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