The Flying Saucers Are Real Index — Here’s what started it all. Circa 1950. First this book, then the movies, then the nutballs. To be honest, this book is a lot better than you’d think it would be.
The entire book is available here for downloading and reading.
This was one of the first books published about the UFO phenomena. We are fortunate that it ended up in the public domain.
It is a template for much of what would follow: the paranoia, the government disinformation, the inescapable conclusion that the saucers are not of this earth. Keyhoe, with his spare, matter of fact writing style, which also conveys a profound sense of wonder, has to be the prototype for the deadpan Fox Mulder of the X-Files.
On one hand we can see the birth of a key modern mythology. On the other, there is a body of almost naive evidence in this text unpolluted by that very mythology. The case studies are real. The witnesses were highly reliable. These cases are still unexplained.
That’s interesting that the book started the cult when the Roswell incident occured July, 1947. In the papers that reported the story, the term Flying Saucer was first coined. If the Roswell crash wasn’t truly a UFO, then one would have to wonder where the “purp’s” came up with the idea. 🙂
What are you calling mythology earthman?
I find this whole UFO phenomenon so interesting. Not because I believe… but because I don’t.
By now haven’t THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of people been “abducted”? (And many more claim to have had clear encounters.).
I can’t believe that all these people are cynical hoaxers. Nor can I believe they are all mentally disturbed. Quite a few seem sincere and normal to me.
So what the heck is going on here? I’ve been following this stuff since the early 70s and I still don’t think I understand it from a sociolgical or psychological standpoint.
Of course… maybe it’s real!
Dave
The origin of the Roswell Space ship had semi-innocent beginnings. An altered weather balloon was used in a highly secret project to lift monkeys into a very high altitude. One balloon crashed onto a ranch. As a sarcastic joke, an Air Force officer referred to the highly secret material used in the balloon as from outer space. The media jumped on this story and no matter how much the Air Force denied it the story stuck and grew. Because of the secrecy surrounding the incident, the Air Force couldn’t reveal the true nature of the “weather balloon”.
In the late 1940s and 50s, aircraft were flying higher altitudes and weird reflections that were not understood were often misunderstood. At the same time Science Fiction was becoming quite popular, feeding peoples imagination. Attention seeking hoaxers often rigged up phony shoots. Many people claimed to have been abducted and probed. Movies and books soon followed and it became an industry.
Have you noticed that since the popularity of digital cameras, UFO sightings have dried up? It is too easy to spot fakes or altered photos when done digitally.
If you want to believe that UFOs exist, then go for it. It explains a lot of things that the ignorant seek to know, much like the major religions do.
I’m not sure I follow you logic, Dave.
Weren’t the earliest UFO sigtings more like a foot ball? The evolving shape, speed, size, and supposed technology of UFO’s has generally followed the public’s evolving perception of what might be possible in science fiction.
In the 50s and 60s they were relatively small slow hovering crafts with silly blinking light and then they started getting bigger, faster and more fantastic in general pace with writers could imagine in books and movies.
If UFO’s were real, they surely would have intitally appeared as fantastic technology… not as disc shaped verstion of DeSotos.
Pat, I don’t believe I stated that I believed in UFO’s in my post. Just that the Roswell incident occured before the book was supposed to be published. So the term flying saucer wasn’t first coined by the author.
That said, I don’t know what to think. I find the facts of the story interesting, I find the whole “Mogel” explaination interesting as well.
As to the photo evidence… Most of the “photographic” evidence I have seen have been so badly done that it’s obvious to anyone that the images are faked or a special effect produced by the surroundings. (One video was taken from inside an airplane and was obviously a reflection in the airplanes window.) The worst stories coming from a man named Richard Hoagland, talk about nutjobs!
That said, there are cases reported that are hard to refute by totally reliable sources. Sure makes for interesting reading…
Could Curtis Mayfield have said it all when he did his album: “We come in Peace with a message of love?
Do you think Peace is perfect?