| Hollywood, television and folklore would have been | | | | by the Russians. These ghost rockets, sighted mainly |
| less colourful had it been minus the colourful and | | | | in the Scandinavian skies, remained unexplained today. |
| mysterious world of UFO sightings. Imagine a world | | | | The next big UFO sighting was made by pilot and |
| with no X Files? Even though fans would shudder at | | | | businessman Kenneth Arnold, who claimed he saw |
| that depressing thought, the fact remains that there | | | | nine crescent-shaped objects which flew in a chain, |
| is no empirical proof for phenomena that has been | | | | sometimes skimming the surface of water. It is this |
| loosely placed in the category of the paranormal. | | | | description that led to the coining of the term |
| Flying saucers, extraterrestrials, alien abductions. | | | | “flying saucer” in 1947. |
| Fantasy or reality? Either way, it’s a realm that | | | | It was these UFO sightings that spawned a rash of |
| many take seriously, leading to a semi-scientific area | | | | theories that included alien landings from Mars and |
| of research called Ufology. Also, since UFO sightings | | | | even the Biblical assumption that flying saucers were |
| usually refer to flying objects, some prefer to all | | | | the vehicles of fallen angels. |
| them Unidentified Aerial Phenomena rather “flying | | | | The most widely publicized and investigated UFO |
| objects”. | | | | incident is the Roswell incident of 1947, when the |
| It’s a fascinating area, nevertheless. Research | | | | residents of this New Mexico town reported having |
| into UFOs gathered steam after World War I, when | | | | seen a disc-like object flying through the sky. |
| a flurry of sightings was reported. Since then, | | | | Nothing new by way of UFO sightings, right? But it |
| experts believe that many so-called sightings arise | | | | was the strange behaviour of the US Army that |
| from an inability to clearly decipher phenomena that | | | | fuelled the obsession over the incident and added |
| are related to astronomical events such as meteors | | | | mystery to it. Soon after the UFO was believed to |
| and planetary events, military planes, other aircraft | | | | have crashed and metallic debris recovered from a hill |
| and hot air balloons. | | | | in Roswell, the Army issued a statement, claiming it |
| But there are phenomena that don’t seem to be | | | | was indeed a UFO that had landed. Then, almost |
| related to any of these at all, leading some to believe | | | | immediately, they issued another statement, claiming |
| that there are indeed such things as unidentified flying | | | | it was all a mistake and that the disc they claimed to |
| objects. The first widespread reportage on UFOs | | | | have recovered was actually a weather balloon. |
| came in 1994 when Allied pilots in the war reported | | | | But the biggest mystery of all is the reported |
| sighting what they called “foo fighters” or | | | | discovery of four alien bodies that made the Roswell |
| erratically flying “enemy weapons”. | | | | incident so fantastic. So, did the US government |
| Then there were the “ghost rockets” or | | | | make up the alien theory to cover up a secret |
| 1946, when people reported nearly 2,000 sightings of | | | | military experiment that went awry? Or did they |
| UFOs that looked like meteors with extreme | | | | make up the weather balloon to cover up a true alien |
| manoeuvrability. These were not consistent with any | | | | landing so that the public wouldn’t panic? |
| known astronomical event at the time and some | | | | Either way, the interest in UFOs hasn’t died. If |
| hypothesize that they were test missiles being fired | | | | anything, it’s only multiplied. |