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Just read an interesting piece on-line about UFO's. You may remember that I wrote about the percentage of people who believe in space aliens having visited Earth is 20% higher than those who believe in evolution.
This article UFO states that the UFO scare started in 1947 when a man named Kenneth Arnold claimed to have seen nine UFO's flying over Mount Rainer in Washington. As I recall, in the TV documentary made of this incident, he was flying a small plane at the time and perhaps his being a pilot added some credulity to the story, soon after a number of similar reports were made as the sighting took hold on the public’s imagination.
Bad reporting is given, by the author, as the reason they were called ‘flying saucers’. In reality Mr. Arnold is said to have reported them as crescent shaped. He went on to say that they “flew erratic, like a saucer if you skip it across water." He evidently didn't mean they looked like saucers.
What caught my attention was that the authors of the book, The Saucer Fleet" (Apogee Books, 2008), claim that the entertainment media picked up on this story and promoted the flying saucer story hoping to cash in on books, movies, etc. from all the interest they themselves created. Eventually that one 'sighting' became a culture myth that many people came to believe as true, or so say the authors.
Me? As I said before, I would be surprised if we were alone in the universe, but am not ready to say they have visited Earth, but I am open minded about it. I have read a few books on the subject both for and against. Both points of view are persuasive.
This article UFO states that the UFO scare started in 1947 when a man named Kenneth Arnold claimed to have seen nine UFO's flying over Mount Rainer in Washington. As I recall, in the TV documentary made of this incident, he was flying a small plane at the time and perhaps his being a pilot added some credulity to the story, soon after a number of similar reports were made as the sighting took hold on the public’s imagination.
Bad reporting is given, by the author, as the reason they were called ‘flying saucers’. In reality Mr. Arnold is said to have reported them as crescent shaped. He went on to say that they “flew erratic, like a saucer if you skip it across water." He evidently didn't mean they looked like saucers.
What caught my attention was that the authors of the book, The Saucer Fleet" (Apogee Books, 2008), claim that the entertainment media picked up on this story and promoted the flying saucer story hoping to cash in on books, movies, etc. from all the interest they themselves created. Eventually that one 'sighting' became a culture myth that many people came to believe as true, or so say the authors.
Me? As I said before, I would be surprised if we were alone in the universe, but am not ready to say they have visited Earth, but I am open minded about it. I have read a few books on the subject both for and against. Both points of view are persuasive.
