the science historian recently discussed how society’s perception of UFOs has changed over the years.

the idea of aliens and that other worlds might be inhabited actually dates back to ancient times. the question was a matter of real concern among philosophers, scientists, and theologians of the Western world in the 18th century, and it was widely accepted that extraterrestrial civilizations existed.

But something changed in the 19th century. that’s when you start seeing these reports of people seeing what they say are boats flying overhead.

the things that people then describe sound a lot like the things they were familiar with – they literally saw ships and vessels that would normally float on the sea in flight. Some people would see steamboats.

But it really isn’t until the summer of 1947 that people started talking regularly about seeing flying objects that some attributed to aliens.

What happened in 1947?

A pilot named Kenneth Arnold was flying his plane near Mount Rainier in Washington state. As he was flying, he said that he saw some kind of flash or glow that caught his attention and worried that he might have a collision with another aircraft.

When he looked, he saw what he described as nine very strangely shaped ships flying in formation.

After Arnold landed, he reported his sightings to authorities at a nearby airport and eventually spoke to some reporters. When a reporter asked Arnold to describe how things moved, he said, “they flew like a saucer would if you jumped it over water.”

Some very smart enterprising journalists came up with the headline “flying saucers” and from then on they were flying saucers, even though Arnold never uttered the phrase.

UFO roswell

A Gallup poll six weeks after the event found that 90% of Americans had heard the term flying saucer. this was the beginning of the phenomenon that some call the era of flying saucers and the contemporary idea of UFOs.

Within days, other people across the country began reporting seeing similar things in the sky. Within weeks, the US Air Force decided to investigate the reports. Arnold’s story also aroused a lot of interest in the press and soon the international media was covering this story. It was a worldwide phenomenon in a matter of months.

Who starts investigating UFOs?

two things happened in parallel: First, there were government-sponsored investigations in the US, specifically within the Air Force.

Beginning in 1947, the Air Force launched a number of different projects, all fundamentally concerned with one question: Do UFOs pose a threat to national security? the government was not interested in a deep scientific analysis of these things.

On the other hand, from 1947 to 1950, many of the general public were completely fascinated with the mystery of flying saucers. What are they? Are real?

If they are real, who is behind them? Some people tossed around the idea of aliens, but that’s not really the main theory people thought of. Most people, if they thought the sightings were real, believed they were secret weapons of the US military or secret weapons or secret planes of the Soviets.

So out of this fascination developed what might be called the equivalent of fan groups: the flying saucer clubs. those were the seeds of growth in the 1950s and 1960s for UFO organizations, first locally, then nationally, then internationally.

How did government programs fit into the UFO ecosystem? A lot of what the Air Force did was behind closed doors and was supposed to be clandestine.

the government has published files for many years showing that a considerable number of UFO sightings were people who saw secret planes like the U2. Not surprisingly, the Air Force tries to keep a tight rein on what is revealed to the public.

But that tight control is one of the many things that has fueled conspiracy theories over the years. the idea among UFO followers is: “the government is not talking directly to us. Somehow, we have to get these people to reveal all the information they know.”

What is the modern American perspective on UFOs?

Until the 1990s, the Cold War played a pivotal role in the way people in the US envisioned UFOs, both in terms of how we think about humanity’s technological prospects, and in relation to fears and anxieties surrounding the Cold War.

But when the Cold War ended, interest dropped. From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, media coverage was nominal.

that all changed with the 2017 revelations about the secret UFO project at the Pentagon. this stimulated a revival of interest in UFOs.

the way the media talked about UFOs had many of the same elements as before: Are these alien things? If they’re not aliens, are they from our army or someone else’s army? Are the people who were pushing the narrative and sighting stories operating in good faith or are they scammers?

In many ways, all of this was really reminiscent of the 1940s and 1950s.

Do you see a change in the way scientists think about UFOs?

In my conversations with scientists, I have seen some movement toward saying, “this material may be worth looking at more seriously.”

the major change since the 1990s, specifically for astrophysicists and astronomers, has been the discovery of so many planets around other stars that could possibly support life.

I am excited by the prospect of further study, both as a phenomenon to be investigated by physical scientists, but also as a social and cultural phenomenon. the mystery breeds speculation, and the UFO phenomenon is not a puzzle that can be easily solved.

the mystery portion gives people a chance to ask important questions not only about humanity’s place in the universe, but also about the limits of technology and knowledge. I think that’s why people keep coming back to the UFO thing.

Greg Eghigian, professor of history, Penn State

fuente: anomalien.com

From the first recorded sightings in antiquity to the most famous and controversial cases of the 20th century, Eghigian takes us into a world of conspiracies, unexplained sightings, and theories about extraterrestrial life.

Categories