Looking back over the past century it’s quite amazing how things which were taken very seriously now seem to be such an obvious hoax that one wonders how they were ever taken seriously. But looking in the context it’s almost comical how well they represent the beliefs and vision of the day. To me it seems analogous to the style of the 1970’s. No matter how hard I look at shag carpet and appliances painted brown and olive green I cannot see how that possible could look good in any context. No matter how much I consider the environment or cultural context, brown suits and golden look BAD and cheesy woodgrain is the worst thing to put on the side of a TV or video game system. Yet somehow it looked good. And somehow to people of the time… UFO’s seemed so realistic and mysterious…

Here’s Kennith Arnold, who got the “Flying Saucer” thing started in 1947 when he saw aircraft he described as flying “like saucers skipping across water.” Here he shows what he believes he saw:

And here is what the future of aircraft looked like in 1947, the Northrup YB-49. At the time it was the most advanced thing flying…

Not identical, but certainly having some things in common…

 

But this was not the first image of a UFO. Long before the flying saucers that came after the Second World War, people were claiming to see cigar-shaped UFO’s, often described as “Airships” and generally assumed to be “From Mars.”

Here’s an early photo which is said to show one in the 1870’s

At the time, flight was limited to balloons and lighter than air craft. Some experiments were made with controllable, self-propelled flying machines. They looked something like this, although this shows a 1900 Zeppelin, the concept had been around for some time and was seen as the travel method of the future:

But back to the 20th century. The height of the “UFO” era was the 1950’s. And the UFO’s of the time had a tendency to be of the “saucer” variety. This may be due to a misunderstanding of Arnold, the man who started it. Kennith Arnold’s never described the craft he thought he saw as being saucer-shaped, but that may have been lost on some…

Enter the classic flying saucer. They tend to look suspiciously like a hubcap

 

But my favorites are always the ones with the classic little bubble on the top. A few even show off their landing gear:

Coincidentally (or not) this was the same time period when transparent bubbles were showing up on the most modern and futuristic concept vehicles and aircraft..

The streamlined yet solid chrome looks of cars and appliances at the time reflect the same style of the UFO’s reported world wide. But the “Saucer” would slowly die throughout the 1970’s. And By 1980, this photo from Gulf Breeze Florida seemed to indicate a new sort of UFO was visiting earth…

Now there’s a UFO that practically shouts “Late 1970’s early 1980’s” to me. I’m not sure what it is, but it just looks like it would fit perfectly next to an Atari 2600.

Oh, and here’s the spacecraft from Stephen Spielberg’s “ET”

Just sorta similar? Also looks rather large and fat. But the 1980’s were the last holdout for the round saucer. Before too long it a new shape of UFO would come to dominate the photos and reports. Here’s one of the new triangular craft from the early 1990’s:

The early 1990s’s, of course, also saw a new trend in high tech aircraft. They started to look like this:

 

Incase it has not occurred to anyone, which I am sure it has, what I am implying is that “UFO” sitings are more a product of imagination than of extra-terrestrials But then again: Maybe they just have a similar sense of style.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Conspiracy Theories, Culture, History, Paranormal, Space. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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