# If UFO's are real, how come virtually no mention of them until the mid 20th century
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 27, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010 "2003-08-27T16:53:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Muldoon\_s\_Squishiness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muldoon_s_Squishiness)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/1 "2003-08-27T16:53:20Z")
IIRC the first _flying saucer_ report was by Kenneth Arnold in 1947 in Washington state and even that was misconstrued as Arnold didn’t claim to see saucer shaped objects, but rather gleaming silver objects, which I believe turned out to be military aircraft.
It just seems highly suspicious to me that there is little or no mention of UFO’s until humanity takes to the skies, and even then it takes up until the age of jet aircraft for sightings to start, not to mention the whole “alien abduction” phenomena. Plus there was all the paranoia of the Cold War.
Or am I missing something?
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### Author:  [@Kewk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kewk)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/2 "2003-08-27T16:59:49Z")
Yes, actually you are missing a lot. There are 1000’s of ancient pictures from every known civilization depicting what people have presumed as flying saucers.
In fact the Sumerians have the entire solar system carved into ancient tablets and believe in an alien race known as the Anunnaki.
Furthermore the History channel runs UFO episodes every now and then. When they do they show the pictures that I mentioned.
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### Author:  [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/3 "2003-08-27T17:12:56Z")
Because before the UFO term was coined people talked about fairies, demons and whatnot; the all sprout from the same sociological/psichological sources.
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/4 "2003-08-27T17:15:00Z")
I think UFO sightings reflect a secular interpretation of the same sort of psychological (or even phenomenological, if you insist,) events that wer previously perceived as sightings of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or sucubi/incubi, or visitation by faeries, etc.
The core event is the same, there are only superficial differences.
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### Author:  [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/5 "2003-08-27T17:17:22Z")
But Kewk, that’s completely different. The belief in aliens from other worlds coming in spaceships is a new phenomenon. Part of that new phenomenon is that a few people are presuming that old carvings etc. are of space aliens. Or are you saying that you really have the opinion that ancient people were actually trying to represent space aliens?
A hundred years ago, the idea of aliens from space hadn’t occurred to people, so when they would see something they didn’t understand, they’d attribute it to something other than spaceships.
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/6 "2003-08-27T17:24:35Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Kewk \*
> **In fact the Sumerians have the entire solar system carved into ancient tablets…**
They do not. There is no way for them to have known about Neptune and Pluto, and probably not Uranus, either. They certainly would have been ignorant of the asteroid belt, and none of the planetary moons other than Earth’s are visible to the naked eye. Unless you can provide a reputable cite for this claim, I’m calling it bullshit.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/7 "2003-08-27T17:35:55Z")
Well, if you’re a skeptical type like me, you say that it’s because there aren’t any flying saucers _now_, and the whole mythology grew up since 1947. Kenneth Arnold didn’t report _flying saucers_ in his first report – he said they were boomerang-shaped, and they moved “like a saucer skipping over the water”. That the news reports could take this and twist it into “flying saucers” and have it stick says a lot about the credibility of the phenomenon.
But the truth is that there _were_ reports of flying saucer-like things before 1947. In the latter half of the 19th century there were reports of “phantom airships” (possibly inspred in part by Jules Verne’s “Robur the Conqueror”). See Phillip Klass’ book **UFOs Explained** [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394492153/qid=1062005934/sr=1-3/ref=sr\_1\_3/102-0730319-2254503?v=glance&s=books](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394492153/qid=1062005934/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/102-0730319-2254503?v=glance&s=books) , where he devotes an entire chapter to this. One report from the 19th century even has the mysterious airship populated by extraterrestrials, and crashing in Aurora, Texas. They even made a movie about this incident.
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### Author:  [@Kewk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kewk)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/8 "2003-08-27T17:36:12Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by CurtC \*
> \*\*But Kewk, that’s completely different. The belief in aliens from other worlds coming in spaceships is a new phenomenon. \*\*
The classification is the new phenomenon. The ideas of unexplained objects in the sky is not. Hence we perceive the drawing/carvings/paintings as UFO’s now and classify them as such.
Im not saying that they believed that they were UFO’s. You pointed out quite correctly that it is a new classification. They saw, painted, and we take it for what we believe it is now.
> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by CurtC \*
> Part of that new phenomenon is that a few people are presuming that old carvings etc. are of space aliens. Or are you saying that you really have the opinion that ancient people were actually trying to represent space aliens?_\*
Again we are classify it in today’s terms as we see it. From what I have seen yes I would say it is possible that what was depicted was, and I stress possible, space aliens. But what we believe they classified it was as there gods. Such as the Sumerians and the Anunnaki.
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by CurtC \*
> A hundred years ago, the idea of aliens from space hadn’t occurred to people, so when they would see something they didn’t understand, they’d attribute it to something other than spaceships. \*\*
6,000 years ago 2,500 BC the Sumerians believed they were created by beings that came from the sky. This is told and just as the Egyptians told their story. Only difference is the Sumerians used tablets and even archived them in a library system.
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### Author:  [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/9 "2003-08-27T17:36:30Z")
Around the turn of the 20th century, there was an increase in sightings of Airships, often with pilots speaking strange languages (and, of course, sometimes not). There was some confusion whether these ‘airships’ were from other regions of Earth, or from different planets (I guess nobody had their stories straight)
There was a particular publicized one in a small town in Texas (I think - probably turn out to be Dallas or something) where the Airship supposedly crashed, and consequently the pilot was buried in the local graveyard… (yes, I think it was an elaborate hoax)
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### Author:  [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/10 "2003-08-27T17:40:15Z")
And I finally got around to googling it:
Aurora, Texas 1897
[Early ‘Airship’ sightings](http://ufos.about.com/library/weekly/aa052797.htm)
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### Author:  [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/11 "2003-08-27T17:44:25Z")
What´s up with Texas and UFO crashes? 😕
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### Author:  [@Kewk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kewk)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/12 "2003-08-27T17:48:38Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Q.E.D. \*
> \*\*They do not. There is no way for them to have known about Neptune and Pluto, and probably not Uranus, either. They certainly would have been ignorant of the asteroid belt, and none of the planetary moons other than Earth’s are visible to the naked eye. Unless you can provide a reputable cite for this claim, I’m calling it bullshit. \*\*
Bullshit or not is not it remains a possibility imo. You cannot disprove any of it not prove it.
If you are interested in actually researching it check out anything written by Zecharia Sitchin. His writings is where I get my information from. However the best I can come up with site wise is this: [http://www.xfacts.com/sumerian.html](http://www.xfacts.com/sumerian.html)
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/13 "2003-08-27T18:04:30Z")
Well, that object shows _eleven_ objects around what might loosly be called the sun. So, that’s not quite right, either. I’d be interested in hearing your hypothesis of how the ancient Sumerians were supposed to have come by their knowledge of the solar system long before optics were invented.
And I found Sitchin’s [website](http://www.sitchin.com/). Quote like this:
> [@](#):
>
> Drawn into the center of that early solar system, the invader Nibiru/Marduk was fated to collide with Tiamat. One half of her was shattered and became the Asteroid Belt; the other more intact half was thrown into a new orbit and became the planet Earth.
…just _scream_ “crackpot”. If it’s all the same to you, I’m fully prepared to dismiss this man and his theories out of hand.
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### Author:  [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/14 "2003-08-27T18:29:41Z")
**Q.E.D.** - your username seems particularly appropriate, given your last post above 😉
I think the whole question in the OP is a great example of _reductio ad absurdum._
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### Author:  [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/15 "2003-08-27T18:48:48Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Kewk \*
> \*\*Bullshit or not is not it remains a possibility imo. You cannot disprove any of it not prove it.
>
> If you are interested in actually researching it check out anything written by Zecharia Sitchin. His writings is where I get my information from. However the best I can come up with site wise is this: [http://www.xfacts.com/sumerian.html](http://www.xfacts.com/sumerian.html) \*\*
[Stitchen’s a Pseudohistorian.](http://www.skepdic.com/sitchin.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Zecharia Sitchin, along with Erich von Däniken and Immanuel Velikovsky, make up the holy trinity of pseudohistorians. Each begins with the assumption that ancient myths are not myths but historical and scientific texts. Sitchin’s claim to fame is announcing that he alone correctly reads ancient Sumerian clay tablets. All other scholars have misread these tablets which, according to Sitchin, reveal that gods from another planet (Niburu, which orbits our Sun every 3,600 years) arrived on Earth some 450,000 years ago and created humans by genetic engineering of female apes. Niburu orbits beyond Pluto and is heated from withing by radioactive decay, according to Sitchin. No other scientist has discovered that these descendents of gods blew themselves up with nuclear weapons some 4,000 years ago. Sitchin alone can look at a Sumerian tablet and see that it depicts a man being subjected to radiation. He alone knows how to correctly translate ancient terms allowing him to discover such things as that the ancients made rockets. Yet, he doesn’t seem to know that the seasons are caused by the earth’s tilt, not to its distance from the sun.
Check out the links for some debunking of his ‘work’: [Coast to Coast esposes some of Stitchen’s errors.](http://www.facadenovel.com/sitchinerrors.htm)
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/16 "2003-08-27T19:15:25Z")
The first documented UFO was in the Book of Ezekiel. A chap named Josef Blumrich did an entire book on the subject, “The Spaceships of Ezekiel,” including a reconstruction of what the UFO looked like, which, IIRC, looked sorta like [Kronos](http://www.imdb.com/Details?0050610).
And, I have to disagree with this “Holy Trinity” of pseudohistorians. How one can include Sitchin and omit Robert Charroux is puzzling.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/17 "2003-08-27T19:24:12Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The first documented UFO was in the Book of Ezekiel. A chap named Josef Blumrich did an entire book on the subject, “The Spaceships of Ezekiel,” including a reconstruction of what the UFO looked like, which, IIRC, looked sorta like Kronos.
UFO skeptic (and director of the Harvard Smithsonian Observatory, not to mention editor of **Fundamental Formulas of Physics** ) Donald Menzel once wrote an interesting piece in which he suggested that the “wheels within wheels” of Ezekiel were inspred by ice crystal haloes, sindogs, and arches. Having seen and investigated such phenomena myself (and having myself suggested that several myths were inspired by the same phenomena), I find his explanation a lot more convincing than Blumrich’s. I’ve read Blumrich’s book, and he goes _wayyyy_ out in his interpretations to come up with that craft. It’s significant, by the way, that Menzel , Klass, and other skeptics ascribe a lot of “UFO” sightings to ice crystal haloes and other optical phenomena in the atmosphere.
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### Author:  [@rookie523](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rookie523)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/18 "2003-08-27T19:34:08Z")
also from the website…
“Nicknamed “Metuselah planet,” the newly discovered planet is “almost three times as old as Earth.” It is the oldest extra solar planet so far discovered; it is almost as old as the Universe itself; and its discovery unsettles current theories about how and when planets could form around stars (suns).”
3 times as old as the Earth = almost as old as the Universe
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### Author:  [@Pavlos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavlos)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/19 "2003-08-27T19:35:18Z")
what Kewk said : [http://www.ufoartwork.com/](http://www.ufoartwork.com/)
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-ufos-are-real-how-come-virtually-no-mention-of-them-until-the-mid-20th-century/198010/20 "2003-08-27T19:40:27Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Pavlos \*
> \*\*what Kewk said : [http://www.ufoartwork.com/](http://www.ufoartwork.com/) \*\*
Most of those paintings in the BC section are really a stretch to call them UFOs. I remain unconvinced that UFO lore predates the mid-twentieth century.
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