Out of This World: 60 Years of Flying Saucers
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/06/flyingsaucer_anniversary?currentPage=all

Out of This World: 60 Years of Flying Saucers
Nigel Watson


Steven Spielberg's 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind is regarded
by some ufologists as part of a U.S.-government-backed project to get
the public used to the idea of friendly aliens.
"Flying saucer" -- the term -- was coined 60 years ago, when salesman
and pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in a "V"
formation over Mount Rainier, Washington. Arnold told a reporter on June
24, 1947 that the UFOs flew erratically, fluttering and tipping their
wings, like "a saucer if you skip it across water" -- and a worldwide
subculture was born.

In the six decades since, flying saucers have inspired scores of movies,
TV shows and a mini publishing industry. They're supposedly the source
of crop circles and cattle mutilations, and they've spawned several
cults and a minor religion. Fodder for government commissions, both real
and imagined, the mysterious vehicles have also fed government
conspiracy theorists, who believe we're being lied to.

"The evidence is overwhelming that some UFOs are intelligently
controlled ET spacecraft," says Stanton Friedman, a leading ufologist,
who argues further "that the subject represents a cosmic Watergate, that
there are no good arguments against these conclusions and that flying
saucers and the worldwide government cover-up are the biggest story of
the millennium.

"I don't worry much about convincing skeptics," Friedman says. "Those
who are willing to look at the scientific evidence will be convinced."
Of course, aliens and UFOs were around long before "flying saucer" was
coined. UFOs have been seen for centuries, regarded as spirits, angels,
dragons, phantom airships and ghost aircraft.

In 1938, Orson Welles' radio dramatization of War of the Worlds created
mass hysteria. During World War II, allied pilots often reported seeing
balls of light following their aircraft. They were nicknamed "foo
fighters" and were regarded as German secret weapons. Shortly after the
war, ghost rockets were seen throughout Europe. In 1946, at least 1,000
ghost-rocket sightings were reported in Sweden alone.

But never have flying saucers been a bigger part of the zeitgeist than
they are now. In 2002, a Roper poll found that one in seven U.S.
citizens claim to have seen a UFO or know someone who's had an alien
encounter. A recent survey estimated half the U.S. population believes
the media is conditioning the public for our first alien encounter.
Every year, thousands of UFO sightings are made worldwide. The numbers
reported to the authorities or media are difficult to gauge -- and even
the most die-hard ufologists admit that the majority of sightings can be
explained as aircraft, mirages balloons, snow showers or orographic
clouds.

Author Jenny Randles has written 50 books on UFOs and the paranormal,
but found no evidence of alien visitors or government cover-up .
One reliable source, the USAF's Project Blue Book, a massive 20-year
study of flying saucers, received 15,000 UFO reports between 1952 and
1970.

In 1997, the Heaven's Gate cult, led by Marshall Herff Applewhite,
committed mass suicide, believing they would be spirited away on a
flying saucer. Longer-lived UFO cults include the Aetherius Society and
the International Raelian Movement, founded in 1974 by Rael, aka Claude
Vorilhon, a former French motor-racing writer.

Rael was told by an alien called Eloha that the human race was the
product of DNA experimentation and that the Bible and other religious
texts actually refer to contact with aliens rather with a God and his
messengers. Rael who thinks he is related to Jesus and Muhammad has
managed to attract several thousand followers, who are planning to make
their headquarters in Las Vegas.
The writings of Erich von Daniken, much like Rael, claim that alien
astronauts who visited Earth were mistaken for gods and included in
legends, folklore and in religious texts and rituals.

Days after Arnold's sighting, in July 1947, the Roswell Daily Record
claimed that the Roswell Army Air Field had recovered a crashed flying
saucer. The Army explained the crash as the wreckage of a weather
balloon. The incident was largely forgotten until the late 1970s when
eyewitnesses began to come forward claiming the balloon was an alien
craft.

The Roswell case has become the foundation stone for belief that the
U.S. government secretly recovered alien technology and collaborated
with aliens. The U.S. Air Force has always denied this and it published
The Roswell Report. Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert to detail
its side of the argument.
In 1948 and 1949, strange green fireballs were seen exploding over the
skies of New Mexico. Many feared they were guided missiles sent by the
Soviet Union. However, a conference organized by the USAF concluded that
they were unusual meteors.
The '50s saw a rash of "contactees," who claimed they had meetings with
aliens and rode in their spaceships. The most famous contactee was
George Adamski, who allegedly met an alien called Orthon in the
California desert on November 20, 1952. These "friendly" space people
warned of the dangers of scientific progress and gave spiritual messages
for humanity.

The themes were reflected in many flying saucer movies of the time, such
as The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951). In Britain,
Antonio Villas Boas reported a space woman captured and raped him in
1957.

Sex with aliens is a recurring theme in abduction stories going back to
the '50s.
Amateur UFO groups and clubs began cropping up. In the United States,
the two most important groups were the Aerial Phenomena Research
Organization, or APRO, founded by Jim and Coral Lorenzen in 1952 and the
National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, or NICAP, which
began in 1956. NICAP under the leadership of UFO author Donald E. Keyhoe
supported the idea that UFOs were extraterrestrial craft.

Many also allege that the U.S. Air Force has tried to cover up evidence
of UFOs. Ironically, many CIA operatives were NICAP members, including
Vice-Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, who sat on the board of directors
until 1962.
The contactees were largely ignored by scientific UFO investigators,
until the case of Betty and Barney Hill, who reported seeing a UFO
following their car on the night of September 19, 1961. When they
returned home, they found they couldn't remember a long section of their
journey. Under hypnosis, the couple recalled being abducted and
subjected to intimate medical examinations. Their situation came to
worldwide attention when John G. Fuller published The Interrupted
Journey in 1966.

In 1969, the Colorado University UFO Project, headed by Dr. Edward Uher
Condon, published the results of a two-year study of UFO files collected
by the USAF's Project Blue Book. The Condon Report concluded that the
study of UFOs was not scientifically valuable and the USAF closed down
Project Blue Book. Ufologists have always regarded Condon's report as a
whitewash. Astronomer J. Allen Hynek, an advisor to the project, was so
dissatisfied with its findings he created the Center for UFO Studies in
1974 to continue the scientific study of UFOs.

Despite Condon's findings, UFOs still fascinated the public and reported
sightings continued. In the '70s, abduction reports escalated sharply.
Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977 is
regarded by some ufologists as part of a U.S.-government-backed project
to get the public used to the idea of friendly aliens. The film had such
an impact the British House of Lords, it held a three-hour debate on
alien abductions in 1979. Her Majesty's government, however, decided
UFOs were not alien spacecraft and were not a threat to the nation.

The '80s started with a bang. The Roswell Incident, by Charles Berlitz
and William L. Moore, portrayed the Roswell crash as part of a much
larger cover up, and opened the floodgates for increasingly bizarre
stories featuring the recovery of flying saucers and alien bodies.

This autographed sketch of the first "flying saucer" was made by Kenneth
Arnold, the pilot whose UFO encounter in 1947 inspired the term.
Whitley Strieber's reported abduction experiences, including an
examination by anal probe, became the basis for the best-selling
Communion: A True Story in 1987. The writings of Budd Hopkins, David
Jacobs and John E. Mack reinforced the idea that millions of people are
being regularly abducted.
Government conspiracy, alien abduction and Roswell fuelled the highly
successful TV series The X-Files (1993-2002) and films like Independence
Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996) and Men in Black (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1997).

During this period, ex-government whistleblowers came forward. I
n 1995, Alien Autopsy, a film by Ray Santilli, was released. The London
filmmaker said he obtained it from an old U.S. cameraman. It is supposed
to be genuine footage of the autopsy of an alien corpse recovered from
the Roswell crash of 1947. Most regard it as a hoax.
In 2000, Alfred Webre's book Exopolitics: Towards a Decade of Contact
spawned Exopolitics, which has gained lot of supporters who feel the
existence of UFOs does not have to be scientifically proven. They say
there is enough evidence to accept that UFOs are spaceships piloted by
extraterrestrials. Their goal is to put pressure on the United States
and other governments to disclose the truth that they have been secretly
working with the aliens since the 1940s.

In 2005, a large document allegedly written in the late 1970s came to
light that claimed that six aliens were recovered from the Roswell
crash. An alien called EBE 1 was said to have survived and organized a
team of specially trained humans to visit his home planet Serpo. The
story goes that 12 humans stayed there from 1965 to 1978, two remained
and the others either died on the planet or when they returned to Earth.
The tale represents the flavor of contemporary UFO rumor.

"The vast majority of UFO sightings can be explained in mundane terms,
writes UFO expert and author Jenny Randles. "I have found almost no
sustainable evidence that any UFO encounter is caused by alien visitors
or spacecraft and no support for the idea that the powers that be are
covering up anything much beyond their own ignorance as to the cause of
the residue of unsolved cases."

- - -
Many online resources detail parts of the UFO story:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation details reports on UFOs and cattle
mutilations, Majestic 12 and Roswell.

Several UFO reports are published by the British Ministry of Defence.

The French National Space Studies Center has posted 1,600 UFO reports.

Project Blue Book Archive attempts to put all of the USAF's files
online.