I’ve
been working on a new book and I was chasing down stories of flying saucers,
flying discs, seen prior to June 24, 1947. Sure there are some, but all, or
almost all, seem to have been reported after Kenneth Arnold’s story appeared in
newspapers.
One
of the best of these, reported in many sources, came from Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
and according to one document, “Thus neither of those sightings [one from El
Paso, Texas and one from Wapakoneta, Oregon] made the papers before Arnold’s
account, but one story was actually reported to newspapers on the 23rd.
The tale came from a railroad engineer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. As he was
climbing off his engine, he observed ten shiny disc-shaped objects flying in a
string-like formation, ‘like wild geese.’ The six line story it generated
produced little attention at the time.” The source of this, according to the
footnote, was a speech given by Frank Edwards in April, 1956.
I
have found references to it in other publications. Richard Hall, in his 1964
book, The UFO Evidence, lists it in
two places, Section XI, page 129 and Section XII, page 152. Neither supplies
much in the way of information. It is basically a recap of this other story and
in neither place is there a source.
An
Internet site listed Ted Bloecher’s The
Report on the UFO Wave of 1947 as a source, but I was unable to find it
there. If it is, I would hope that someone would point it out to me, but I
don’t think they’ll find it. Bloecher used newspaper files for his
documentation and so, if he didn’t find it in a newspaper, it was probably not
published anywhere.
Now
I was reading, the other day, a criticism of a UFO book, and it was suggested
that primary sources were the best. Not witness testimony, but something that
had been written down, such as a newspaper article or military document created
at the time. If nothing else, that article could help establish the credibility
of the sighting. Someone quoting another book would not be a primary source… it
might be a secondary source, but might be even further removed from the primary
source.
So,
rather than quote those other books, rather than make a list of Internet and
web sites that quoted the story, I thought about looking in the Cedar Rapids
newspapers to find the original story. In June 1947, there were two newspapers
in Cedar Rapids, The Cedar Rapids Gazette
and the Cedar Rapids Tribune.
I
carefully read the Gazette for June
23 and did not find the story. I went through the issue twice. I looked on June
24 but it was not there either. Nor was it there on the 25th, 26th,
or 27th. Of course, if printed after June 24, it was just another of
the many cases that surfaced after Arnold’s report hit the national circuit. Yes, I did find the Arnold story in the Gazette and thought the engineer story
might be appended to it, but it was not.
The Tribune was not a daily paper and did
not have an issue on June 23. I looked at several issues, but they didn’t even
carry any flying disc reports. The newspaper was more geared to the local area.
And
I was even allowed to search the library’s database for the newspaper articles.
It wasn’t there, but then, I was told that they missed things in preparing the
database. That it wasn’t there didn’t mean anything other than it wasn’t there.
When appended to the other failed searches, that information becomes more significant.
While
this sighting, if published on June 23, or even on June 24, would have been an
important contribution to the UFO history, I was unable to find any documentation
for it prior to Edwards’ 1956 speech. It does not appear in the Cedar Rapids
newspapers, and I seriously doubt that any other newspaper would have carried
it. Just nothing there of interest for them in it.
There
is a school of thought that the case is listed in the Project Blue Book files,
but it is from the Des Moines, Iowa area, happened on June 29, and involved a
bus driver rather than a railroad engineer. But the details of the sighting are
a match. The story was reported on July 8. If this is the right case, then it
does nothing for us. It is just another of those sightings made after Arnold,
reported after Arnold, and involves a single witness. The Air Force wrote it
off as coming from an unreliable source.
I
really wanted to document the details of the Cedar Rapids case, but simply could
not do it. This is another “sighting” that should be removed from the various listings
and databases. I don’t know how Edwards got it so twisted around, but I do know
he didn’t get it from a newspaper in Cedar Rapids.
112 comments:
Very nice job, Kevin. Thanks!
Lance
Kevin, I don't know the source for this info. Perhaps, the SHG, from the abbreviation NIOF (not in official files).
Listed as #15, 19 June, Night, CST 0400.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Back yard of home
Witness R. D. Taylor
Eight or Ten discs lighted from within.
3 times size of moon
Same as #24?
Here's #24
23 June, Iowa Cedar Rapids, unidentified man, Railway engineer,
Ten discs, line formation, shiny
Fluttered and banked, flew along in a string.
Regards,
Don
It is from Bloecher's report, as found on the NICAP site
http://nicap.org/waves/Wave47Rpt/ReportUFOWave1947_TOC.htm#Vtrms
Case Chronology (Seperate pdf file)
Regards,
Don
The Cedar Rapids report is cited:
"Flying Saucer Story Grows," The (Portland) Oregonian, 28 June 1947
In Alfred Loedding and the Great Flying Saucer Wave of 1947.
Good luck with the new book.
Regards,
Don
Misread the cite:
Des Moines, Iowa, Register, 8 July 1947
Sorry for filling up the blog.
Regards,
Don
I may have one but I will check if the local papers have a reference to it.
A friend of mine who died a couple years ago once told me the story of a sighting she had in either 1944 or 45.
She dated the story by the fact that she was working the late shift at a War Plant and was on the last bus leaving the plant toward home when the driver stopped the bus to watch a glowing "washer" shaped object fly from north to south over the highway.
I hate using the micro-phish readers at the library but I'll take a look and post what I find.
Don -
I have found nothing in the Cedar Rapids newspapers to support these early stories. You see how this story seems to have evolved to the June 23 story, which does not appear in the newspapers.
The Des Moines story as I noted, might be a corruption of the Cedar Rapids story. It appeared in a newspaper on July 8. The Project Blue Book file lists it as happening on June 29.
The point is that none of this can be documented prior to Arnold...
Sarge -
There are many sightings documented in the early 1940s including the Foo Fighters and later the Ghost Rockets. There is an interception in England in January 1947, but the documentation I have has no date on it.
Anyway, thanks to you both for the information.
Kevin,
If it wasn't in a local paper, but got on the wires, it may have been called in by a reporter or editor, yet not published locally. If that was the case, then I ask 'why'.
Cedar Rapids had a population in '47 between 50k-60k. One can search the city directories for names. There may not be many R. D. Taylors, and if our Taylor was male, we can eliminate women's names.
There was one man in Cedar Rapids who was known by his initials "R. D.", Robert D. Taylor, a well known businessman in Linn County, but he wasn't a "railway engineer", but if that comes from a 'corruption' of the original story, then maybe this R. D. Taylor is the one:
http://iagenweb.org/linn/bios/t.htm
He was well known locally, and perhaps the newspapers may have decided to not run with the story, but it got out on the wires anyway. If it was him, his family is easy to trace. He was 79 in 1947, and died in 1952.
Just guessing, here.
Regards,
Don
Sarge,
If you could email me (don) at foreshadower.net. I'm interested in an aspect of your friend's story.
Regards,
Don
Don -
I fear you miss the point. I have found many sightings made prior to Arnold, but none of them documented until after Arnold. Searching out Taylors today, who may or may not be related to the guy does not provide that documentation.
You cite Hall and Connors' book on Loedding, but fail to mention their footnote identified the source as Frank Edwaards in 1956. Now, given what I found, including Dick Hall's UFO Evidence, I could have cited those works and been done with it. I looked for the original source, one that predated Arnold and have not found it.
The best cases from 1947 that predate Arnold seem to be the attempted intercept over England by American fighters, and the weather bureau sightings in Richmond, Virginia in April. The documentation for the former is weak and for the latter seems to be some weather bureau records that I have not seen.
But, again, the point was we have various sources claiming this June 23 publication for a sighting and I have been unable to document it. Without that documentation, it is just another sighting and one that is not all that interesting.
Kevin,
"But, again, the point was we have various sources claiming this June 23 publication for a sighting and I have been unable to document it. Without that documentation, it is just another sighting and one that is not all that interesting."
Where did the information in the two listings in the Sighting Grid come from? Case #33 is another "railway engineer", who sighted nine disks on the 24th. Maybe that's where the June 23 Cedar Rapids one comes from -- a conflation of data from Cases 33 and 15. So, there wouldn't be a local Cedar Rapids news story about a sighting on June 23.
Regards,
Don
Kevin: "I fear you miss the point. I have found many sightings made prior to Arnold, but none of them documented until after Arnold."
So? What qualifies as a "sighting" here? There are plenty of reports of anomalies in the sky before Arnold. One of the best reports ever is from the NYT 8/9/21, and very interesting, at least in an historical sense for ufology, is the San Diego 10/14/46 report.
So, Edwards patchwork sighting never happened. However, the incident itself is still to be accounted for, which is the one reported by the Des Moines Register -- that is my point, and yes, Kevin, I understand yours.
You're in Cedar Rapids, so I assume you've checked out the actual story, the R D Taylor one, and can say if it was reported before Arnold. I assume it was not.
What makes a pre-Arnold report an Arnold-type sighting? Does it have to have been reported in the newspapers? Obviously, it won't be about flying discs or saucers. If I were searching for them, newspapers wouldn't be at the top of the list of sources.
Regards,
Don
Don -
First, we have a sighting reported on June 23, and others have made a big deal out of it being made prior to Arnold. There is no documentation to support this.
Second, it was interesting because the skeptics have said that it was the misunderstood term, "flying saucer" that gave rise to all the flying disks, so a report of a saucer-shaped craft, or disk, documented prior to Arnold is important because it destroys that theory.
Third, we all can look at the Project Blue Book files and see a dozen or so reports made in May and June that precede Arnold but are not documented until after Arnold.
Fourth, a sighting report, such as the June 23 sighting does nothing to advance our knowledge of the phenomenon. If we had documentation, it would be highly significant.
Fifth, no it doesn't have to be reported in the newspapers, though a sighting there can certainly be documented. A government document would do... the Richmond, Virginia sightings in April 1947 were apparently documented in weather bureau records.
So, on this very narrow point, I was looking for the documentation of the June 23 date. As I mentioned, the Loedding book cited a 1956 speech by Edwards. Now I could cite all those other references that mention it, including Robert Loftin's Identified Flying Saucers, page 153, but that is not an original source either.
Where we are is that there is no documentation for this sighting prior to Arnold. With that, the sighting becomes just another in a long list of insignificant reports. Little detail, short duration, and of little use.
Finally, I have no documentation that any of the Iowa sightings were reported before Arnold.
Part I
Kevin, thanks for the long reply.
I am not impressed by the skeptical opinions about 'flying saucer'.
The reason I am interested in Sarge's story (above) was the description "washer". I've been looking for such a description -- 'saucer', 'washer', 'spacer', 'shim' can mean the same thing. I suspect it was Arnold's meaning, rather than crockery. One can find the term 'saucer' used in technical drawings of machinery in places where (at least in my neighborhood) the word 'washer' or 'spacer' might be used. They aren't always round, either.
"Flying saucer" was a common term on the sports page, at least in the first half of the 20th. Hockey pucks and skeets were very often referred to as "flying saucers", and as we know, Arnold was a sports fan and intended a career in football. He was also 'mechanically inclined', at least in regards to his airplane. It is easy to see how 'saucer' and 'flying saucer' came into common use for UFOs.
'Disk' and 'saucer' are synonyms. Arnold's "saucer" was not about skipping crockery across ponds, but something disk-like.
The 23 June story is I think a zombie sighting, kludged by Edwards out of the Taylor and Kastl stories. That it seems to be everywhere is just more evidence that bad data propagates more easily than good. Why I don't know.
The www is proof of Sturgeon's Law.
I think the Minczewski sighting in April 1947 is a well-documented disk before Arnold. The account is in Bloecher, and it is also the first incident in the AF/Navy Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the U.S. It was never publicized. It appears a report was made from the Weather Bureau station to the AAF by the observer's supervisor. Minczewski didn't know anyone knew about it until McDonald contacted him. I don't think we know whether Minczewski used the word 'disc' to his supervisor, but it was a description of a disc, without doubt.
"Now I was reading, the other day, a criticism of a UFO book, and it was suggested that primary sources were the best. Not witness testimony, but something that had been written down, such as a newspaper article or military document created at the time."
I take a slightly different approach. Rather than
attempting to extract "facts" from a contemporary document,
I look at the document itself as the undeniable fact.
In Case 15, Taylor, we do have a document, which I have not seen, the Des Moines Register, July 8, 1947. This is what is said it contains:
"On the night of the 19th, from his back yard, R.D. Taylor spotted eight to ten discs which were lighted from within as they zoomed over Cedar Rapids, Iowa." (Hall & Connor). I don't know if this is the full text from DRM
cont.
Regards,
Don
Part II
How did the DMR get this Cedar Rapids story? Taylor was a public figure; it is possible he might have told a DMR reporter or editor, or it might have been published elsewhere, So, the fact that it is in a July 8 newspaper doesn't mean it was first known on that date. There are still odds it might be pre-Arnold.
Was it in a Cedar Rapid newspaper? Then we would have the likely date of origin, and of course if it was post-June 24th, then we likely have an answer and can scratch it off the list of possible pre-Arnold 'saucer' type sightings.
If there is no newspaper? There would not be much ROI for me, here in Pittsburgh, to do research on non-newspaper documentation in Cedar Rapids on this case. One thing stands out, just poking around on the web, I could not find any R.D. Taylors in or associated with Cedar Rapids in 1947, except one. If I had a city directory from the mid-40s, I might find there are hundreds. But so far, at this distance, there is one. He is always referred to as R. D. Even his wife, in the society pages in Cedar Rapids, is always Mrs. R. D. Taylor.
I have an address for the Taylors on 4th Ave, although it is from the 1930s. If I had the directory and confirmed an address, I might drive by to see if it had a backyard.
Newspaper stories, especially these one or two sentence saucer stories, do not reveal how the newspaper got the story. Did the observer report it to the paper? That may be more common post-24 June, than before. But just how a story became public is rarely noted. That a story was published on July this or that, doesn't tell us when it was first collected.
We don't even know in most cases what the observer might have reported. I mean their actual words. Newspaper editors and reporters knew a disk or saucer story when they heard one, no matter what langauge the observer used. Did Lonnie Zamora report a flying saucer? No. The newspaper headlines, though, say he did. I actually had a skeptic tell me a few weeks ago on another blog that an observer said "flying disc" because 'flying disc' was in some newspaper's headline.
Regards,
Don
"Second, it was interesting because the skeptics have said that it was the misunderstood term, "flying saucer" that gave rise to all the flying disks, so a report of a saucer-shaped craft, or disk, documented prior to Arnold is important because it destroys that theory."
Last night I browsed a collection of Arnold AP news stories between June 26-30. The term "flying saucer" does not appear in the early accounts, although "pie pan" does. Some refer to "saucer-like" objects. One headline has "flying plate". No "flying saucer". These stories include the earliest reports of others reporting discs, with references in some to Arnold's sighting. Some report having seen discs before June 24. No observers or reporters and editors refer to "flying saucers".
One has to ask how these stories were developed, if the reporters got the Arnold story on the 25th (if they did), then they also got the other stories on either the 25th or 26th. One would have to review the observers local papers to see how the Arnold story was carried, if it was, and whether the local paper published the local accounts found in the AP stories. It seems unlikely to me, considering the short timeframe, but possible.
They may have heard the Arnold story on the radio, and that inspired them to make their reports. We don't know. I do not think Dr McDonald in Bloecher called any of those people.
There is no need to destroy the skeptics theory on this. It destroys itself.
Regards,
Don
Don,
You completely miss the point.
The idea (which I believe may have been first advanced by Marttin Kottmeyer) is that, even though Arnold did not see a flying saucer shaped craft, the news stories used the term and that shape became the predominant (but not the only) shape then seen for UFO reports. After the news story, Arnold's half-moon shaped craft were left behind.
It is an indication that the "phenomena" may have a strong psychological component, which is basically what skeptics argue.
Hope this helps,
Lance
I'm a noob to the UFO discussion, but didn't Arnold's description of what he saw morph over time, especially after he got involved with Ray Palmer? Also, I thought he originally said they were pie-pan shaped except for one that did have a different, boomerang or swallow-wing shape. I read - possibly in one of Kevin's books - that Arnold got excited by the Rhodes' photograph because it matched the one oddly shaped craft he saw.
Lance, if the above is correct (and I know my memory is sometimes suspect), doesn't that put a crimp in the argument for a psychological component to 1947 sightings and those afterwards?
Wade is right and Lance is quoting incompletely (about the half-moon shape without the detail Arnold added to this). Arnold's initial object description/quotes from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold_UFO_sighting
"In a surviving recorded radio interview from June 25, Arnold described them as looking 'something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear.' His motion descriptions were: "I noticed to the left of me a chain which looked to me like the tail of a Chinese kite, kind of weaving... they seemed to flip and flash in the sun, just like a mirror... they seemed to kind of weave in and out right above the mountaintops..." [9]
Subsequent quotes
"The following day (June 26) were the following quotations attributed to Arnold: [10]
"United Press: 'They were shaped like saucers and were so thin I could barely see them..."
"Associated Press: 'He said they were bright, saucer-like objects--he called them 'aircraft'. ...He also described the objects as ‘saucer-like’ and their motion 'like a fish flipping in the sun.’ ...Arnold described the objects as 'flat like a pie pan'."
"Chicago Tribune: "They were silvery and shiny and seemed to be shaped like a pie plate.... I am sure they were separate units because they weaved in flight like the tail of a kite."
"On June 27 was the following quotation:
"Portland Oregon Journal: 'They were half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear. ...There were no bulges or cowlings; they looked like a big flat disk.’"
So not exactly half-moon shaped, but "oval in front and convex in the rear", also "something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear." (direct quote from recording).
Even more Arnold quotes from UFO Updates:
http://ufoupdateslist.com/1999/mar/m17-009.shtml
And if there was any doubt about it, this was Arnold's own drawing of the more saucer-like objects, from his report to AAF intelligence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arnold_AAF_drawing.jpg
It was only later that month, during Arnold looking into Maury Island, that he added the one, larger, crescent-shaped object.
Lance wrote:
"Don,
You completely miss the point.
The idea (which I believe may have been first advanced by Marttin Kottmeyer) is that, even though Arnold did not see a flying saucer shaped craft, the news stories used the term and that shape became the predominant (but not the only) shape then seen for UFO reports. After the news story, Arnold's half-moon shaped craft were left behind."
My point is it depends on the case, and in most cases, at least in 1947, we do not have good information so that we can conclude much of anything about many of the stories.
As I wrote above, editors and reporters knew a flying saucer story when they heard one no matter what the observer might have said. That's why I mentioned the Socorro headline which read that Zamora reported a "flying saucer". It is also why I referred to the comment to my statement that Brazel was never quoted saying "flying" anything. I was 'refuted' because of a headline 'Rancher Finds Flying Disk' -- at least in the mind of one pseudo-skeptic.
Arnold did modify over time his impressions of the shapes of the objects. But in terms of what was in the newspapers about his sighting at the begining, that was "saucer-like" (The June 25, 1947 issue of the Pendleton (Oregon) East Oregonian), and that was it, not crescent or anything else specific, not even pie pan. And it is this original series of sightings, whose observers only had heard these earliest stories -- and that includes most of the 'I saw one before Arnold' stories.
Pick a case. How did it get to the wire service? Did the observer call the newspaper? Did a reporter hear about it somewhere? What Arnold story was carried by the local paper the observer might have read? Or did he hear it on the radio? Or, like Brazel, did he hear about the saucers from a relative? Nobody knows, and at this remove, nobody ever will.
Starting with "saucer-like objects", "flat objects", we see the descriptions develop "pie pan", "platter", in other words what is commonly called disk-shaped, saucer-shaped, washer-shaped etc. There is no specificity of shape,
and I do not think one should read these accounts as if the observer was offering a forensic description.
Then there is the issue of the "Use Mention Distinction", and that is important in how one understands a statement.
Then there is the issue that disc, saucer, spacer, washer as used does not, alas, refer to a fixed specification of shape. There is no 'spec' to which everyone refers when they use the words.
The skeptics got it easy.
Regards,
Don
Dr. Rudiak's more fulsome account of Arnold's description is correct, I think. But it also underlines the skeptical point. Pretending that those shapes (Arnold did change his description over time--a time-honored tradition of all great UFO witnesses!) correspond to the prototypical flying saucer shape is silly but I suppose people can make their own choice. By all means click on the link Dr. Rudiak provides and then convince yourself that this is a flying saucer shape.
Wade, Dr. Rudiak says you are right (and complains that I didn't make a full description) yet the real description of a half circle with a triangle is hardly the same as a pie pan shape. None of Arnold's descriptions were of something fully round like a what has come to be known as a flying saucer.
We have sadly gone over this all before.
Best,
Lance
Lance: "None of Arnold's descriptions were of something fully round like a what has come to be known as a flying saucer."
If that's all you mean, then I don't think anyone will disagree. The Adamski saucer, the Hollywood saucer, the saucers in all the fake photos of the 50s and 60s. The iconic flying saucer. Then, there's the dome. The Space Brothers required one, the disk itself being so thin -- living quarters, and lounges to entertain earthlings. And portholes.
But the subject here -- kinda -- is reports of sightings made before Arnold. Most of them were reported two or three days after Arnold. I don't know what saucer shape has to do with that, except to claim they were copycatting Arnold, or in this kinder gentler era, psychosocially predisposed to support whatever it pleases the theorist to imagine is true.
Regards,
Don
Well, Lance, we went into this before and you used the same sort of simplistic semantic argument:
http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/10/where-have-ufos-gone.html
The FACT is, ALL sorts of shapes were being described by witnesses and all sorts of metaphors for similar shapes. Here is Ted Bloecher's listing of his cases with shape descriptions:
http://nicap.org/waves/Wave47Rpt/SightingChronology.pdf
Even if they were describing something "saucer-like" or "disc-like", witnesses might use other descriptions, such as oval, round, sphere, ball, elliptical, like small moon, etc., but also half-moon, disc--almost round, round--irregular object, base-ball mitt, cake pan, umbrella, disc with two dark bands, coin-shaped, like pancake, disc with black spot in center or hole, tortilla-shaped, balloon-like, saucepan, like manhole covers, inverted plate, etc.
And there are many other shapes: light bulb, fireball, comet-like, flame-like, bolide-like, like a falling star, flare-like, crescent, heel-shaped, cigar, cylinder, stovepipe, exclamation-point, like sky rocket, triangle, kite-like, washtub, straw-hat-like, cone-shaped, lampshade, like parachute, football, oblong-shaped, etc., etc., etc.
So historical reality absolutely disproves the simple-minded, psycho-social hypothesis that witnesses only saw and reported "saucers" or "discs" because of some supposed "meme" created by the press.
Lance, Kevin's point was:
"Now I was reading, the other day, a criticism of a UFO book, and it was suggested that primary sources were the best. Not witness testimony, but something that had been written down, such as a newspaper article or military document created at the time."
and
"Second, it was interesting because the skeptics have said that it was the misunderstood term, "flying saucer" that gave rise to all the flying disks, so a report of a saucer-shaped craft, or disk, documented prior to Arnold is important because it destroys that theory."
To which I replied the Minczewski sighting in April 1947 is a well-documented disk before Arnold. So, the theory is 'destroyed' already.
The specific case referred to, though, is a zombie, a patchwork put together by Frank Edwards out of the Taylor and Kastl accounts. Those two accounts refer to pre-Arnold sightings. However, they are in the news after Arnold. My point on that is, that may be, but, in short, there hasn't been any research done on those cases, so we don't know really when they were first known -- and perhaps documented just somewhere not in a newspaper. And I agree with Kevin that the ROI on doing the research is not guaranteed. They may not even be needles in haystacks; there may be no needles in those haystacks at all.
But no matter, we have documentation of a pre-Arnold disk sighting, which is not date-stamped pre-Arnold, but was never made public, but held close by the AF. If the skeptics were convinced by documentation, they wouldn't raise the issue anymore. But they do, so one might as well ignore their requirements for evidence since they ignore the evidence.
If you read the news stories you will find the newsmen recognized these early accounts' relationship to Arnold's sighting, but it wasn't the shape that got their attention. It was the number. If I thought skeptics read the stories, I'd have to wonder why they don't mention that.
Regards,
Don
Don -
Actually the point here was that a case that had been used by a number of writers and researchers to prove a pre-Arnold discussion does not seem to exist. The claim was that it was published on June 23, 1947, and I have been unable to confirm that. Instead we talk of pre-Arnold cases that were not published until after Arnold and for me that is problematic. I want documentation to precede Arnold.
I am aware of all those other cases, including those in Blue Book, but again, they all appeared after Arnold... and who is to say that their descriptions weren't influenced by all the talk of flying disks.
The Minczewski is not well-documented, but there does seem to be some documentation that appears before Arnold and does suggest a disk shape before Arnold.
But my point for this posting was that the June 23, 1947 case that has been used by others as having been published prior to Arnold does not exist... until after Arnold. It seems that everyone took Edwards at his word and didn't bother to find the original source... and given that nearly all of us are working with limited funds supplied by ourselves, that isn't surprising, though in today's world of the Internet, that excuse is losing viability.
Dr. Rudiak,
Can you point out where I said that "only" saucers were reported?
I do say above specifically "not only".
Does it ever occur to you to simply argue fairly or do you you ALWAYS.decide to twist or simply fabricate to make your points? I'm sure that you imagine you are doing good for your religion but is everything about your saucer Jesus based on these same tactics?
Thanks,
Lance
Here is a link to Martin Kottmeyer's original 1993 story.
http://www.debunker.com/texts/SaucerError.html
One hilarious aspect of this that I forgot is that it was UFOlogists (including Jacobs and Hynek) who first made the case that the preponderance of saucers indicated that the phenomena were real! They argued that the somewhat homogenous shape was evidence for, not against, UFOs.
Here, of course we see the exact opposite argument!
This UFOology is some science! Every argument supports the hypothesis!
The bottom line is that no matter what OMG! Aliens!
Lance
Lance: "The bottom line is that no matter what OMG! Aliens!"
Well, it's about time. If the first comment had been Chris Allen's rather than yours we would have had the skeptic's version of Godwin's Law (or, Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies) concession speech at the beginning. This is the umpteenth time in a non-ET UFO discussion, that it is the skeptics who bring up ET. Can't keep it zipped up, can you?
As the non-ETH'r here, let me be the first to accept your concession.
***
@Kevin: Despite the internet, beyond newspaper stories or other documents that are likely to be online, such as government records (local, state, federal), research becomes intensely local. Rarely, one has some luck (for example, locally, Robert Goerman finding "Carlos Allende"), but most often it's a blank.
Minczewski is not "well documented" as in we have a dated document prior to Arnold. Such a document would be welcome, but it is not required in the real world -- it is pointless to adhere to the requirements of skeptics. They will simply move the goalposts.
In their terms, the whole discussion is nonsense because we have no corroboration that Arnold saw anything on the 24th except his word. And if some reporter had poked around Yakima, or if later a ufologist did, and if they found someone Arnold had chatted with about the sighting on the 24th, the skeptics still wouldn't be satisfied. If the witness pulled out his diary with a note about it, dated the 24th, and had a photo he had taken of him and Arnold at the time, they still wouldn't accept it.
With Arnold, we have not advanced on CIC SA Brown's opinion in his report on interviewing Arnold.
***
@Wade: Capt. Davidson and Lt. Brown did not show Arnold the Rhodes' photos in Tacoma. Davidson drew the object in the photos for Arnold. Soon after, Arnold was given prints either by Lt. Col. Donald L. Springer or at his order (I find this inexplicable). In the Spring 1948 issue of Fate Magazine, Arnold's reproduction of Davidson's drawing can be found. It is the batwing shape.
I have no problem with Arnold "changing" his story. His impression of the event developed over time. In the early 50's for example, he questioned whether he saw reflections and thought it might have been internal lighting, a pulsation synced to the flipping or swooping of the objects.
Ray Palmer had nothing to do with it, but Brown, Davidson, and Springer did. In April 1949, in his review of the Project Sign cases, J. Allen Hynek also made the connection between the Arnold and Rhodes cases, although I do not think Arnold knew it.
I think his sighting in California in 1952 probably was more significant to him, than Mt Ranier in 1947.
A side note: Ray Palmer is underrated by ufologists.
Regards,
Don
Don,
UFO buffs, for the most part, do mean aliens whenever they discuss flying saucers. There's no real point in pretending differently--my post wasn't addressed to just you.
Nice sidestep past the real issue (why address the facts when you can pontificate about the style) that the UFO buffs make the argument both ways:
Flying saucers are the predominate shape of UFO's.
and (hilariously)
Flying Saucers are not the predominate shape of UFO's.
Yeah, skeptics are the ones you ought to complain about when it comes to searching for the truth, huh?
Lance
Lance: "Yeah, skeptics are the ones you ought to complain about when it comes to searching for the truth, huh?"
In this discussion, it doesn't matter whether someone believes UFOs, or some UFOs, are ET, and other participants do not. The subject is open to anyone, no matter their opinion about ET.
Constantly interjecting one's opinion about ET in a non-ET discussion because some of the participants are ET advocates, is just weird.
Nobody knows what are the predominant shapes of UFOs, because nobody has vetted the information. Nobody can. Various attempts have been made for at least the best documented (basically, PBB), but I am not satisfied, and I see no odds of being satisfied.
Kottmeyer is unimpressive. He is glib and superficial, and gives no evidence at all that he's actually done any work.
The 'weight' of Kottmeyer's article is feather-light, but I think it would take more work to respond to such crap than it took Kottmeyer to produce it. And I think that is true of every skeptic's criticism I've read. Although, I'll admit it may have a pedagogical value, as a test for noobs to UFOs.
That's why I recommend ETHrs ignore the skeptics. Why feed the vampire? They're just burning calories.
Regards,
Don
Well, you can't be asked to deign to make any actual arguments...it seems so easy to just say you are unimpressed and leave it there.
Such is enough for the zealot.
Lance
Lance: "Well, you can't be asked to deign to make any actual arguments...it seems so easy to just say you are unimpressed and leave it there."
I will make it as simple as I can for you:
Kottmeyer has no data
Regards,
Don
A UFO skeptic's facile debate rhetoric nearly always requires the key words and phrases at issue have only one meaning or definition -- the one the skeptic needs to make his points. In this case 'saucer'. Thus, when someone said "saucer" during the 47 Wave, they meant exactly the skeptic's definition, even if they had said something else.
The skeptic can set up his argument by grabbing a few quotations out of context and insisting on his definition or meaning being the only rational one -- and apparently self-evident. Disagreeing with him, only means you are an irrational zealot who is deliberately fuzzing the issue in order make room for inserting "ET". They cribbed this from the atheists' handbooks.
Kottmeyer performs some time-travel. He has to quietly segue from the summer of 1947 to the 1950s, when we do find a plethora of domed perfectly circular saucers being described or photographed, in order to find evidence for his argument. Not so long ago on this blog, Lance and I had a long and detailed discussion of the descriptions of saucers in 1947. I did not find one perfectly circular and domed saucer. Maybe some of them were, but you could not get that from the observer's descriptions (since then I did find one observer's description that included the word 'dome', but no indication of size, which means it might be another word for cockpit or canopy, or some other relatively small protuberance).
Kottmeyer is correct that it was the undulations rather than the shape that was of interest to Arnold -- the "motion". But that is true for those whose sightings were immediately reported after Arnold. None I've found make an issue of "shape".
Editors were interested in the speed and the number because that makes good copy. They would want quotes from the observers about speed and number. Yet many of the observers highlighted the "motion", rather than anything about perfectly circular shapes.
In order to get to the saucer descriptions Kottmeyer refers to, one has to wait for Adamski, and Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the 1951 saucer in The Day The Earth Stood Still, with the intention of it having a shape that looked "organic". But by then, it wasn't only Roswell that was forgotten but the Wave itself. Arnold would be recalled on June 24s, as a kind of anniversary, in those 'ten years ago, fifteen years ago in the news' squibs.
And now I've put in more work than it appears Kottmeyer did.
Regards,
Don
Circular and domed is Don's own criteria. Flying saucer, for me and, I suspect, most non-UFO zealots, simply means round disk-like craft. Don's pedantic and self-satisfied definition doesn't apply anywhere except his own mind.
UFO buffs make up their own ways of denying the plain truth in front them: the dearth of evidence, the suspiciously jealous nature of the phenomena, the poor scholarship of the "researchers".
If anyone (without a closed mind) is interested, please have a look at the project Bluebook files for 1947 . As you will see, when a shape is defined (as opposed to lights in sky type accounts, etc.), it is most often disk shaped.
Don's pedantic, biased view doesn't take into account that the exact shape doesn't matter in regards to the basic idea of the socio-psycho explanation for SOME (watch how long it takes the zealots to claim that I said "all") part of the UFO story.
That the shape became more and more codified (as Don outlines) over time is support for the idea as well. It's amazing that he cant understand that from the veil of his UFO-befuddled worldview.
http://www.bluebookarchive.org/browse.aspx
Best,
Lance
UFO skeptics make up their own ways of denying the plain truth in front them: the dearth of evidence for their psycho-social explanations, the suspiciously post-hoc nature of their explanations, the poor scholarship of their "researchers".
Sure Larry,
It must be great to be standing on high ground with the support of science, a robust set of clear data, and a falsifiable hypothesis.
Oh wait...
Lance
Oh and this was cute:
"the suspiciously post-hoc nature of their explanations"
How can any discussion of a phenomena that only exists as anecdotes be anything other than post-hoc.
I have never seen a saucer zealot explain why, with the proliferation of cameras throughout society in unimaginable and ever increasing ubiquity, we still have NEVER caught one of their clear daylight disks on multiple independent video cameras.
The UFO mythology tells us that the things are flitting all over the place, much more common than airline crashes, for instance (and for which we have good video in multiple cases)
But somehow never, never ANY convincing multiple source clear videos of the sacred saucers.
That this doesn't concern in the least the pious believer is another sign of the religious rather than objective nature of the mythology.
That the "phenomena" changes so that it is never testable is a classic sign of pseudoscience and it's why scientists aren't the least bit interested in Saucer Jesus.
Lance
Lance: "Circular and domed is Don's own criteria. Flying saucer, for me and, I suspect, most non-UFO zealots, simply means round disk-like craft. Don's pedantic and self-satisfied definition doesn't apply anywhere except his own mind."
The subject isn't you or me, but Kottmeyer. He's the one who wrote:
"...the elegant alien geometric perfection we have come to know and mystify ourselves over."
and
"The phrase "flying saucers" provided the mold which shaped the UFO myth at its beginning. As time progressed people would draw them, looking as they sound like they look. They in turn shaped hoax photos and the imagery of films like The Flying Saucer and The Day the Earth Stood Still and dozens of alien invasion films and TV shows in the decades that followed."
You don't even recognize when I'm feeding Kottmeyer back to you. There is something you should be aware of: you aren't going to save Kottmeyer from me.
Let's take another look. Kottmeyer quotes Arnold from the 1977 UFO Congress, How It All Began. The quotations are accurate. But Kottmeyer is engaged in a project of anachronism by grandfathering UFOs post-1950 into the 1947 Wave.
He has no data, not one datum from 1947, to support his ideas, nor does he offer proof for what Arnold said Bequette wrote. But what is most interesting is his quotations from Arnold from 30 years later are not complete on the subject of "shape". From the same article:
"When they [the Mt Ranier saucers] gave off this flash they appeared to be completely round."
He also noted Emil Smith's sighting, noting Smith's were "circular" and his were "somehow crescent-shaped"...still "He described them as being very similar to what I had seen". Back in 1947, Arnold said, Smith's was the only other sighting besides his own that he had any confidence in. Also, back then, Arnold referred to the Mt Ranier objects as "saucers".
If you want to delve right in, look for Arnold's July 1947 press interview. There's enough there to deploy a saucer full of whup ass on Kottmeyer's 'one meaning only per word' simplemindedness.
Like you, Lance, Kottmeyer refuses to deal with the complexity and the nuances of people and their language, not to mention, like, what really happened and what people really said.
"Flying saucer, for me and, I suspect, most non-UFO zealots, simply means round disk-like craft."
You mean "saucer-like"? If so, why even bring up Kottmeyer? Don't you know what he wrote? Tsk.
But if you, like Kottmeyer, refer to
"...the elegant alien geometric perfection we have come to know and mystify ourselves over."
rather than "round disk-like craft"
Then you may want to familiarize yourself with Dr Gee's saucers. Just keep them out of the 47 Wave, for the sake of accuracy and historical veracity.
If you want to make yourself useful, why not attempt to figure out how Scully, GeBauer, and Newton came up with the "elegant alien geometric perfection we have come to know and mystify ourselves over."
Regards,
Don
And just to cut this short, Lance, Kottmeyer's only evidence is a piece by Arnold from 1977, 30 years after the events. He was wrong. Bequette didn't write 'flying saucer', and Arnold didn't say anything to Bequette about skipping a saucer across water. I recall 'flying saucer' first appears in the news towards the end of the month, maybe 29th or 30th.
Kottmeyer destroys his thesis as he writes it. And you prove, once again, that you are unfamiliar with the subjects under discussion.
Facts are facts, but Kottmeyer was ignorant of them, so what he wrote is crap.
Regards,
Don
For lack of time I shall merely suggest that some people need to catch up on their astronomy , exobiology and theoretical studies on interstellar transport. It is quite likely, although far from certain that advanced extraterrestrial civilisations exist. They idea that they can't get here from there is looking increasingly shaky.
I do find the idea that the ETH is a priori is matter for ridicule rather odd and inconsistent with the best estimates we have on these matters. That said, whilst there is quite good evidence within the UFO data set for at least one new phenomena (not from these cases in this discussion though) the question of its true nature can not yet be considered absolutely resolved.
The psychology and sociology of the inconsistency in mainstream positions on this (SETI is OK but they can't possibly be operating around here) is curious to say the least and frankly irrational . Unfortunately irrationality can cut both ways and some elements of pro UFO groups display behaviour every bit at pseudo religious in nature as the extreme sceptics.
Anthony,
As far as I am aware, skeptics are in full agreement with your first paragraph. I certainly think that there is a non-zero chance that there is life and maybe intelligent life out there.
But we (speaking in general from my knowledge of the skeptical position) cant' connect the lousy UFO evidence to the interstellar civilizations you mention.
So I think you misunderstand what skeptics are about.
The ETH is about flying saucers here not about theoretical civilizations out there.
Your last sentence perhaps betrays an unfortunate bias on your part.
Even considering that some skeptics have overreached on their explanations, been wrong, and rude (something I will certainly admit), do their transgressions really compare to the wild and wooly idiocy of the UFO movement in whole.
Have you even been to a UFO conference?
It's not skeptics holding back any scientific interest in the topic. It's the crap evidence and the religious certitude of the believers.
Even Kevin (who is one of the most rational UFO proponents) has stated that there is 'no doubt" about his space ship theory for the Roswell crash.
Having "no doubt" (especially considering the ragged and dubious evidence) isn't supportable. And it certainly isn't scientific.
Skeptics can't say that the ETH is definitely disproven. We can't have "no doubt. All we can say is the evidence is poor.
If you think that these two positions are equal intellectually then I will have to beg to differ.
Best,
Lance
Don,
Your entire reply shows a complete lack of understanding of the (quite simple) concept.
By approaching things from an absurdly pedantic manner, you miss the forest from the trees.
It doesn't matter in the least that "flying saucer" wasn't the exact term in Bequette's piece. That is what the public (and newspapers) immediately took from it.
I did want to mention that I don't think is correct to characterize Bequette as making an error (as Martin Kottmeyer does), Bequette didn't do it, it was all of the other newspapers reporting on the story.
But again, this is completely unimportant in relation to the theory.
Lance
Don says:
"I recall 'flying saucer' first appears in the news towards the end of the month, maybe 29th or 30th."
And you are totally wrong.
It happened immediately.
Chicago Sun June 26th, 1947
Headline: "Supersonic Flying Saucers Reported by Idaho Pilot".
Boise, Idaho Statesman June 27th, 1947
Headline:
Harassed Saucer-Sighter Would Like to Escape Fuss
PENDLETON. June 28 (UP) -- Kenneth Arnold said today he would like to get on one of his 1200-mile-an-hour "flying saucers," and escape from the furor caused by his story of mysterious aircraft flashing over southern Washington."
But will this error cause you even a moment of doubt. Of course not. It doesn't fit into the religion. Indeed, I fully expect another of your treatises, complaining about how no one (except presumedly you, of course) understands the news reports, etc.
Best,
Lance
Lance: "But will this error cause you even a moment of doubt. Of course not. It doesn't fit into the religion. Indeed, I fully expect another of your treatises, complaining about how no one (except presumedly you, of course) understands the news reports, etc."
I'm always grateful for accurate information, and since I have no investment in any "religion" or the opinion of any faction on the matter, being proven wrong is very very welcome. It means I won't face being proven wrong on the matter again.
Regards,
Don
Here is a titbit about the Arnold sighting that has me somewhat baffled:
In "The Coming of the Saucers", by Arnold and Palmer, Arnold relates that when he landed at Yakima at 4pm and told Al Baxter at the airport, Baxter brought in one of his helicopter pilots who said, after listening to Arnold's tale: "Ah it's just a flight of those guided missiles from Moses Lake". (p.13)
Were there any guided missiles flying in 1947? I seriously doubt it. The only ones I have ever heard of were from White Sands, and these were captured German V-2s, not "guided missiles", which are quite different. What WAS being flown from Moses Lake anyway?
So did this pilot know what he was talking about or not?
CDA, the helicopter pilot just might have been wrong about Moses Lake. Arnold, in the 1977 article Lance has introduced through Kottmeyer, Arnold notes the lack of evidence for guided missiles at Moses Lake, iirc.
The use of 'guided missile' did not get attached to the specific meaning that it did later on. This is also true of several 'space age' terms, such as 'satellite', which could have a very different meaning in the 1940s and early 50s than the one it got attached to after Sputnik.
I think the meaning to the guys at the Yakima field was a rocket or even many rockets whose performance was controlled by a technician at a console somewhere. Their understanding sort of foreshadows 'drones'.
I don't know if anyone researched Moses Lake. Whether 'guided missiles' or not, I think I'll see what units where stationed there in 47, if someone already hasn't
Regards,
Don
Now Lance, since your have shown that my recollection that: "I recall 'flying saucer' first appears in the news towards the end of the month, maybe 29th or 30th.", was incorrect, I wonder if you consider the same material as evidence Kottmeyer was wrong?
***
Harassed Saucer-Sighter Would Like to Escape Fuss
PENDLETON. June 28 (UP) -- Kenneth Arnold said today he would like to get on one of his 1200-mile-an-hour "flying saucers"...
***
Why is flying saucer in quotation marks? Is it a quotation? Who is being quoted? Kenneth Arnold? If that is so, the Kottmeyer is wrong because his source, Arnold's 30 year old memories was wrong, and Kottmeyer's research was poor because he didn't confirm Arnold's 1977 account with the one 30 years earlier.
And since Kottmeyer's narrative requires Arnold to have not said 'flying saucers', but for Bequette to have made that "mistake", and because there is still no evidence for Arnold's having said anything about skipping saucers, aren't you ready to withdraw Kottmeyer from this discussion?
And, if it is not a quote from Arnold or anyone else, then why is it in double quotation marks? What does it mean?
Regards,
Don
Hi Don,
Quotation marks have several uses. You are aware of the following, no?
From the Chicago manual of Style:
Quotation marks are often used to alert readers that a term is used in a nonstandard, ironic, or other special sense … [T]hey imply 'This is not my term,' or 'This is not how the term is usually applied.'
This seems to me the most likely usage of the novelty term especially since as far as I am aware no one (including all of the principals) has ever claimed that Arnold originated the term.
Best,
Lance
Lance: "Quotation marks have several uses. You are aware of the following, no?"
How often have I replied to you that you should take into consideration the Use Mention Distinction?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use-mention_distinction
That's why I'm "pedantic", and because the distinctions among 'use', 'mention', and quotations, direct and implied attributions, and recognizing and rooting out anachronisms often requires a "treatise" in order to derive the meanings from these scant texts.
At the origination is something someone said with all the 'gestures' of spoken language, but all we usually have is written language, often in the news story or military report genres of texts. Understanding how the gestures from one form communication is transcribed in another form, is, believe it or not, a rigorous discipline.
Regards,
Don
Hi Don,
Most of this is is simply common sense.
Using all of the skills you outline above, what can you determine about the issue above?
You often go over how important these skills are, etc, etc. I don't disagree with you up to a point.
But you never seem to voice any conclusions or new ideas.
Have you any?
Lance
Lance "Using all of the skills you outline above, what can you determine about the issue above?"
The earliest stories I have from Pendleton, AP June 25 on the dateline and have "saucer-like", not 'flying saucer', so these are later.
***
PENDLETON. June 28 (UP)
Kenneth Arnold said today he would like to get on one of his 1200-mile-an-hour "flying saucers"...
***
This is likely Dave Johnson.
It begins as a direct attribution to Arnold, but then has flying saucers in quotation marks within the attribution. By the end of the month 'flying saucer' was changing from a description of an object to a category of objects, rather than referring specifically to shape. We begin to see the use of double quotes in the text around the term, and in the headlines single quotes.
The Oregonian the same day has "flying saucers" in double quotes.
Thanks for them. I hadn't noticed they were earlier 'mentions' than I had thought, but the fact is the same: 'flying saucer' is becoming a category of object, no matter its shape. Eventually, 'ufo' would replace it because it doesn't imply a shape as 'saucer' does, nor had it acquired the crockery imagery that saucer had. I think that's why Arnold didn't own up to saying "saucer" and laid it on Bequette. Still looking for skipping saucers...
I'd say it wasn't a quotation, but an indication that Arnold's sighting was of the category of objects now (6/28) being called flying saucers...consider it one word flyingsaucer, rather than meaning a disc flying through the air, even if that is what it was.
***
Chicago Sun June 26th, 1947
Headline: "Supersonic Flying Saucers Reported by Idaho Pilot".
***
I think it is Bequette's original story or nearly so. Neither Bequette nor Arnold wrote the headline. In the story, there is Bequette's or Arnold's "saucer-like. I think it is just a not very good headline. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Regards,
Don
he sentence: Supersonic Flying Saucers Reported by Idaho Pilot.
Is 'flying' an adjective modifying the noun 'saucers', or is it part of a compound noun, 'flying saucers'?
In some languages one can invent compound nouns on the fly (maybe in German?) as one word, but in English that is uncommon. We often, instead, go through decades by adding the gesture of a 'dash', for example, 'fire-fly'. With familiarity over time, the 'dash' will vanish, and we will write 'firefly'.
So, we have a grammatical issue with the sentence. What is the noun, 'saucers' or 'flying saucers'? If it is the first, then the headline writer piled some adjectives on the noun 'saucers', not uncommon in headline writing.
Considering other examples of the time, quotations, double or single, are placed around 'flying saucer', indicating the phrase shoud be read as a compound noun.
Regards,
Don
Lance: "But you never seem to voice any conclusions or new ideas."
Have you any?"
The question is would you recognize them.
Since you haven't said you are withdrawing Kottmeyer from this discussion, let's look at the problem (besides his too glib use of Arnold re "shape") I think it has, anachronism.
Is there a continuity between the 47 Wave and what would come later? Kottmeyer assumes it. I want his proof. He doesn't present any. Apparently, it is self-evident to him (and you), but not me. Instead I see a break, and more than a break -- a chasm, 1950-1952. During that time, separating the 47 Wave from what came after it, is the origin Kottmeyer wants, not 1947.
After Keyhoe, after Scully, after the reestablishment of Project Saucer, after the public Project Saucer reports, after The Day The Earth Stood Still, after the big magazines, after Pearson, Winchell, Lawrence, Considine, after Edward R Murrow, and especially after the Washington DC flap -- after all that publicity, that intense penetration of the public awareness, I don't think 1947 -- had it been remembered -- woulda amounted to a hill of beans -- as far as socialpsychologically-minded interests go.
1947 was done gone, Lance, except for Ray Palmer now and then.
Is that a "new idea" or a "conclusion"? You tell me. I don't know. Is it important that I have such ideas or reach such conclusions? I aim to please, but some things have a price.
Regards,
Don
Don,
Yes, I see a continuity of pretty much the same thing from 1947 on. The flaps increase the reports but it all seems to be the same thing (slightly mutating according to vagaries and media contamination).
Are you saying there is a clear difference between 1947 and all that follows?
This is an interesting idea.
Is there anything that demonstrates it more fully?
I went back and reread the Kottmeyer piece (I am a big fan of him and think he is one of the best skeptical writers) and I just don't see what you object to. The idea is simple AND as I mentioned, the basic details were also espoused by people like Hynek (for another purpose to be sure).
Best,
Lance
Lance, it is likely I'll get more criticism from ET advocates than skeptics on this.
"Is there anything that demonstrates it more fully?"
One should be obvious to ET skeptics. In the 47 Wave, there was no mapping of 'ET' to the flying saucers. That came later during 1950-1952, after which the saucers, or soon 'UFO', meant 'from outer space' to just about everybody.
In 1947 anything approximating the ETH could be found among stray Forteans and the occultists expecially associated with Meade Layne. There was one local reporter on a small Texas newspaper who wrote on the subject. I haven't found anyone else.
But a special mention should go to the USAF for being the first to propose the ETH regarding the saucers.
Regards,
Don
Yes, I am aware of all the above. You outline what I believe to be a natural progression. The further along things went, the more little green men began to be discussed but I don't think it was 3 years coming. I think it was almost immediate.
And I would be flabbergasted if I couldn't prove it. Are you saying that one will not find mention of aliens prior to 1950 in mainstream media?
Don, I really do try to understand what you are saying (even after the vampire comment above) but frankly, you seem to mainly be outlining common sense and inplying some sort fantastic insight which you never seem to quite get around to mentioning.
Best,
Lance Moody
Lance: "Are you saying that one will not find mention of aliens prior to 1950 in mainstream media?"
What I wrote was
"In the 47 Wave, there was no mapping of 'ET' to the flying saucers. That came later during 1950-1952, after which the saucers, or soon 'UFO', meant 'from outer space' to just about everybody."
I listed the few exceptions. You can add Hal Boyle to that short list, if you like.
"I don't think it was 3 years coming. I think it was almost immediate."
Yet for all those decades of pulp magazine covers before 1947, it is not hardly an exaggeration to say there was no connection made in the accounts between what was on those covers and what was reported in 47. No ET.
And no Hollywood studio exploited this supposed mass phenomena by making ET saucer movies until 1951, and no magazine (besides Fate) poked about for a story about saucers from outer space until late 1949, and no one wrote a book about the saucers from other planets until 1949-1950. And then came the rest of the story in 1952.
Where in 1947, Lance, are the "zealots"? 1948? 1949?
Besides the things I listed, what evidence do you have for an association of the saucers with ET during the 1947 wave?
Note, the problem with one (1) small town paper, and exotics like Forteans and occultists, is that they aren't nearly a representative sample of the average American in 1947. Neither is the Pentagon.
Regards,
Don
Lance: "you seem to mainly be outlining common sense and inplying some sort fantastic insight which you never seem to quite get around to mentioning."
First, thanks for the compliment about "outlining common sense". However, perhaps I've misled you about my having some "fantastic insight". What do you mean?
Regards,
Don
Hi Lance
Thanks for your reply to my ealier post. it really is very funny (although I don't think you were joking).
Not sure why attending a conference on anything should be taken as something terrible, but no I've never attended a UFO conference, nor a CSICOP event either, nor am I a member of any such organisation.
i prefere my evidence cold, rather than in the sort of emotion charged debate that sometimes occurrs on these pages but shall perhaps wait until we are discussing a case which allows the actual hard data to be brought out more fully for scutiny before going off into that. just for now - no I do not think the evidence for the ETH is conclusive at this time. Yes, I do think the evidence is good enough to suggest there may (but not with certainty) be one or more new phenomena involved and I concurr with the view that GEIPAN, CEEFA etc take that the ETH can not be excluded at this time.
Hi Anthony,
I wasn't trying to offend.
I was only asking if you had attended a UFO conference because it is there that you can see the full breadth of lunacy that makes up the UFO "movement" in whole.
Even taking the worst of skepticism (both real and as imagined by UFO buffs), I don't think the two sides are in any way comparable.
I don't really have any disagreement with your above post except that I know that CEEFA is completely discredited (essentially amateur UFO buffs, recently promoting transparently idiotic and silly videos of flying insects as UFOS!).
Best,
Lance
Who would have thought we'd get 63 comments (and counting) from a relatively straightforward articile noting the lack of primary evidence for one obscure case!
My thanks to Kevin for doing the legwork that is so important in helping sort these sorts of cases out.
Just as an aside, in the context of the way the dicussion evolved above, there is the interesting question of exactly what would consitute acceptable evidence in this field.
A visual case is not really going to cut it due to the very wide range of possible misperceptions etc.
A single visual witness plus one radar detection is also not really enough as the number of possibilities for spurious radar detections is considerable and you can always postulate a misperception of some bright star etc.
When we get to correlated radar detections at two distinct frequencies and / or a radar detection correlated with two independent visual reports from different angles then it starts to get interesting...
Not sure if evidence might be worth a seperate discussion all of its own at some stage. I doubt we shall agree, but it would be an interesting test for each of our respecitve sets of logic
Don,
Do you agree that Arnold's story, Are Space Visitors Here? from summer of 1948 is the first public connection of saucers and ET?
Did you review this 1949 issue of the Saturday Evening Post
http://www.nicap.org/articles/ShalettsArticle1.pdf
The article mentions that many of the witnesses believed that the things they saw might be interplanetary.
I am not sure that I can agree with the idea that pre-1950, there was no ETH as part of the public perception. It seems to be in place and growing.
Best,
Lance
Lance: "Do you agree that Arnold's story, Are Space Visitors Here? from summer of 1948 is the first public connection of saucers and ET?"
Sure if you consider meteors and fireballs to be ET. Why don't you read it? 1948 is not the 47 Wave. Though the question was posed whether some incidents described in the article might indicate a "spaceship from another world" (as close as I recall). since they didn't act like bolides.
Anyway I wrote that Fate Magazine (basically, Ray Palmer) would be an exception (at least, the first issue which was written in the winter of 47, not during the Wave), as would stray self-identified Forteans. I also excluded the auditors of Mark Probert, who were in fact reporting on alien spaceships a year earlier. The one small town newspaper column referring to "interplanetary origins" and the saucers was no more a "believer" account than is Project Saucer's examination of "interplanetary origins".
You see, there is no argument from me that ET was a subject, and had been for nearly a century, in 1947. The issue you have to deal with, socialpsychologically, is to explain why during the Wave nearly a century of ET speculation, including all the Amazing Stories covers on the newstands for decades, and the generally popularity of pulp mags, not to mention that strange being from another planet whose adventures were chronicled daily in the newspapers, somehow did not incline people in 1947 to connect the saucers to ET at all, not merely the way they would start to beginning in 1950.
And further you must explain why it took years of intense PR to get the ET ball rolling in the 1950s.
So, once again: what evidence do you have to support your "I don't think it was 3 years coming. I think it was almost immediate."
"The article [Shallet] mentions that many of the witnesses believed that the things they saw might be interplanetary."
Now all you have to do is locate the reports in which they (observers during the Wave) said that. You won't find them in the newspapers and you won't find them in Bluebook. Shallet wrote what his source (USAF) told him. He did nothing himself (he didn't interview witnesses from the 47 Wave), so you won't find those references in some Shallet archive (if there is one). And, again, during the 1947 Wave, not 1949.
Maybe you should ask the USAF about it.
Obviously, you haven't read the Arnold article, and I doubt you read Shallet, so who is feeding you this stuff? Not Printy I'd guess. Carpenter? Allen?
Regards,
Don
Don,
I ask you a couple of questions and you go off into unfounded accusations. That combined with your demonstrated (above) lack of familiarity with the topic, you reveal yourself to be another conspiracy buff, content to let your own fantasy thoughts control the way you look at the world.
No, no one is feeding me anything?
Who is feeding you? How does it get through the tin foil?
I don't have the Arnold article. I found it referenced in several places as the first link to the ETH. That's why I asked you if you considered it to be the first. But asking your a question about the sacred saucers is not allowed, apparently.
It's obvious that I represented the Shallet article correctly and, from your hysterical response, I can see that there really is no discussing the topic with you. You are too caught up in your own saucer fantasies to see even objective questions as anything other than an attack upon your religious convictions.
I was simply discussing what I thought was an interesting (wrong but interesting) idea that you brought up.
Did you notice how I asked over at Rich's site for anyone who thought they understood your ramblings on the Roswell media to please speak up?Did you notice how no one ever did?
You're doing some fine work.
We are done.
Lance
Lance: "The article [Shallet's] mentions that many of the witnesses believed that the things they saw might be interplanetary."
I've just browsed the article, and except for a reference to Fate Magazine, here is the only comment re "interplanetary" I found:
"However, the investigating authorities have learned that all the logic in the world will not convince the witness who wants to believe the thing he sighted was something sinister or maybe interplanetary" This is followed by noting someone at Wright who thought the saucers were either from "Moscow or Mars".
You'll note, this refers to an imaginary witness. The only example he gave was a civilian consultant at Wright Field, who made a facile comment. No doubt, though, that Wright was a real hotbed of ET speculation back then, I'll admit, but I excluded the USAF, after thanking it for inventing the ETH.
You should seek out friends who are better researchers.
Regards,
Don
It took only a cursory bit or work to find this which handily demolishes Don's ill-conceived "theory".
From the Chicago Times July 7th, 1947 p. 3:
Arnold "told the TIMES in a phone conversation: 'If our government knows anything about these devices, the people should be told at once. A lot of people out here are very much disturbed. Some think these things may be from another planet... Arnold, in pointing to the possibility of these discs being from another world, said, regardless of their origin, they apparently were traveling to some reachable destination. Whoever controlled them, he said, obviously wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. …He said discs were making turns so abruptly in rounding peaks that it would have been impossible for human pilots inside survived the pressure. So, he too thinks they are controlled from elsewhere, regardless of whether it’s from Mars, Venus, or our own planet."
This is the ETH, obviously, espoused by the witness.
Best,
Lance
So, let's add it up:
Lance and Kottmeyer: Arnold didn't say 'saucer', Bequette was mistaken. It was Bequette who first said "flying saucer". Arnold said he said skipping a saucer across water.
Evidence? None.
Lance and Kottmeyer have it there is an unbroken continuity between the 1947 Wave and what came after. That is, ET and the saucers were bound together from the beginning.
Evidence? None.
Yet Lance believes it absent evidence for, but with good evidence against. Who's the 'believer'? One day a folklorist will write a book on the UFO Myths of the Skeptics.
Regards,
Don
Evidence (referenced by date and publication) above.
Corrected that for you.
Lance
Lance, I did tell you to refer to Arnold's press interviews during July 1947, and let go of the 1977 article. In them is to be found the complexity of the issue, rather than the glibness of Kottmeyer.
You see, there was something to discuss, had you hadn't insisted on going to the prom handcuffed to a corpse.
Regards,
Don
Another example of how Arnold DID get misinterpreted that demonstrates that the 1977 article was correct.
This time from 1950 (!) in an interview with Edward R. Murrow:
MURROW: Here's how the name "flying saucer" was born.
ARNOLD: These objects more or less fluttered like they were, oh, I'd say, boats on very rough water or very rough air of some type, and 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.
MURROW: That was an historic misquote. While Mr. Arnold's original explanation has been forgotten, the term "flying saucer" has become a household word. "
Now in outside of saucer land, the face of overwhelming evidence like this might cause a reasonable person to admit he was wrong.
Outside of saucer land, though.
Lance
Lance, who cares what Arnold said in 1950 as proof of what he said in 1977, when there is no proof he said it in 1947, which is what the 1950 and 1977 comments are about?
My frustration with you is you will not respond directly. Now, after all these comments, you bring up 1950, which is no more on-point than 1977. You still have nothing for 1947.
Why do you refute me with a reference to an (apparently non-existent) item in Shallet in 1949 about 1947? Or Arnold's Summer 1948 article in Fate, which is hardly about interplanetary spaceships.
This is like what this discussion began as, whether there was good documentation for a sighting before Arnold. Documents dated after June 24 or 25 don't count.
You are the only skeptic I know who believes that during the Wave, flying saucers were immediately believed to be ET originated. David will be pleased, but he will want evidence.
As I wrote early on, if you want to delve right into the issue read Arnold's July 1947 interviews.
Arnold also said, as reported a few days later by INS, that "the only other authentic reports of the discs" came from Emil Smith and his crew, and that "other "eyewitnesses" were reporting something else or nothing at all".
Following these, he was interviewed by CIC Special Agents Davidson and Brown. He wrote, I think in every account including 1977, that they seemed more interested in the mail he was receiving than in his sighting, many of it being from organizations who wanted him or his story. He turned it over to them.
Do you doubt he was receiving mail from the fringe? Christian apocalyptics, Forteans, occult groups, probably Meade Layne's circle, old I Am'rs, spiritualists? And why not? The AF and the FBI did. He had become familiar with Fort. He had encountered either a joker or an hysteric about Welle's War Of The Worlds.
Those last interviews before Maury Island, I think, are revealing.
Arnold was no longer the average American guy.
Regards,
Don
And Lance, could you possibly maintain focus on 1947 and ET? I'll restate it again (and I wish Gilles were here to elaborate):
1957 saucer=ET
1947 saucer=?
Regards,
Don
Oh for goodness sake...
A consistent characteristic of higher quality UFO reports is the 'rocking' motion that Arnold refers to as being something skipping over water. Paul Hill (1995) discussed the theoretical underpinnings of that extensively.
The range of UFO forms recorded very rarely include something precisely like a saucer (as in a tea cup). The disk type referred to in (<10%?) of cases is the source of the confusion here as it is the closest approach to that shape. Official investigations rapidly moved to terms such as disks, UFO and UAP, recognising this issue. It is the disk and to some extent triangular forms that appear to have a statistically significantly different pattern of occurrance to the ball of light type reports etc.
IMHO the Arnold siighting is important in a historical and sociological context in that it caught media attention. To make progress we need to move on with the overall analysis of patterns, capabilities and intent which requires large scale analaysis of a dataset made up of very high reliability reports.
much impressive work has been done already in this regard, of course - although not everyone will agree with that of course.
Anthony: "The range of UFO forms recorded very rarely include something precisely like a saucer (as in a tea cup). The disk type referred to in (<10%?) of cases is the source of the confusion here as it is the closest approach to that shape."
What is going on here concerns the skeptics' argument that the reason people report the same 'shape' is because Bill Bequette wrote "flying saucer" and instantly people began reporting seeing saucer-shaped objects forevermore. And, if you are Kottmeyer, those objects have a mystifying alien perfection like the saucers in the movies and in the faked photos. So, he means saucers after Adamski and especially Scully who wrote in detail about their alien dimensional perfection. No one, though, can find such a saucer during the 47 Wave.
Originally, Arnold's "saucer-like" referred to shape, roundish, but very very flat. Within days, 'saucer' and 'flying saucer' became terms of art ('mention'), rather than a reference to shape ('use'), just like UFO is used, and as you note, a reason why the term was adopted by the USAF and ufology.
The earliest stories: Bequette wrote "saucer-like", and Johnson "flying saucer". So, we have the two original and independent sources writing "saucer", quoting who? Arnold, who else was there on the 25th? There are no accounts of Arnold describing saucer skipping.
What the skeptics don't notice is Arnold is telling a lie, one which over the years he came to believe, perhaps. That's why I referred to the July 1947 press interviews. I think Arnold was furious about the mockery/crockery directed towards him. He disassociates his (and Smith's) sightings from all the others.
Then, things got interesting when Lance opined that ET was almost immediately associated with the saucers. The skeptics have said just the opposite: in 1947 the saucers were not defined as anything specifically, and definitely not as ET originated. The arguments about that were long and furious, here and on other blogs and forums. But the evidence, setting aside as exceptions occultists, stray Forteans, and sf fans (Palmer, Shaver) There is nothing like saucer=ET, as we begin to see in late 1949, when Scully is writing his articles in Variety on Dr Gee, and Keyhoe is getting a story from his military sources, both to be published with success in 1950. Before then saucers=?
What I find interesting is, given a century of popular ET speculation by 1947, and all those magazine covers with alien saucers on them, it is a refutation of the 'screen memories" sort of pseudo-social psychology that ET was *not* associated with the saucers by the public. Instead of the skeptics immediate or instant 'contamination', it took years of Air Force PR, Scully, Keyhoe, and of course the skeptics (who also aren't around in 1947 -- I mean not skeptical about saucers, but ET skepticism) arguing against ET, to penetrate the public awareness. The skeptics don't like that. They want an instant, under the radar of conscious reasoning, 'contamination' to explain away all the sightings. That's all. History and facts and common sense be damned, if they can make coup agains an ETH'r.
Regards,
Don
I just noticed Lance referred to our debate on ufocon where I demonstrated that a UP account of the Roswell news cycle contained a statement that was both true and false. It was a demonstration of anachronism, which anyone interested in historical accuracy loathes. Few people want to debate me, Lance is right about that, mainly, I think, because they have well developed opinions, going back decades in some cases. There are few loose ends for them, and here I am finding and pulling at a loose thread, but Lance is wrong no one replied to his plea to the stalls. Lance got a very careful and accurate reply from Rich Reynolds, explaining to Lance precisely what I was doing. That was astounding since I have little in common with Reynolds, and he bitches as much as Lance does when I apply myself to his ideas. I conclude from that, that no one has understood a word I've written in six years except Reynolds on one occasion -- just based on the forum feedback. So, Lance is probably right about that, too.
I get the feeling ufo people don't like me. Oh, well. It's a well known social psychological phenomenon. Two opposed sides will form an alliance against an instrusion from outside the norms of the relationship.
Regards,
Don
Thanks Don. That's interesting
Don,
Just to correct what you are saying about my position, I am not suggesting that ET was the sole (or even the predominant) public perception of what saucers were in the early days.
I was only establishing that it was one idea (among several) about the source. As time went on (while the evidence never coalesced into anything solid) the ETH became predominate. It happened over time.
Your claims about Arnold lying are interesting. What proof do you have for it?
Thanks,
Lance
"Just to correct what you are saying about my position, I am not suggesting that ET was the sole (or even the predominant) public perception of what saucers were in the early days.
I was only establishing that it was one idea (among several) about the source. As time went on (while the evidence never coalesced into anything solid) the ETH became predominate. It happened over time."
It was certainly an idea, and I've named the people who had it, and earlier than Arnold's sighting or even 1947, that there were spaceships from other planets piloted by aliens..."Visitors", here on, and around, the earth. But the general public, including the newspapers, did not express a connection between ET and the saucers during the Wave. There are good reasons for how they did think of them which has to do with AAF PR for several years and covered extensively in newspapers and magazines. Because of that, back in 1947 people expected there would be spaceships, but that they would be ours.
We would be going there, not them coming here. That is a very real conceptual difference in the public 'mind' between the 1940s and the 1950s.
"Your claims about Arnold lying are interesting. What proof do you have for it?"
What I've been writing. If you have a quote from June 1947 from Arnold in which he describes skipping a saucer across water, I'll change my mind. I don't think Arnold would have said that. Don't you think he would have said motion like a stone you skip across a pond? In his attempt to disassociate himself from the crockery/mockery, his 'saucer skipping' didn't help.
Did Bequette make a mistake, then, and write that Arnold said "flying saucer"? Is there a Bequette story in which he writes "flying saucer"? Those I've collected have Bequette writing "saucer-like". It appears, Dave Johnson first wrote "flying saucer". Johnson and Arnold were friends. Perhaps Bequette wasn't.
Maybe Arnold never actually placed the two words together, flying saucer, but "saucer-like"? I'm confident Arnold used saucer. He just wished he hadn't. It is the 'saucer' part, not the 'flying' that Arnold wanted to get out from under. He wanted and needed to be taken seriously. The saucer mockery was not helping. Smith took him seriously, so he's a good, serious and rational man to Arnold. Soon, Springer, Davidson, and Brown took him seriously and showed him some respect, so they were good, serious, rational men. too. The crockery mockery was something he had to shed in response to their interest.
Regards,
Don
Couldn't you use the same "logic" against anyone who said they were misquoted?
And hilariously, this isn't even really a misquote, it's just sort of a poor wording choice.
Arnold did say they were like saucers so "saucer-like" is accurate, if inadequate.
As someone formerly in the news business, I can easily attest that this is the kind of thing that happens all the time.
The whole thing seems like a rather tortured way to make some pet theory work.
Indeed, in his July 1947 letter to the Army Air force, Arnold reiterates the saucer reference:
"They flew in a definite formation but erratically. As I described them at the time their flight
was like speed boats on rough water or similar to the tail of a Chinese kite that I once saw
blowing in the wind. Or maybe it would be best to describe their flight characteristics as very
similar to a formation of geese, in a rather diagonal chain-like line, as if they were linked
together. As I put it to newsmen in Pendleton, Oregon, they flew like a saucer would if you
skipped it across the water."
So here we have what Don says he doesn't think Arnold would say being said by Arnold a few weeks later.
Without further evidence, I can certainly see why no one is impressed with this tortured claim.
Lance
Part 1:
Time for me to weigh in again.
First use of "flying saucer"/"flying disc":
Don: "I recall 'flying saucer' first appears in the news towards the end of the month, maybe 29th or 30th."
Lance: "And you are totally wrong. It happened immediately. Chicago Sun June 26th, 1947 Headline: 'Supersonic Flying Saucers Reported by Idaho Pilot'."
A bit of irony here. I am the one who found that article, perhaps the first ever use of "flying saucer".
More irony is that I found it at the Chicago Public Library on June 23 (!!) (but 2010) in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. (The tornado sirens were sounding and simultaneous lightning strikes on the Sears and Trump towers made international news.) So high drama on the finding of perhaps the original use of "flying saucer".
"Flying disk" also first dates to June 26, its origins perhaps in a Portland Oregon Journal headline: "Flying Disk Mystery Grows -- 2 Midwest Men Support Boise Flier -- Descriptions Tally On Fast-Flying Pie-Pan Objects." This was the first AP article on Arnold's sighting, but other AP articles that day I checked did NOT use "flying disk". Instead we see Arnold's Bequette article "saucer-like" used a lot, plus other descriptions like "saucer-shaped", "missiles", "aircraft", "planes", "disk-like", "disks", "pie pans", "pie plates", and another Arnold quote in the Santa Fe New Mexican, "'They were shaped like saucers and were so thin I could barely see them,' he told Jack Whitman, a local
businessman."
http://ufoupdateslist.com/1999/mar/m23-010.shtml
Then in succeeding days, you start to see a little more use of "flying saucer" and "flying disc/disk" (see my historical review post in Ufoupdates), but not all that much, instead still more "saucer-like", "disc-like", etc. Rampant newspaper use of the terms did not REALLY start until July 5 in the reporting of the Cpt. E. J. Smith United Airlines sighting of nine "discs" over Idaho the previous evening. I would estimate this sighting was at least twice more frequently reported in the newspapers than Arnold's sighting was initially, and usually on the front page, often headline news, unlike Arnold's. But it lent Arnold's sighting considerable credibility and that busted open the floodgates of flying saucer reporting in the newspapers for the next few days (until the official debunkery, starting with Roswell, began in full on July 8/9).
So Lance is right that "flying saucer" predates June 28/29 (in large part thanks to MY research--I just want that noted--Lance did not discover this on his own). But Don is right that "flying saucer" and "flying disc" were just not used all that much in the newspapers until July. Those are just the historical FACTS, not speculation. Also Arnold was clearly describing his objects as "saucers", "pie pans", "discs", "saucer-like", etc., right from the beginning, all in numerous quotes. The saucer/disc term for shape was NOT invented by Bill Bequette in his story on Arnold June 25, nor did the national media invent it. Arnold did.
And nowhere did Arnold back then ever describe the motion as anything like saucers skipping on water. If Bequette misquoted him, Arnold had more than ample opportunity to correct the record. Instead he spoke often of how they weaved and followed one another like the tail of a kite, flipped and flashed in the sun or like fish in water. But no saucers skipping on water--anywhere. OK?
What about the July letter I quoted above?
Lance
Arnold also said, as quoted by Lance:
"Or maybe it would be best to describe their flight characteristics as very similar to a formation of geese".
Geese? Did he mean pelicans, maybe?!
Part 2:
This is also a segway into whether or not people thought the saucers were ET. I also found another Chicago newspaper, the Chicago Times, carrying a front-page interview on July 7, 1947, with Kenneth Arnold himself opining that he thought the saucers he saw were not from Earth because of their extreme maneuvers (unless they were some sort of remote-controlled military secret project):
http://www.roswellproof.com/Chicago_D_Times_1947-07-07-3s_Arnold_interplanetary_statement-Cpt_Smith.jpg
This is in my main article on ETH chatter in the newspapers during the June/July 1947 wave. There was a lot of it:
www.roswellproof.com/ETH-in-1947.html
There was apparently enough of it that the Army Air Force at the Pentagon issued an official denial that the saucers were "space ships". That was on July 8, 1947, and that press release came out just before the one at Roswell that they had recovered a real "flying disc". What a coincidence!
Back on June 30, Gen. Ramey of Roswell infamy and his intel chief Col. Kalberer were already debunking the saucers, saying they liked the "Buck Rogers" angle. The next day Kalberer brought up the ET angle again when he dismissively said, "We're not being invaded by little platter-like planes from Mars."
http://www.roswellproof.com/Ramey_and_Kalberer.html
In other articles, Arnold was saying he was getting a lot of "fan mail", a fair amount of it also opining that the saucers were ET.
Most of the chatter associating the saucers with spaceships was not serious, but the association with the possibility of ET origins was instantaneous, even if discussed in only a nervous or sarcastic way. One example was the San Antonio (TX) Light, June 26, with this headline about the Arnold sighting: "Men From Mars? Sky Whizzers Seen!" On June 27 was an article with Arnold discussing an unnerving run-in with a woman at a Pendleton cafe, crying that he was the man who saw the "men from Mars" and leaving the cafe in hysterics to be home with her children.
So I disagree with Don that there wasn't a lot of talk about the flying saucers possibly being ET. I couldn't say what percentage of the public seriously entertained the idea. Arnold certainly did. I would hazard a guess of maybe 10-20% overall. According to a Gallup poll the following month, most people either not knowing what to think (33%) or being dismissive of anything being seen at all, writing it off to hoax (10%) or imagination, mirages, optical illusions, etc. (29%). 15% thought they were real military experiments and 9% had miscellaneous theories, not spelled out in detail. So lots of room for the ETH in the survey in the undecided or other theories categories, put Gallup unfortunately did not probe this aspect, so we'll never know.
http://www.roswellproof.com/ETH-in-1947-2.html (see August 15)
The final Gallup tidbit is that 90% of the public had heard of the saucers, a far higher percentage than had heard of other public discussions in the news such as "Marshall Plan".
This would suggest that the new phenomenon had caught the public imagination, but was it the unusual shape description, the exotic reported formation flying and maneuvers, or the oft-reported extreme high speeds? I would think the supersonic speeds as much as the oft-reported saucer shape.
Part 3:
How "oft-reported" was saucer or disc used by the public in reporting sightings? Lance suggested looking at the Blue Book archives. But a much more comprehensive period survey was done by Bloecher of 853 sightings, mostly in the newspapers. Again:
http://nicap.org/waves/Wave47Rpt/SightingChronology.pdf
If you look at his table, roughly half of these used terms like "disc" or "saucer" in the descriptions. Often it was unclear if saucer/disc was a generic use, like "UFO", or an actual description of shape. Thus we get descriptions anywhere from like a silver dollar or hockey puck (an obvious flat disc description without necessarily using the term "saucer" or "disc") to calling it a disc but describing the shape like a parachute canopy. Is that a "disc"?
Don is right that Lance/Kottmeyer do not appreciate the ambiguity of language, that people might use saucer/disc in all sorts of ways and to fit all sorts of possible shape descriptions, including imperfect "discs" like half circles or chopped in back, like Arnold's "saucers". (Here is a drawing by one witness: http://nicap.org/waves/Wave47Rpt/Report1947Images/Section_II/Case46.jpg)
Added to this the fact that approximately half of Bloecher's witnesses do not describe disc-like shapes at all, even though Gallup indicates 90% of the public knew of the saucers/discs.
So much for Kottmeyer and his bogus claims that the media created the saucer shape and the public are all sheep hypnotized into seeing only perfectly circular but nonexistent discs/saucers. It's just more psycho-social bunk at odds with the historical record.
I appreciate the above, David.
I also do appreciate that the descriptions were various (and stated that). The point is that the saucer became the predominate shape.
Which it did.
Just wondering if you saw my question above. Arnold CLEARLY is saying "ike a saucer would if you
skipped it across the water" in July 1947.
How does this jibe with your statement:
"No saucers skipping on water--anywhere"?
Lance
Lance wrote in response to Don:
Indeed, in his July 1947 letter to the Army Air force, Arnold reiterates the saucer reference:
"They flew in a definite formation but erratically. As I described them at the time their flight was like speed boats on rough water or similar to the tail of a Chinese kite that I once saw blowing in the wind. Or maybe it would be best to describe their flight characteristics as very similar to a formation of geese, in a rather diagonal chain-like line, as if they were linked together. As I put it to newsmen in Pendleton, Oregon, they flew like a saucer would if you
skipped it across the water."
So here we have what Don says he doesn't think Arnold would say being said by Arnold a few weeks later.
Also in response to me:
Just wondering if you saw my question above. Arnold CLEARLY is saying "like a saucer would if you
skipped it across the water" in July 1947.
How does this jibe with your statement: "No saucers skipping on
water--anywhere"?
Well Lance, you just badly shot yourself in the foot. Here is the REAL text of Arnold's letter to AAF intelligence July 12, 1947:
http://www.project1947.com/fig/ka.htm
Perhaps you can point out to us raving, inaccurate, unscientific, saucer fanatics the quote you claim is there about saucers skipping on water? We're waiting.
(Lance's quotes REALLY come from "The Coming of the Saucers" and not published by Arnold with Ray Palmer until 1952. OOPS!!!!)
Actually I was just (mis)quoting from Bruce Maccabee's report as presented here:
http://www.brumac.8k.com/KARNOLD/KARNOLD.html
I agree that I got it wrong (the presentation was somewhat confusing).
Thanks,
Lance
What about Bequette himself? I wondered if he ever commented on this.
Also from the Maccabee report:
Bequette does not believe that he invented the term "flying saucer." He told Lagrange, "I
don't remember whether or not Arnold used the words 'saucer-shaped craft.' I am inclined to
credit his version (that he only spoke of objects moving like a saucer if you skipped it across
the water), knowing the tendency of journalists to rephrase. I'm sure I didn't coin 'Flying
Saucers.' "
So why do we HAVE to reject the saucers skipping on water thing? Just because? All of the principals agree that it probably happened.
Lance
I'll read the above in a moment
"Lance: "Indeed, in his July 1947 letter to the Army Air force, Arnold reiterates the saucer reference:
"They flew in a definite formation but erratically. As I described them at the time their flight was like speed boats on rough water or similar to the tail of a Chinese kite that I once saw blowing in the wind. Or maybe it would be best to describe their flight characteristics as very similar to a formation of geese, in a rather diagonal chain-like line, as if they were linked together. As I put it to newsmen in Pendleton, Oregon, they flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water."
So here we have what Don says he doesn't think Arnold would say being said by Arnold a few weeks later."
"A few weeks later" In July, which is when Arnold was disassociating himself from Wave, except for Smith, which I have just commented on, and which I referred you to day's ago.
I wrote: "If you have a quote from June 1947 from Arnold in which he describes skipping a saucer across water, I'll change my mind."
I realize you want to nail me hard. I assume David, above, has something reasonable in critique, which will be a relief from a point-scorer forum ronin, like you.
Adios,
Don
David,
After Kevin posted this I started searching online newspaper archives, and did not find anything in June in the Iowa papers I looked at, except the Arnold sighting. I did find two different local Iowa sightings for July, 8th, reported on July 10th.
Neither appears in the NICAP link of early sightings you posted above. In case they aren't in another database:
The Alton, Iowa Democrat on July 10th, 1947. Single person sighting by Bill Karssen, staying with a sick brother in Alton on Tuesday night, July 8th. It has"Flying Saucer" in the headline.
http://siouxcounty.newspaperarchive.com/PdfViewer.aspx?img=160954641&firstvisit=true&src=search¤tResult=3¤tPage=0
Adams County Free Press July 10th, 1947, daylight sighting by couple traveling on country highway in car on July 8th.
http://adamscountyia.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=106776942
I don't know if people are still collecting these newpaper accounts.
@David
Just a personal comment first. Full disclosure. If I find ET or ET-like references in 1947, I send them on to David (although not the occultists and Forteans), and I am familiar with the list he has assembled.
David is a seriously good researcher, and defer to him on these matters, which is an easy thing to do because he doesn't 'assert' or 'claim' but provides his sources, thus they can be verified.
And now I've learned something about the saucer skipping, too.
David has mentioned some of the ET related items from the Wave:
'Buck Rogers'. It is more correctly a reference to futuristic technology which easily could include ET spaceships, but not necessarily.
'Spaceship' alone cannot be considered a reference to ET without at least something like 'Martian' or 'interplanetary' modifying it when Made in the USA -- or Russia -- spaceships were expected. The 'domestic or foreign origin'.
'Martian' and 'Men from Mars' may explicitly refer to such beings, but they are also terms of art, referring to things unusual or unidentifiable. For example, early in WWII I can show you newspaper headlines referring to some German soldiers as "men from Mars" in appearance. And after the war, probably in 1947, a group of visiting Japanese educators studying the US public school system were referred to as like "men from Mars" because their educational system was so alien from ours.
Air Force policy under another Arnold, General H. H. Hap Arnold, is responsible for promoting in public the AF agenda as it cut the umbilical cord, and became a branch of service, defining its domain as aerospace. A hi-tech and thouroughly modernized military.
So, the public had a few years of a looksee into the future a la the AF: satellites, push button warfare, recon and weapons orbital platforms, guided missiles, atomic airplanes, and to quote General Arnold, "true spaceships", by which he meant, the ones that travel beyond earth orbit.
One can find stories in the press in which the AF attempts to cool the anticipation on the part of the public, telling us, it won't happen now, but maybe ten, twenty years from now.
I have not found one statement from the Wave in which the observer said 'I saw a flying saucer from outer space' -- Forteans, Shaverites, and occultists excluded. Actually, I don't exclude them for myself, but that history is off-topic here.
As for the AAF dalliance with interplanetary origins? First, I'd want to know the ideological and religious sentiments of senior commanders before I'd offer a guess. Accurately documented and in chronological order.
Regards,
Don
I'd read Shough's Arnold article that was published in Darklore awhile back, but hadn't read a much longer article he wrote, as well, but am reading it now.
This is of interest:
"Bequette had suggested to Arnold that a wire story might shake loose some information about the strange objects which both he and Arnold assumed were some sort of Army Air Force planes or rockets." The cite is to another reporter's account of the moment, I guess.
(Whenever I hear a 'shake something loose', I reach for my revolver)
Regards,
Don
Wade: "I don't know if people are still collecting these newpaper accounts."
Sure are. I think what would be most valuable from the 47 Wave are non-wire service news stories, especially stories that did not make it on to the wires, or an original local version if what we only have in a wire summary account.
If anyone knows there were sightings in their locale, checking the local papers for 1947 at the library might turn up such accounts especially in small towns or more remote places.
Thanks
Regards,
Don
Part 1
After reading the above 95+ comments, it seems fairly clear to me that:
1. Arnold's initial description of the objects he observed were not like the archetypal circular or ovoid "flying saucers" that later became a kind of shorthand for "saucer = ET," and which seems most often to have been originated by media outlets, particularly various newspapers, not from the actual early witness statements from the 1947 wave.
2. Kevin Randle's primary point, which became somewhat lost in shuffle of comments above, that there is no original or primary source reports for any sightings similar to Arnold's before the initial reports in the newspapers following Arnold's report seems well-founded.
Remember, almost all preceding serious reports of UFOs prior to the aftermath and distortions of Arnold's sighting were the WWII-era "foo fighters," and post-war 1946 Scandinavian "ghost rockets" sightings reported in the media before the Arnold sighting created a media sensation.
If the skeptic's theory of sightings of various UFO shapes led to a psycho-social confabulation of "flying saucer" shapes seen in the sky after and due to Arnold's sighting, then why didn't such earlier, pre-1947 sightings of foo fighter and ghost rocket morphology become the predominant shape reported?
3. The origins and use of the term "flying saucer" seems to have originated not from any of the early 1947-wave witness reports, but rather, again, from newspaper reporters who apparently were struck by and then used the term "flying saucer" as a kind of generic shorthand for reports of UFOs, regardless of what the early witnesses, like Arnold and beyond, actually described as to observed shape.
So, it seems to me, at least, that the "flying saucer" terminology became a kind of memetic media coda for UFOs that generally were not described as such by the earliest witnesses in June and July of 1947. That occurred later, as witnesses, as a result of the early, common media usage of that term in the earlier radio and newspaper reports they were exposed to beforehand, in a kind of "positive feedback loop," only _then_ began on occasion to adopt and increasingly use that term in their descriptions to reporters what they observed, not the other way around.
Even when the term "flying saucer" was used by witnesses, often the actual shapes described, when that was (rarely) included in media reports of actual witness statements, most often did not connote or suggest an actual "stereotypical" circular or saucer-shaped object.
It was only much later, that this self-reinforcing terminology became more common, and witnesses also began using "flying saucer" as a convenient, generic term, in the early 1950's, even when the shape of what they described often did not look literally like a circular "flying saucer," per se. The term seems more figurative than actually literal, in both use and actual witness description, most often.
Part 2:
4. Therefore, based on a review of the above comments, and a reexamination of a number of the source documents cited above, it seems to me that the psycho-social argument that early witness reports describing post-Arnold sightings, where the UFO observed was actually described in terms of shape, were derived from news reporters’ misinterpretation of the early reports about Arnold's initial statements about his observation.
Thus, the psycho-social hypothesis that Kottmeyer ascribes to, and Lance seems to support, does not have an objective basis derived from actual early witness descriptions of shapes observed, but rather misinterpreted media reports which were themselves inaccurate as to the predominant shapes when detailed by early witnesses.
Lance noted "The point is that the saucer became the predominate shape" -- and I wonder if that's actually true, as far as actual witness descriptions as to morphology, and the source basis for that comment.
I think it may have been more true in the early 1950's, but then again that raises the same question regarding the psycho-social hypothesis: why wasn't that the case in the years 1944 to early mid-1947, and why did the circular, domed-shaped archetype have a resurgence for a few years in the early 1950's, but less and less so from the mid-1950's onward, if the psycho-social hypothesis has actual validity?
Seems contradicted by the great variation in shapes reported over time since WWII to the present. I also thought the spherical, self-illuminated "ball of light" or "BOL" shape was the most commonly reported shape, not disc-like shapes -- can anyone here point us to an analysis or study of the overall patterns and predominant morphology of reported UFOs over the past 65+ years that may be online so that this question may be better founded on statistical investigation rather than personal opinion or impressions?
5. If anything, the "flying saucer" meme, as to supposed shape, and as opposed to Arnold's actual early statements regarding the motion being a "saucer-like" skipping movement, like a flat stone tossed parallel to a surface of water, skipping in quick jumps, derives primarily from somewhat superficial and inadequate newspaper reporting, which hyped the phenomenon, with some help from the speculations of early USAAF and USAF personnel involved with initial investigation of these reports, both before and during the Project Sign era, and thus transmuted and distorted in the public mind what Arnold described as "saucer-like," which was the motion, not the shape.
Part 3:
6. Even in the early 1950’s, when the prototypical “flying saucer” or flattened and/or domed disc-like shape became for awhile more common than before (but by no means standard or universal), if you look at the details and descriptive drawings used in the Battelle Memorial Institute’s sub-project 10073 assistance to Project Blue Book under Project Stork, and later Project White Stork, and that was eventually declassified in 1955 and eventually became known as Project Blue Book Special Report # 14, BMI scientists complained that the plethora and great variety of shapes actually reported and sketched by witnesses was so variegated that no common model or morphology could be objectively or scientifically derived. This was also the case with later, mid-60's computer analyses done and reported by Jacques Vallee, and later studies.
PBB SR#14 was the most thorough and broad analysis ever attempted, and even though not as objective or fully scientific as one might have preferred (which BMI itself noted in the infamous "Pentacle Memo" to ATIC, due to the mainly anecdotal and inadequately documented data files they were provided by the USAF), it's one of the very few, primarily statistical, analytical studies of patterns of activity, shapes, and longitudinal breadth of the body of the 3000+ government-recorded UFO reports from 1947 through 1952.
And which, again, also seems to belie the psycho-social hypothesis’inherent presumptions about shape, origins, and nature of the observed UFO phenomenon in the best cases, where over 25% of those cases BMI segregated out could not be ascribed to any known prosaic phenomena, natural or purely psychological, by any means they attempted, and still remain unknown.
7. So, in conclusion, I think that the skeptical psycho-social hypothesis, while it may have some validity in a minority of reported cases, cannot be viewed as a valid or substantiated theory to cover the overall mass of the UFO phenomenon, especially the best and most thoroughly documented cases, nor does it explain the wild variety of shapes reported over time by witnesses, and thus the “flying saucer” term did not inspire or cause the greatest proportion of witness descriptions of UFO shape to be based in confabulation initiated by the Arnold sighting, or media reports thereof.
It simply does not work, given the known facts, overall history, and scientific analyses done, rarely, of the modern, post-WWII UFO phenomenon.
Part 4:
8. Which means there is an actual phenomenon, of greatly varying nature, shape, and behavior, sometimes even reactive and/or interactive to attempts to observe and pursue, and which cannot be currently explained by any known prosaic or theorized phenomena when you examine the data very closely and thoroughly, on a longitudinal basis.
What is suggested, instead, by the best, multiple-witness, and sensor-detected cases, is some possible form of non-human control or intelligence being involved, but then that too is just another form of speculation, although I’d argue it makes more sense than prosaic natural phenomena, mis-identification, or psycho-social speculation or hypothesis.
We simply do not have sufficient evidence, or rather proof, as yet, any way you look at the question of just what the best UFO cases originate or derive from, or connote as to what they truly are.
9. Finally, I should also add, since I'm not an advocate of the ETH, and am a "ufo agnostic" instead, despite two very close encounter experiences of my own 35 years apart, one being also a multiple-witness case, with some kind of bizarre aerial phenomena, that while I do think there is some evidential basis for a hypothesis of some form of advanced non-human intelligence [ANHI] being possibly involved, I certainly do not believe or think that Lance's repeated and dismissive "saucers = ETH" coda is any more valid, necessarily, than the belief system also inherent in the psycho-social hypothesis. Both are speculative theories, based in inadequate data, research, and speculative belief at present.
We can't help, being human, being bound by anthopocentric ideation and opinion, but that's all it is, not truly objective, proven or substantiated reality. We may be dealing, as Vallee has said, with a phenomenon far more complex and esoteric, than we can even conceive of or understand currently, but that should not preclude deeper investigation. That's what the scientific method is all about, isn't it?
But there is something there that at the very least deserves much better scientific and objective consideration. And that is my point: an unknown phenomenon, regardless of its actual nature, origin, or possible "intent," represents an aspect of the universe and cosmology which should require a concerted, multi-phasic and multi-disciplinary response to advance our understanding of our relationship to and place in the universe, if possible.
Otherwise, we will most probably never know exactly what we're dealing with, and that would be quite tragic, and a failure of the best human principles and ideals of science, a denial and irrational response to something, whatever it is, that needs to be explored further, as an aspect of some form and element of reality, and if rejected as the "great taboo" (as Billy Cox has characterizes it), that most of our best and brightest seemingly would prefer to ignore or ridicule, it is and would be a terrible mistake in judgement and our obligation as a sentient species to attempt, at least, to better empirically investigate, and hopefully one day begin to understand the nature and origins of than we can or are today. My secular humanist sermon is now over. Blessings be upon you. 8^}
And, hey, CDA, this time I got to note comment # 100! So there! Heh! 8^}}
Steve:
Your last comment is noted. And I'll bet that Kevin, when he initiated this discussion, never imagined for a moment that it would lead to such deep and profound thoughts as you and others have promulgated in the most recent postings.
Neither did he expect the number of such postings to reach 100. Did you Kevin?
Steve, I do not think it is disputable that Arnold did originally describe a discoidal shape. I believe what made the objects 'disc-like' was their extreme flatness, not their perfect roundness. Arnold disowned 'saucer' but never the other discoidal descriptors he is quoted using. So, it seems his objection was limited not to shape, really, but a word.
It wasn't the shape. It was the word saucer, he denied, as it was used in 'flying saucer'. Yet, in the July 11 interview by INS, he is quoted ""I remember the saucers were about 23 miles away", he said", demonstrating that 'saucer' had become a category: the unidentified object in the sky, rather than a description of the shape of the object.
Do you know of any 1947 Wave incidents where the saucer is described as having a big dome on top, like Scully's, or Adamski's, or as in the movies? I don't. The Snake River sighting may be, and I did find one mention of a 'dome' but without indication of size, so it might have referred to a cockpit or canopy, which were sometimes reported, most famously, by Rhodes.
The 50's domed saucers, derived I believe from Scully's "Dr. Gee", are a requirement for the common form of the ETH which assumes a recognizably humanoid alien, whether greys or little men from Venus. Otherwise in a 25 foot diameter disk, for example, they'd have to scuttle around like bugs, given the flatness of the saucers.
By grandfathering the 1950s saucer into 1947, one also grandfathers in a requirement of the 1950s alien visitor, whether nordics or little men.
This not an objection to the ETH, just that the flat disks of the common sizes don't really fit little men from Venus, greys, or nordics. If the saucers were ET, then they were either remotely operated, or ET, at least in 1947, was not like what we have imagined since.
I think it is obvious, once one reviews the period, that there is a significant gap between 1947 and afterwards. On the other side of the gap is the ufology we know. If anything was 'immediate' or 'instant', in the 1947 Wave, it was being forgotten to such a degree that by autumn it was referred to as having seemingly occurred in the long ago, almost beyond memory.
It wasn't just Roswell that got mislaid.
Arnold crossed the gap, because he was the first witness, but also because he was persistent, and in a small way, Rhodes (who might get a call from a ufologist once or twice a decade), thanks to Ray Palmer. But who else among the sighters of the 1947 Wave crossed the gap?
Regards,
Don
Steve,
If the source quoted by Shough is accurate (quoted above), then Arnold was part of the effort to shake something loose along* with Bequette and his editor. So, I would not hasten to blame the press and exonerate Arnold for the publicity.
*The first, but not the last time, ufo truthseekers would do so to the AF. It doesn't work and will have unintended consequences.
Regards,
Don
Steve:
Thank you for the systematic, logical, and well-reasoned exposition of the “physical-real” hypothesis (as opposed to the “psycho-social”) hypothesis as the explanation for the beginning of the modern era of UFO reports beginning in 1947.
It is an excellent example of how the discourse on the topic can be advanced if everyone uses complete sentences, links complex ideas together in a causal order, and refrains from ad hominem arguments.
As a scientist, I especially concur with your call for a serious, open treatment of the subject by the best and brightest intellects. It boggles my mind that, 65+ years on, we are still having debates over whether there is or is not an externally real phenomenon to be studied. As a society, we probably have more serious people studying the mating habits of South American tree frogs, than we do studying the meaning of UFO reports.
While on the Arnold sighting I wonder if the prospector Fred Johnson's sighting on the same day, involving 6 'saucers' in the same general locality, is relevant.
Johnson was interviewed by the FBI who regarded his report as seeming "very reliable".
Problem is that he didn't report it to anyone until 2 months afterwards, after reading about Arnold's sighting. He said he had a telescope with him; he also said his compass was affected. [letter to Lt. Col Donald L.Springer as quoted in "PROJECT 1947", Jan L.Aldrich, p.67].
(Part 1) Lance wrote:
What about Bequette himself? I wondered if he ever commented on this. Also from the Maccabee report: “Bequette does not believe that he invented the term ‘flying saucer.’ He told Lagrange, "I don't remember whether or not Arnold used the words 'saucer-shaped craft.' I am inclined to credit his version (that he only spoke of objects moving like a saucer if you skipped it across the water), knowing the tendency of journalists to rephrase. I'm sure I didn't coin 'Flying Saucers.' "
So why do we HAVE to reject the saucers skipping on water thing? Just because? All of the principals agree that it probably happened.
First of all, this latest argument from Lance is ironic, hypocritcal, and funny when you consider Lance's hard-nosed "skepticism" is always nastily mocking Roswell testimony from decades later as unreliable because human memory is so fallible, and demanding we look at only the news stories from 1947. But then he turns around and does the same thing with the Arnold sighting, using a statement from a Bequette interview 40 YEARS LATER.
It is also a good example of spin from Lance. Two seconds before he was gloating that he had proven that Arnold was using the “like saucers skipping over water” phrase in July 1947 in his written report to AAF intelligence-- except he DIDN’T. I doubt Lance ever bothered to read Arnold's actual letter, which also included a drawing by him which exactly matched with his verbal, quoted press shape descriptions of a very thin and flat, convex "aircraft", rounded in front but coming to something like a point in the back. Also Arnold describing the shape in that letter as "saucer-like" (3 times) and a "saucer-like disk".
Arnold also commented: "Of course, when the sun reflected from one or two or three of these units, they appeared to be completely round; but, I am making a drawing to the best of my ability, which I am including, as to the shape I observed these objects to be as they passed the snow covered ridges as well as Mt. Rainier."
So even to Arnold they often seemed to be "ROUND" when brightly reflecting sunlight, but not perfectly round when outlined against the white snowy backdrop of Mt. Rainier, when he thought they came to more of a point in the back. (He also made this point in an earlier letter to Wright Field on July 8, 1947.)
As to motion, Arnold never mentioned anything like skipping on water. In fact, he says virtually the opposite: "These objects were holding an almost constant elevation; they did not seem to be going up or coming down, such as would be the case of rockets or artillery shells." So much for "skipping" or some sort of sharp, undulating or UP and DOWN motion.
He again uses MOTION descriptions of them swerving in a line formation and flipping and flashing: "They flew like many times I have observed geese to fly in a rather diagonal chain-like line as if they were linked together. They seemed to hold a definite direction but rather swerved in and out of the high mountain peaks... What kept bothering me as I watched them flip and flash in the sun right along their path..."
As I commented before, Arnold had the perfect opportunity to correct those newspaper “misquotes” he would LATER claim happened. Not only was the AAF letter in his own words, so was the radio interview he had on June 26 where he again failed to mention anything like skipping on water. Instead he again said, “These were flying in more or less a level, constant altitude. They weren't going up and they weren't going down.” Nor in any interview from that time period (and Arnold was interviewed MANY times) does Arnold correct the record, but instead keeps repeating his basic disc- or saucer-like SHAPE descriptions, consistently, over and over again. (Such as his radio interview: “They were half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex on the rear. ... they looked like a big flat disk.”)
(Part 2)
So after claiming quotes at the time that Arnold didn’t actually make until years later, Lance tries to recover by quoting an interview with newsman Bequette from 40 YEARS LATER! And all Bequette says is that he is quite sure that he didn't invent the term "flying saucer" (correct since NONE of his articles from 1947 used it, instead using “saucer-like”) and instead says, "I DON'T REMEMBER whether or not Arnold used the words 'saucer-shaped craft'", and instead was willing to give Arnold's LATER claims the benefit of the doubt, even though this is 40 YEARS LATER and he DOESN'T REMEMBER clearly.
This Lance spins into "All of the principals agree that it probably happened." By "all the principals" I presume he means only Arnold and Bequette.
I’ve written extensively on what Arnold REALLY said back in 1947 NUMEROUS TIMES, which the skeptics like the clueless Martin Kottmeyer are constantly trying to alter to try to “prove” that Arnold never described anything like a “saucer”-shaped craft. Another person to write on this in detail is Martin Shough in his lengthy monograph on the Arnold sighting:
http://www.nicap.org/reports/arnold_analysis_shough.pdf
Shough mentions the 1988 Lagrange interview with Bequette, but also notes that four year later (1992), Bequette was again interviewed by Ron Story, and this time said that Arnold DID use the “saucer” SHAPE description when he interviewed him. Shough comments: ”Cognizant that Lagrange had recorded a less explicit answer, Story remarked: ‘I can only repeat what he confirmed to me: that [use of ‘saucer’ to describe shape] was based on Arnold’s description."
See Appendix 4, p. 113, where Shough goes into the controversy in detail, analyzing what Arnold was repeatedly quoted as saying in June/July 1947 vs. his later claims about saucers skipping on water, which Shough says he first made in an interview with Edward R. Murrow THREE YEARS LATER”
“. . . 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.”
Shough properly comments: “If ‘most’ newspapers misquoted him then there should be at least one that didn't. But apparently ALL of the papers misquoted him. The ‘misunderstanding’ was widespread in the media within a few days and Arnold's story was sought by phone and in person by countless reporters who ‘came out of the woodwork’, so one must assume that he had opportunities to supply clarification.” INDEED! My point exactly.
The first Arnold sighting article was written and published by Nolan Skiff of the Pendleton East Oregonian on June 25 who described the SHAPE as “saucer-like aircraft.” When the story got on the newswires and there was a huge demand for the story, Bequette then interviewed Arnold for TWO HOURS. But nowhere is there a “correction” to Skiffs “saucer-like aircraft” description. Instead Bequette wrote, ” He also described the objects as ‘saucer-like’ and their motion "like a fish flipping in the sun,” clearly distinguishing between shape and motion. Also: [He] “clung to his story of shiny, flat objects racing over the Cascade mountains with a peculiar weaving motion ‘like the tail of a Chinese kite. Also, ” Mostly, he said, he was surprised at the way they twisted just above the higher peaks, almost appearing to be threading
their way along the mountain ridge line.” Again the side-to-side weaving motion he described numerous times elsewhere, but nothing about an up-and-down “skipping” motion. Maybe they did skip, but Arnold seemingly made no effort to put that into the public record back in 1947.
(Part 3)
According to Shough, Arnold would also later claim that in 1947 he described the motion “like speed boats on rough water”. Elsewhere it is claimed Arnold also compared the shape to that of flat rocks and said they moved like flat rocks skipping on water, which at least makes more sense as analogies. As Shough (and I) have commented, who has ever heard of someone skipping “saucers” on water?
[Footnote 336]: Arnold's 1952 book recalls that he used this last simile "at the time" in 1947: "They flew in a definite formation, but erratically. As I described them at the time, their flight was like speed boats on rough water . . . .." (The Coming of
the Saucers p.11) The earliest published source I have so far been able to identify for the speed-boat simile is the April 1950 interview with broadcaster Ed Murrow, but it may occur in an early press story unknown to me.”
[Footnote 342] According to historian Loren Gross (UFOs: A History), Arnold told Nolan Skiff that the "the 'missiles' travelled like a flat rock bounced across the surface of water, a rising and falling motion." This would be the natural form of such a simile intended only to illustrate motion. It is a commonplace. Everyone has skipped stones, whereas "skipping saucers" is on the face of it a strange and unlikely activity, so Gross's account appears plausible. It is called in question because Gross adds that Bequette used this simile to invent the term ‘flying saucers’ for his AP wire story. He did not. On the other hand, the same expression was attributed to Arnold by Lagrange after having interviewed Bequette: "they look like pebbles [flat stones] or plates: flat, rounded at the front, triangular at the rear."
So there you have it. Arnold’s claims about “saucers skipping on water” came years later and never mentioned by Arnold in 1947 in a recorded interview and written letter to the AAF. Instead, in his own words, he spoke of their level flight with NO up or down motion. The skipping saucers or rocks or speed boats also were never brought up directly by Arnold or quoted in other interviews.
Arnold DID mention originally they flew erratically, hence they seemed to flip and flash in the sun, In fact, their motion was so extreme, this was one reason he was already considering non-earthly origins, according to the interview he did for the Chicago Times on July 7, 1947. “He said discs were making turns so abruptly in rounding peaks that it would have been impossible for human pilots inside to have survived the pressure. [But again note no mention of up or down motion, only extreme “turns”] So, he too thinks they are controlled from elsewhere, regardless of whether it’s from Mars, Venus, or our own planet.”
And in 1947, he made numerous mentions of their disc-like or saucer-like SHAPE, including that they were very flat and thin, appeared round when they flashed brightly, but were imperfectly round when outlined against the backdrop snow of Mt. Rainier, being rounded in front but coming to a convex point in the back. Originally this disc-like description he applied to all nine objects, only adding the ONE crescent-shaped object over a month later in Tacoma when he met the AAF intelligence officers while investigating Maury Island. The press may have invented “flying disc” and “flying saucer” but not the basic disc or saucer shape. That came from the beginning from Kenneth Arnold, which even he in his own words at the time NEVER applied to describing motion of like skipping on water.
David: "The press may have invented “flying disc” and “flying saucer but not the basic disc or saucer shape.That came from the beginning from Kenneth Arnold, which even he in his own words at the time NEVER applied to describing motion of like skipping on water."
Well, Ok. As predicted, it took more effort to correct Kottmeyer for the skeptic than it took Kottmeyer to produce his article. The skeptic could have gotten the truth with a minute of googling, but instead wanted others to do the work. That's why I call ufo skeptics energy vampires. They live off the sweat of the living.
By repurposing 'saucer' as a description of motion, Arnold did not do so to deny they were disc-like shapes, otherwise he would have said so. He would have denied he said anything at all about disc-like shapes, and blamed the press for misunderstanding him on shape altogether, not merely on the word 'saucer'.
It is the word 'saucer' he wanted to be rid of because of the crockery mockery, which I'd guess was psychologically excruciating, and angered him. He wanted to make his use of 'saucer' into just another metaphor for motion. I can't see any other explanation.
I think I understand Arnold's reasoning that led to the wraith-like shape in the 1950s. I'll post a comment on foreshadower about it in a day or so.
Regards,
Don
Don writes: "That's why I call ufo skeptics energy vampires. They live off the sweat of the living."
What on earth does this mean?
Is he saying that UFO skeptics don't do any work? I suggest it is mainly the ET proponents who don't bother to work on, or analyse, a big sighting. Some cases just don't yield easily. They require days or weeks of research to get at the answer. Sometimes the skeptics solve the case, but only after hard work.
Some cases yield easily, others do not. Some never do. These are called 'unknowns'. Sometimes these 'unknowns' later become 'knowns' because vital facts are not discovered until months or years afterwards.
In the Arnold case, I assume it will remain unidentified forever. But it is still remotely possible that someone has overlooked a vital fact relating to the case that will change it into an IFO. The pelicans idea fell flat. So what? Has the 'visitors from outer space' idea done any better? It is just a default 'solution' because nobody can find an acceptable earthly solution.
But do not let anyone kid us that "skeptics live off the sweat of the living". Let's face it, the great majority of sightings are vague night lights not 'flying discs'. The term was a total misnomer from the start, and I am NOT attaching blame to anyone in particular.
Would anyone now pay any attention to a report of nine vaguely circular objects reported seen from a distance of 25 miles? And this from someone who a month later changes his account to the effect that one of these nine was of a different shape to the other eight?
For all we know ALL the objects had different shapes. We cannot say.
CDA: "Don writes: "That's why I call ufo skeptics energy vampires. They live off the sweat of the living."
What on earth does this mean?"
Your reply is an example. In what you are replying to, I answered the question you are asking.
That's what I mean.
I've read through Martin Shough's excellent book-length article The Singular Adventure of Mr Kenneth Arnold (which can be found on the NICAP website, I think). There is a short version published in Darklore 4 or 5. I highly recommend them.
By way of criticism, there are a few things Shough backgrounds that I think should be in the foreground. He presents Arnold as "no meek hanger-on"..."with a healthy opinion of his own worth" so that he would not be easily swayed by the opinions of others, including his peers. This is true, but Shough misses the 'band of brothers' aspect of Arnold's personality.
Shough may tread too close to the either/or of did he see a disk or a crescent? It is more complicated than that.
I did catch one error: Shough writes he hasn't seen the first issue of Fate, but according to his source, Palmer did not publish a drawing of the wraith crescent Arnold said was drawn by Davidson. "I don't believe he did". He did so on page 42, Fate Magazine, Spring 1948. My guess is the Fate issue was completed in the winter of 1947.
For anyone interested in Arnold pre-Maury Island, Shough's is the best I've read.
Regards,
Don
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