Image of a flying saucer hovering over a graveyard from Ed Wood’s 1959 cinematic masterpiece, Plan 9 from Outer Space
9 October 2020
The modern phenomenon of UFO sightings dates to 1947. While occasional reporting of unusual objects in the sky date to the early 20th century, both the modern UFO craze and the term flying saucer get their starts in that year.
On 24 June 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing several high-speed, unidentified flying objects near Mount Rainier in Washington state. Arnold’s story was picked up by the wire services and printed in papers across the United States the next day. This coverage produced a spate of such “sightings” in the following days.
The initial reports, however, did not use the phrase flying saucer, instead the objects were described as saucer-like or like a pie plate. A Chicago Daily Tribune with a dateline of 25 June 1947, the day after Arnold’s sighting, and printed on 26 June quoted Arnold as saying:
“I saw the flashes were coming from a series of objects that were traveling incredibly fast. They were silvery and shiny and seemed to be shaped like a pie plate.”
A United Press report of 26 June has this description:
Nine bright, saucer-like objects flying at “incredible” speed at 10,000 feet altitude were reported here Wednesday by Kenneth Arnold, Boise (Ida.) pilot, who said he could not hazard a guess as to what they were.
And the Associated Press of the same date:
Arnold described the objects as “flat like a pie pan,” and so shiny that they reflected the sun like a mirror.
It isn’t until the next day, 27 June 1947, that phrase flying saucer appears. Again, from the United Press of that date:
Kenneth Arnold said today he would like to get on one of his 1200-mile-an-hour “flying saucers” and escape from the furore [sic] caused by his story of mysterious aircraft flashing over southern Washington.
And an Associated Press story of 27 June as carried by the Albuquerque Journal had the following headline:
Flying Saucer Mystery Deepens as Eyewitness Descriptions Increase
Interestingly, Arnold later claimed that he was misquoted by journalists and that the objects were not saucer shaped. He said they were shaped like boomerangs or batwings. He claims to have told reporters that the objects moved like a saucer skipping across water, and reporters misinterpreted his statement. At the time of the sighting, Arnold made drawings of the objects he saw, and these confirm that he was misquoted. But this correction came too late. The idea of saucer-shaped alien craft had wormed its way into the public consciousness and subsequent “sightings” dutifully conformed to the saucer-shaped prototype of a “genuine” alien craft.
This is an example of a common phenomenon in UFOlogy, where descriptions of aliens or their craft tend to conform to the descriptions given in the most recent stories in the media. For example, after the movie E.T. debuted, many descriptions of alleged alien visitors resembled the protagonist of the Spielberg film.
The phrase unidentified flying object appears the next month, as the spate of sightings continued. From a Twin Falls, Idaho newspaper on 6 July 1947:
Large numbers of flying discs Saturday were reported seen both on Independence day and several weeks ago by many Magic Valley residents. Within a 20-minute period at least 35 of the unidentified flying objects were seen by nearly 60 persons who were picnicking at Twin falls park Friday. [sic: non-standard capitalization in original]
The abbreviation UFO was in place by October 1953, when it appeared in the magazine Air Line Pilot:
The UFO was estimated to be between 12,000 and 20,000 feet above the jets.
Sources:
“Area Residents Join Many Seeing ‘Discs.’” Times News (Twin Falls, Idaho), 6 July 1947, 1. Newspaperarchive.com.
Associated Press. “Flier Reports Nine Great Objects Flying 1200 mph.” Daily Democrat (Tallahassee, Florida), 26 June 1947, 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Associated Press. “Flying Saucer Mystery Deepens as Eyewitness Descriptions Increase.” Albuquerque Journal, 27 June 1947, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Bartholomew, Robert E. and Erich Goode. “Mass Delusions and Hysterias: Highlights from the Past Millennium.” The Skeptical Inquirer, 24.3, May/June 2000, 25. ProQuest.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. flying, n., UFO, n.1.
“Sees Mystery Aerial ‘Train’ 5 Miles Long.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 26 June 1947 (Dateline: 25 June), 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Shapiro, Fred. “Antedating of ‘Unidentified Flying Object.’” ADS-L, 7 September 2020.
United Press. “1200-M.P.H. Flying Saucer Story Has Teller Up In Air.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 27 June 1947, 3C. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
United Press. “Streaking Sky Objects Puzzle West Coast Flier.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 26 June 1947, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Photo Credit: Ed Wood, Jr., dir. Plan Nine from Outer Space, 1959. Public domain image.