Showing posts with label UFO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UFO. Show all posts

Thursday, November 2, 2023

Analyzing a 2007 UFO Sighting in Mississippi


Through the years, I’ve had a few sightings of strange looking things in the sky. The first time as a boy in mid-afternoon on a warm day around 1968. I was excited to see a UFO, a brilliant cigar-shaped object gliding across the sky. Before it left sight, the angle changed enough for the sunlight to illuminate the wings and tailfin of the plane.

 Illustration: Simulated UFO, Flying Cigar from Gold Key comics, and Jet.

It was quite the letdown. There have been other disappointments, yet there’s one sighting that puzzles me still.


UFO Sighting: 2007, Near Carthage, MS

Date: (Likely) Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007, time, approximately 4:30 P.M, clear skies. Records show sunset was near & P.M., but my impression is daylight had just begun to fade.

Location: Highway 16 near the entrance to Highway 25, west of Carthage, Mississippi.

Sighting Details: Heading home to Jackson from Carthage, MS, I saw unfamiliar objects in the sky to the west of me. The motion is what really caught my eye. Above the horizon in the distance, there were about eight bright objects, and their movement gave me the impression of a cluster of fireflies. I didn’t know the word “frisson” at the time but felt a sudden moment of emotional excitement. The UFOs were far away, and the luminous dots looked star-like and I couldn’t tell anything about their true size or their distance from me.

They were in a loose elliptical-shaped grouping with movement by at least two of them seeming to be slowly “orbiting” counterclockwise along the curve. Some of the others were moving slightly in other directions, and some appeared to be hovering (but could have either been moving far more slowly – or towards/away from me). The apparent speed of the objects around the ellipse was no faster than the sweep of a second hand on a watch.

Simulation based on impression and memory –
Actual objects were proportionally smaller and moving approximately within the dotted arc.

I watched them for several seconds, slowed down the car, on the verge of pulling over to take a picture with my cellphone. However, I was in a rush to get home before dinner, and I felt the lights would show up as tiny specks, if at all. 

Red dots indicate portion of the trip that the UFOs were observed. (About 60 seconds.)

The objects were in view until I lost sight of them when turning to the southwest on Highway 25, about 2500 feet from where I first spotted them. They’d been visible to me for about 60 seconds maximum. Although it didn’t look like anything I’d seen before, I shrugged and figured it was just planes circling for landing approach at either the Jackson or Meridian Airport and didn’t give it much more thought, and it didn’t occur to me at the time to report it to anyone.

In 2011, my interest in UFOs was refreshed and I decided to investigate a bit. My guess about the airports was dead wrong. The UFOs were due west, Jackson was to the southeast, Meridian to the southwest of my vantage point. I did find that there are some small airfields to the west, and checking more recently it would seem unlikely that any of them were conducting an airshow on a weekday afternoon.

What were they? Ufologists often groan at reports of LITS, Lights in The Sky at night, which could be anything - and probably nothing. These were seen during daylight, but still… The objects themselves may not have been producing light, merely catching the light from the afternoon sun. Contrails, clouds, even birds and planes can seem to glow from such lighting.

A Slightly Similar Sighting from 2014

After becoming interested in UFOs again in 2011, I’ve more actively watched the skies. In 2013 I moved to a house with a lakeside view of the sky, but it’s on the flight approach or planes coming from the east to the Jackson airport. That means I frequently see what looks like a planet or hovering distant light that eventually veers off to display navigation lights or flies over to be clearly revealed as a passenger jet.

Actual sighting photo, 2014.

One morning in mid Oct. 2014, I saw a flash of white dots high in the distance against a clear blue sky. I was able to take a few photos. They'd swarm, dim, and reappear. They moved towards me but never got close, but I could count 40 or more of them. I finally could see enough to understand, these were a flock of birds, probably the Canada geese common around here. They were flying in a circular orbit while slowly moving forward. When turning towards me, their undersides flashed white. I documented the sighting in an Oct. 16, 2014 Facebook post.

UFO Flying Saucers, Gold Key comics, 1968, “The Lubbock Lights”

The objects I saw in 2007 didn’t move the same way, but it is a possibility they were birds, maybe a small flock of white egrets so far away that the motion of their wings was not visible. I’ve seen groups of them fly several times but never in a pattern like what I saw in 2007.


Comments from UFO Investigators

More recently, I checked the databases of MUFON and NUFORC but here were no sightings that matched either the time or location of my 2007 sighting. Finding nothing, I asked two colleagues, both seasoned UFO investigators, for their opinions on my belated UFO report. From the USA, Ralph Howard, former MUFON State Director and Chief Investigator for Georgia, currently an associate with the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). From Canada, science writer Chris Rutkowski,  the author of 10 books on aerial phenomena and his country’s most prominent researcher of the topic.

Ralph Howard:
"Because of the number of years past, it would be doubtful that we could find an event... to suspect might be involved. And it's not just the years, but the exact date too. In more recent years in my investigations, if the [witness] is sure of the exact date, we can even get FlightAware data for the date & time, and place jets in the area and in the correct direction; or, they weren't there, also useful. Exact dates can allow us to rule out/ or keep in play/ known events.

As for what it might have been...
   A) we can always suspect Chinese (aka Sky) Lanterns, but... (in my experience) they are unlikely to Not move together, at least roughly together. The ones 'orbiting,' that's Really odd. I'm skeptical that lanterns could appear white or starlike, even at distance. Of all the reports of them in GA, and there were tons, None were white in color.
   B) Planes or drones... well, conceivably, but the steadiness of the "bright" appearance (i.e. not flashing or varying in brightness) is hard to square with either one, where all surfaces on them are *Not equally reflective. The direction of view (west) isn't really good for the light being reflected from the sun anyway: view direction needs to be more south, or north, of due west, substantially off (maybe 45 degrees) from due west. (Our GA group actually experimented with that.)
   C) A self-illuminated object would suffice... stunt planes is an idea. These are small, and often have a single light on the nose. However, they just Do Not fly around in the motions described. They tend to fly in formation, with small (1- or 2-plane) break-offs of one or 2 to fly loops & stunts. Local press would've been on top of that, announcing an upcoming show. (As we had in Augusta GA, 2015.)
   D) If we had a military ops area (MOA) over in that direction.

Boiling everything down, I have a hard time explaining that one... [but] I wouldn't label it 'Unknown'."
Chris Rutkowski:
“One possible explanation is Chinese lanterns, I suppose, since 8 is a common number for releases of this kind during commemorative events. While these are usually orange in colour, at a distance these could certainly be white or yellow (and the witness only notes they were ‘starlike’).

The other problem is that this sighting was reported 16 years after it occurred, and delays of this long in reporting sometimes cause details to either be embellished or forgotten. (The exact date is also not known with precision.) It would be impossible to investigate this case to a definitive conclusion.

There is enough information in the report that it should not be classified as ‘Insufficient Information,’ but labeling it as ‘Unknown’ is unwarranted. I would list it as ‘Possible Explanation’."

Initial sighting location as photographed Oct. 8, 2023.

Today, I regret not taking the time in 2007 to drive at least a few miles closer to the UFOs. Maybe I’d have been closer to see what they were - or were not. As it was, I had a short look from a distance, in what skeptic Mick West calls the “Low Information Zone.”

I’m in no way claiming the UFOs I saw were anything unearthly or even extraordinary, but the sighting remains unexplained. If anyone reading this happened to have seen the same thing or something similar, please let me know. I’m interested in hearing more, whether it leads to an explanation or not.

. . .

Saturday, September 23, 2017

UFO Origins: Saucers That Time Forgot & The Outer Limit

There's a companion blog to Blue Blurry Lines, one exclusively focused on the forgotten history, folklore and origins of ufology, The Saucers That Time Forgot.


A five-part series was just completed, at STTF, an examination of "The Outer Limit" by Graham Doar, a science fiction short story from 1949 that deals with an interrupted journey, the test flight of an experimental rocket plane, and features now-familiar UFO case elements, put together for the first time:

A close encounter with a UFO, an alien abduction, missing time, contact with an advanced benevolent extraterrestrial race, telepathic communication, and a dire warning to the Earth about the use of Atomic weapons. At least one adaptation of the story includes the use of hypnotic regression to recover memories of the encounter. It's a prophetic tale of a credible witness of a relatively incredible event, but the colonel in charge chooses not to believe, and there's the strong suggestion that the UFO report will be the subject of a cosmic cover-up.

The series starts with the historical setting of the late 1940s, A-bombs and the arrival of the flying saucers, introduces the story itself, and shows how the tales was further spread through popular culture by being adapted into several radio and television programs, and how it was absorbed into ufology through George Adamski and the Contactees. The finale examines how it was imitated in several movies ranging from The Day the Earth Stood Still to Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space, and even echoed in much more modern films.

The complete collection, linked for your convenience:

Flying Saucers, the Atomic Bomb and Doomsday: The Outer Limit (Part 1 of 5)
The Outer Limit by Graham Doar: The UFO Parable (Part 2 of 5)
Radio, Television & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 3 of 5)
Ufology & The Outer Limit Legacy (Part 4 of 5)
UFOs, Hollywood & The Outer Limit Legacy (Finale)

Other articles focus on weird, warped, and sometimes fraudulent UFO cases that were newsmakers in their day, but lost through the cracks of time, forgotten- or perhaps even suppressed- by UFO historians.  STTF is written by Curt Collins, with the support of Claude Falkstrom, backed by the input of UFO buffs - and sages - both known and unknown, of this world and perhaps others.

Fight the UFO cover-up. Read each and every installment of The Saucers That Time Forgot.

Friday, June 30, 2017

Dr. J. Allen Hynek: Ufology is a Mess

“Ufology today is in the state I would say chemistry was when chemistry was alchemy,  a mixture of superstition, wild ideas, unproved claims, and yet out of that whole mess, finally the very first class science of chemistry evolved. And I think the same thing is going to happen eventually with Ufology, but right now, it is a mess. 
There’s a fantastic amount of wishful thinking, of desire, of pseudoscience, of pseudo-religion, of cultism, but eventually, I think that will all finally sink to the bottom, and we’ll have out of the whole thing a clear liquid of something we that can really see, and I hope, understand.” 
Dr. J. Allen Hynek in The UFO Experience (documentary, 1983)


The Close Encounters Man

Hynek is back in the news, due to the biography by Mark O'Connell, The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs O'Connell interviewed people who knew and worked with Hynek, and was given unprecedented access to Hynek’s professional files as an astronomer, and the UFO documents and correspondence at the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS). 


It's not exactly a UFO book, but it touches on a lot of the topic's history in telling the story of the man, Josef Allen Hynek. So in that sense, it's a book that' is accessible to non-saucer buffs, and also provides an interesting look UFOs as part a cultural phenomenon, and Hynek's evolving role in making it happen.

More details about the book and the author can be found at this page at The Book Cellar.



Friday, June 23, 2017

1954 UFO Whistleblower: Frank E. Keely

From Kenneth Arnold to UFO crashes, Keely tells all.


Publisher Bill Gaines' EC Comics produced a number of comic book series, best-loved for their anthologies of science fiction and horror stories, the most (in)famous of which was Tales from the Crypt. EC is remembered for their outstandingly sophisticated stories and art, and for their O. Henry-type surprise endings, similar to what Rod Serling would later do on television in the Twilight Zone.

Weird Science-Fantasy #25, Sept. 1954

Not Keel, It's Keely

Weird Science-Fantasy #25, (EC, Sept. 1954) featured "Flying Saucer Report" written by Al Feldstein and illustrated by Wally Wood. It's a fictional story, but cites quite a bit of genuine UFO history through the eyes of "Frank E. Keely," a composite character based on Major Donald E. Keyhoe and Frank Scully, the best-selling authors of The Flying Saucers are Real and Behind the Flying Saucers.


A non-believing skeptic confronts Keely

The story must may have been a practice run. The following issue, EC tried something even more ambitious. Bruce Lanier Wright in Strange Magazine said: 
"The most memorable UFO comic ever, though, has to be EC's Weird Science-Fantasy #26 of December 1954. In contrast to the light-hearted, sardonic tone of the earlier saucer stories, this issue was a serious treatment of actual UFO sightings based on the writings of Donald Keyhoe, a respected investigator of the era. Keyhoe spent an entire day with the EC staff, who constructed a series of accounts featuring actual names, dates and quotes from Keyhoe's files. The book received a good deal of national publicity and became a sellout." 
Weird Science-Fantasy #26, Dec. 1954
More about the special non-fiction Weird Science-Fantasy issue in a later BBL posting.

Keely's Flying Saucer Report

Getting back to Feldstein and Wood's "Flying Saucer Report," it's interesting not only for covering UFO cases like Kenneth Arnold and Thomas Mantell, it also provides an interesting cultural perspective on the "UFO cover-up," how the military denials and skeptical scientific explanations were perceived by the public circa 1954. Roswell, of course, was not mentioned, but Silas Newton's Aztec saucer crash story (made famous by Frank Scully) was. There's even what may be the first visual depiction of a secret military recovery of an ET body from a UFO crash for an alien autopsy.

Many of the details in the story seem to have been pulled from Donald Keyhoe's then-current book, Flying Saucers from Outer Space:
"... Scully reported that two flying discs from Venus had crashed in the Southwest. In the wreckage, according to Scully's informants, investigators found the bodies of several little men. The Air Force, said Scully, had spirited the bodies and the discs away for secret analysis."
Keely published the first crash retrieval story.

The Original Art for the Story

Jim Halperin is an active collector of rare comic books and original comic art. His site presents scans of the original artwork for "Flying Saucer Report," the 8-page story, reproduced large enough for it to be read in its entirety online.


Visit this link, click on the story page, then click on the art again to flip to the next page.


Monday, June 5, 2017

The Flying Saucers Are Real(ly Profitable)




This is a fragment of an unfinished piece (one of many) on UFOs, and the focus is on how Kenneth Arnold's 1947 report of flying saucers became the inspiration for industry, from advertising stunts to motion pictures.


Flying Saucer Merchandise


The first to benefit from flying saucers was newspapers and radio networks, and they built the interest up in the public, and then capitalized on satisfying the demand by keeping saucer stories in the news. Other businesses wanted a piece of the action and soon there were flying saucer-themed hamburgers, sundaes, cocktails hats, and more. See UFOPOP's UFO/Flying Saucer Merchandising Gallery.

One of the first commercial stunts was for radio stations to have planes drop paper or foil disks with slogans advertising their station. This started as early as July of 1947, and the photo seen below is from 1951.  
The Telegraph-Herald, Dubuque, Iowa, Sunday, April 08, 1951, page 17.


The fastest way to cash in was to rename an old or recycle existing products, such as Republic did in 1950, taking leftovers from The Purple Monster Strikes to make Flying Disc Man from Mars.



It took longer to get original products manufactured, but in time those appeared with and there were flying saucer kites, toys, arcade games and amusement park rides. Billboard magazine announced  a debut: November 20, 1948. "The Flying Disc is a brand new ride being put out by Bisch-Rocco... a spinning ride and will carry 32 passengers at one time.”  They later renamed it the Flying Saucer. 


There were also coin operated rides for kids that were placed in the front of stores.


Through one of these coin operated models, many years later, novelist Stephen King indirectly received inspiration from Kenneth Arnold:

"I took a trip to the shopping mall. I watched one of those machines that you plug a quarter into and this thing goes around and around. It's a flying-saucer ride made for kids. And I thought, Suppose the kid disappeared. Just disappeared in front of his mother and the people walking around. What would that be like? Now, that interested me very much." Magistrale, Tony. Stephen King, The Second Decade. 1992.

The Flying Saucers Business Today

 The first and most famous non-fiction book on UFOs by Donald Keyhoe was a paperback best-seller titled, The Flying Saucers Are Real. Keyhoe was able to persuade a good many people of that possibility, and gave the topic a big boost incredibility, helping keep it alive into the 1960s when mainstream media discussed the investigation of UFOs seriously. Since then, the scientific side of things has withered, while the fictional and entertainment merchandising of UFOs has thrived, continuing to do big business.



Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Ray Bradbury's Orbs from Mars

Ray Bradbury on UFOs- sort of.




Ray A. Palmer started Imagination in 1950, and it was a in the same pulpy vein as Fantastic Adventures and Other Worlds (which eventually transformer to Flying Saucers) featuring space opera tales of fantasy and Bug-Eyed Monsters. After only three issues, Palmer passed the torch to William L. Hamling, who incidentally was one of the few science fiction authors who promoted the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis.

According to Michael Ashley in Transformations: The Story of the Science-fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970,
"Hamling was less provocative and daring than Palmer. He knew a good story when he saw one, but avoided the extremes of Palmer. The result was fewer abominations, but also less excitement, and under Hamling Imagination became more bland than it had started out under Palmer."
Even so, occasionally a story of anomalous quality slipped in, transcending Imagination's pulpy origins. 



Ray Bradbury grew up loving Buck Rogers and monsters like King Kong, but his fantasy and science fiction stories were more more about the human heart. The April 1951 Imagination featured "In This Sign..." a story by Bradbury about Episcopalian missionaries led by Father Peregrine who'd traveled to Mars trying to save the souls of the natives by converting them to Christianity. The hitch being, the Martians they found were sentient beings who looked like spheres of blue light. It's an outstanding story, and proved to be a classic, touching on many important themes about religion and just what it means to be human. A scan of the the original magazine can be viewed at https://archive.org/stream/Imagination_v02n02_1951-04_cape1736#page/n0/mode/2up.




The piece was later retitled "The Fire Balloons," featured in the anthology The Illustrated Man and frequently reprinted in science fiction anthologies in different languages around the world. In 1980 it was adapted as part of the NBC television miniseries The Martian Chronicles, in the episode "The Settlers."



July 4, 1925





In his introduction to the 1974 edition of Dandelion Wine, Bradbury described the inspiration for the story:
"...one of the last memories I have of my grandfather is the last hour of a Fourth of July night forty-eight years ago when Grandpa and I walked out on the lawn and lit a small fire and filled the pear-shaped red-white-and-blue-striped paper balloon with hot air, and held the flickering bright-angel presence in our hands... and then, very softly, let the thing that was life and light and mystery go out of our fingers up on the summer air and away over the beginning-to-sleep houses, among the stars, as fragile, as wondrous, as vulnerable, as lovely as life itself."

It was a memory that lasted a lifetime. Bradbury mentioned it in 1990 in an interview with John Ezard
"At the end my grandfather would take me out to the end of the lawn at midnight. We'd light a little cup of shavings and put it underneath a Japanese fire balloon. We'd stand there waiting for the balloon to fill with warm air. Then we'd let it drift up into the night. I would stand there with my grandfather and cry because it was so beautiful. It was all over and it was going away. My grandfather died the next year and in a way he was a fire balloon going away."
Shortly before his death, Bradbury again described the childhood events that inspired the story in "Take Me Home," a biographical piece in the June 2012 special science fiction issue of The New Yorker that serves as his own epitaph. "...the paper balloon held between us for a final moment, filled with warm exhalations, ready to go."




Orbs

Ray Bradbury called them fire balloons, and they date back to ancient China and go by many names, such as sky candles, Japanese or Chinese lanterns, hot air balloons, sky lanterns and others. The invention eventually spread through Europe and then to the United States, where it was most often used as part of Independence Day fireworks. The Boy's Holiday Book by Reverend T. E. Fuller from 1865 provided instructions for constructing a fire balloon in the section on fireworks, in a day when you literally had to make your own fun. Bradbury's grandfather was passing on the tradition of flying them in 1925. Later generations of kids took shortcuts, making their sky lanterns out of dry cleaning bags powered by hot air generated from birthday candles. Some of these have been sent up with the intent of hoaxing a UFO.

Ray Bradbury regarded the sight of these balloons flight as a magical thing, and he was able to imagine them as otherworldly spherical glowing intelligent living things. He's not the only one.  



Friday, March 31, 2017

UFO Contact: April 1, 1967, from Loco, TX

Watts being interviewed in 1968 by UFO investigators.

Carroll Wayne Watts said he had a close encounter with a UFO the night of March 31, 1967, but it was not reported until the following day, on April 1. Watts lived in the tiny town of Loco, in the Texas Panhandle, just south of Wellington, about 100 miles east of Amarillo. His story was carried in United Press International news service, UPI, and published March 2, as reprinted below.

Loco, Texas, near the Oklahoma border. 

Saucer Speaks 

A Wellington farmer said today that he spoke to a flying saucer Friday night. The man, Carroll Watts, said he was returning home from his father`s residence about a mile north of his home at about 10:30 Friday night when he saw a light from about where an abandoned house stands. He turned off the dirt road and headed toward the light. He said he drove to within about 20 feet of an object which “appeared to be about 100 feet long and eight or ten feet high.” 

"I walked around the side of it, and about 20 feet down the side. I found a port or door. I knocked on it three or four times and it opened mechanically,” he said. “A voice began speaking to me - it was an unemotional voice neither masculine nor feminine. It asked me if I would be willing to submit to a rigorous physical examination. “I asked them why I would want to take a physical and they told me that if I passed it, I would be able to make a flight with them. They said any man who passed the physical could make a flight, but no women or children would be taken.” 

“They pointed out a machine against the opposite wall from where I was standing outside the door. They said all I had to do was stand before the machine to take a physical. About two or three feet forward from the machine was a map. It was about a yard square and began about a foot from the floor. It appeared to be a large-scale land map - but I couldn’t tell what it was a map of." 

“Then they informed me that they had a machine that, when the ship within 300 yards of a building, could tell how many people were in the building and their ages. They (the voice) then asked me again to take the physical - and when I declined, they told me that several people had taken the test and had made the flights." 

“They, whoever they were, said they were stationed all over the world and could come and go as they pleased - no one could stop them. I told them I didn’t want to take that physical and I got back in my car and turned the lights on the ship. As I pulled in front of it, it rose slightly and turned to the south. There was a light, about 20 inches across, on the of the nose. As the ship was sitting, it gave off a clear fluorescent light, but when the ship began to move, the light took on a reddish cast. As I drove off, the object lifted from the ground and took a heading to the south. It made no noise whatsoever. I guess the whole thing lasted about ten to 15 minutes.” 


Project Blue Book file card: "Psychological"

As he spoke to UPI by telephone, Watts had two Air Force investigators at his home. The investigators were sent to Wellington from Altus Air Force Base, Okla. One man in Wellington said Watts was considered to be “above reproach.”

The incident is the third reported in the Wellington area in the last month. On March 21, Watts reported sighting such a craft flying at about 50 miles an hour over a road for about eight miles. On March 23 an Air Force man reported that he was chased along a road by a similar craft for some time.

- - -

Dr. Hynek is baffled.

This was only the beginning of Watts' story. He had a series of encounters over the following months with events and players that resemble the Barney and Betty Hill story, hypnotic regression by a Budd Hopkins type, Polaroid UFO photography like Ed Walters, and close encounters of the postal and telephonic kind with astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who said:

"If this is a hoax, it is a very, very clever one. In fact, it would be such a clever hoax that it would be almost as interesting as what this farmer claims has happened to him."

 More on Watts' incredible saga to come.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

UFOs, Kenneth Arnold and the American Bible



Kenneth Arnold was the original credible witness, a straight-shooting, down-to-earth ex-Boy Scout. Jacques Vallee wrote, "I now think of referring to the (flying saucer) problem as 'the Arnold Phenomenon' after that celebrated witness, businessman Kenneth Arnold." (11 April 1963 entry,  Forbidden Science Volume I.)  However, in the years since, Arnold's role as the herald of the UFO age has been diminished by the overemphasis and promotion of the Roswell crash franchise. His role is important, and there's a lot more to his story.



Shortly after his encounter, Arnold had the first of many other sightings on his flight to Maury Island, a trip that began his informal role as the first civilian UFO investigator. He became interested in Charles Fort's books of phenomena and joined the Fortean Society. Over the years, he came to believe that the objects he'd seen were living creatures, possibly related to "Ezekiel's wheel" described in the Book of Revelation. There's a lot more to Kenneth Arnold's story than just his first sighting, but UFO history has largely ignored it.


Ray Palmer and an Amazing Book

UFO historians have sought to diminish or deny the role of another pioneer, Raymond A. Palmer, who was promoting the reality of extraterrestrials space ships visiting the Earth as early as 1945. Palmer was a science fiction author, but interested in the reality of space travel, Fortean phenomena, Theosophy and all sorts of paranormal topics, so in 1948 he created a non-fiction magazine to discuss them, Fate magazine. Palmer wrote to Kenneth Arnold and persuaded him to tell his story, which became the cover feature for the first issue of Fate. As a result, the two men became life-long friends and worked together, the best-known example being their collaboration on the 1952 book, The Coming of the Saucers.

In 1945 Ray Palmer became fascinated with something that's been called the American Bible, "... an amazing book called 'Oahspe' which purports to be a history of the past 79,000 years, both of the earth and of heaven... which ties into a cohesive whole all the legends and folktales of the world, and all the archeological discoveries of the past, and depicts a logical and convincing, and for the most part provable relationship between all the races of mankind for LONGER than science says civilized men existed on the earth, or even cave-men!" (Amazing Stories December 1945)




"Oahspe, A New Bible in the Words of Jehovih and His Angel Embassadors" was published in 1882, by John Ballou Newbrough supposedly written by automatic writing, channeling the word of Ormazd, "the Creator." In The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation,  John Michael Greer describes it's significance to UFOs and the extraterrestrial hypothesis. 
"Like many channeled works, Oahspe defies easy characterization. Written in the style of the King James Bible, it combines Christian imagery with ideas borrowed from many other religions... What sets it apart most strikingly from the religious visions of a previous century, thoughis the way it locates its theology in outer space. Its angels and gods live on countless planets... and travel from world to world in Etherean vessels that range from little scout craft to vast mother ships the size of a planet." 

Ray Palmer's Mystic Magazine, May, 1954

 These vessels are referred to as fire, sun and "star-ships." An example from Oahspe: "Then Osire left this high place and with his host, aboard the etherean ship of fire, sat out toward the earth, at break-neck speed; for such was the disposition of this most determined god."

Ray Palmer promoted the text in the pages of his magazines over the years, and went on to publish three versions of it between 1960 and 1972, writing that, "Oahspe is truly a gateway to understanding."


Arnold's Souvenir Card

In 1950 Kenneth Arnold published The Flying Saucer as I Saw It, an the illustrated pamphlet to be sold as a souvenir at his lectures on the topic. He used the same saucer image for a calling card. His daughter, Kim Arnold wrote: “Kenneth Arnold used to give out philosophy cards to the many people he would meet. They were the size of a common business card. The front of the card had the image of the second to the last of the nine flying saucers he saw on June 24, 1947. The back of the card expressed this quote:”



     Many people have inquired as to my philosophy – due to my involvement in the phenomenon known as "Flying Saucers.” The following I accept is worth thinking about. 
     A great man is the unbelieving man; he is without spiritual sight or spiritual hearing; his glory is in understanding his own understanding. It is he who subdues the forest, tames the beasts of the field to service. He goes alone in the dark, unafraid. He follows no man’s course, but, searches for himself; the priests cannot make him believe, nor the angels of heaven; none can subdue his judgment. He says: why permit others even priests, to you think for you? Stand on your own feet – be a man. Through his arm are tyrants and evil kings overthrown. Through him are doctrines and religions sifted to the bottom and the falsehood and evil in them cast aside. Who but the Creator could have created so great a man as the unbeliever? 
KENNETH ARNOLD

It's an unusual piece of writing, not what you'd expect out of a man like Arnold. It turns out the language is taken from scripture. It's taken from Ray Palmer's beloved Oahspe.


Oahspe, a New Bible in the Words of Jehovih and His Angel Embassadors, Page 361

26. Nevertheless, the Creator created a great man amongst these; and such is the unbelieving man. He hath neither gold nor silver, nor house nor land; and he is without spiritual sight or spiritual hearing; but his glory is in understanding his own understanding.
27. He it is that subdueth the forest, and tameth the beasts of the field to man's service. He goeth alone in the dark, fearing naught. He followeth not the course of any man, but searcheth for himself; the priest cannot make him believe, nor can the angels of heaven; none can subdue his judgment. He beholdeth the glory of the earth and of manhood. He calleth to the multitude, saying: Why permit ye others, even priests, to think for you? Arise, O thou, and be a man! Arise, O thou, and be a woman!
28. He inspireth of the earth and for the earth; through his arms are tyrants and evil kings overthrown. Through him are doctrines and religions sifted to the bottom, and the falsehood and evil in them cast aside. Yea, who but Ormazd could have created so great a man as the unbeliever?

We can't know exactly how Arnold came to use the Oahspe text on his calling card, but there can be little doubt that his friend, Ray Palmer, was influential in its genesis.




Update: Kenneth Arnold's story was on the front cover of the 1st issue of FATE Magazine, but I had forgotten what was on the back cover: