. ET to 1:00 p.m. ET (7:00 a.m. HST) at Progressive Field to beat the incoming storm.
- NLCS Game 4 (Milwaukee Brewers vs. Los Angeles Dodgers): Moved up one hour from 6:08 p.m. ET (3:08 p.m. PT) to 5:08 p.m. PT (2:08 a.m. HST) at Dodger Stadium to accommodate national television and playoff window adjustments. [1, 2, 3, 4] On Fox Sports 1.
-
Comments
Post a Comment