Podcast UFO

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

By the time Project Blue Book was terminated, most UFO researchers, especially in the United States, were of the opinion that UFOs were nuts and bolts craft piloted by flesh and blood creatures from other planets. This is what has become known as the extraterrestrial hypothesis or ETH. At around the same time, as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, Jacques Vallée had one book published and John Keel had two published, that challenged the ETH, and caused many in the UFO community to consider other options.

Vallée had his first UFO book, Anatomy of a Phenomenon, published in 1965 and his second, Challenge to Science, co-written with his wife, Janine, published in 1966. Both books make the argument that the UFO mystery is worthy of scientific study and present the elements of the problem in an organized manner in an effort to facilitate such study. In what would become characteristic in Vallée’s books, he presents accounts going back to antiquity, and he presents a lot of them. The books are lengthy and dry and hold little appeal for the average UFO enthusiast looking for sensational accounts of sightings and encounters. Read more →

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

In 1977, in the midst of a good deal of UFO activity in Italy, there was a multiple witness case that was investigated not only by a private UFO group, but by the Carabinieri (Italian national police) as well. The witnesses reported seeing lights, a cylindrical object, and a humanoid over a period of around three hours, during which they, the witnesses, made multiple approaches and retreats. Verga Maurizio wrote an article (page 20 of the pdf) covering the events headlined “Seven Scared Witnesses and a Humanoid” that was published in the Volume 25, Number 1, May 1979 Flying Saucer Review.

According to Maurizio, there were enough reports of UFO sightings, “especially at low altitude” and including close encounter reports to constitute “a wave.” During this, “there was one particularly strange, and important, incident” that had several witnesses, two of which were hypnotically regressed. The case was investigated by Umberto Telarico and Giorgio Russolillo of the Naples-base Federazione Uoflogica Regionale Campania. Most of the report is based on interviews with 24-year-old students Rocco Cirullo and Michele Giovanniello, who were the two initial witnesses and not the ones who were hypnotically regressed. Read more →

Among the many possible explanations for UFOs is that some UFOs might be creatures that live in the sky. The person who became best known for this idea was Trevor James Constable who presented it, along with infrared photos of what he claimed were bioforms invisible to the naked eye, in his 1958 book (as Trevor James) They Live in the Sky. James wasn’t alone in his belief, and the concept of sky creatures goes back farther than 1958 in both speculative literature and science fiction.

A good starting point for the history of the sky-creatures hypothesis is the 1997 paper by Jerome Clark, Spacemen, Demons and Conspiracies, published by the Fund for UFO Research. Clark explores the many explanations for UFOs put forward throughout the years and looks at the SCH in the section “Secret Weapons and Space Animals.” After going into the speculation by people such as James Moseley, Leon Davidson, and Jacques Vallée that flying saucers/UFOs can be explained as classified secret weapons, Clark delves into the history of the sky-creature concept. Read more →

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

In the early years of the flying saucer/UFO mystery, magazines played a significant part in the public perception of the phenomenon. One of the most popular magazines in that era was LIFE, which started covering saucer/UFO news at the very beginning during the 1947 summer of the saucers. For anyone interested in the early history of the phenomenon, Archives for the Unexplained has a collection of related magazine articles which includes LIFE articles from 1947 t0 1966.

In the article published in the July 1947 issue headlined “Speaking of Pictures… a Rash of Flying Disks Breaks Out Over the U.S.,” it is lamented that none of the many saucers seen that summer paused long enough to get its picture taken. There are pictures, however, of two fake saucers: one an obvious saw blade with what looks to be a capacitor attached to it held up by Reverend Joseph Brasky who claimed it hit the lightning rod of his church with an explosion, and the other an aluminum disk with what looks to be spent fireworks attached held up by a man from Shreveport, Louisiana, who said it flew out from behind a signboard. Read more →