Flying saucer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An alleged flying saucer seen over Passaic,
New Jersey in 1952
A
flying saucer (also referred to as a
flying disc) is a type of described flying craft with a disc or
saucer-shaped
body, commonly used generically to refer to any anomalous flying
object. In 1947 the term was coined but was later officially supplanted
by the
United States Air Force in 1952 with the broader term
unidentified flying objects or UFO's
. Early reported sightings of unknown "flying saucers" usually
described them as silver or metallic, sometimes reported as covered with
navigation lights
or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly, either
alone or in tight formations with other similar craft, and exhibiting
high maneuverability.
While disc-shaped flying objects have been interpreted as being sporadically recorded since the
Middle Ages, the first highly publicized
sighting by
Kenneth Arnold
on June 24, 1947, resulted in the creation of the exact term by U.S.
newspapers. Although Arnold never specifically used the term "flying
saucer", he was quoted at the time saying the shape of the objects he
saw was like a "saucer", "disc", or "pie-plate", and several years later
added he had also said "the objects moved like saucers skipping across
the water." Both the terms
flying saucer and
flying disc were used commonly and interchangeably in the media until the early 1950s.
Arnold's sighting was followed by thousands of similar sightings
across the world. Such sightings were once very common, to such an
extent that "flying saucer" was a synonym for UFO through the 1960s
before it began to fall out of favor. More recently, the flying saucer
has been largely supplanted by other alleged UFO-related vehicles, such
as the
black triangle.
[citation needed]
The term UFO was, in fact, invented in 1952, to try to reflect the
wider diversity of shapes being seen. However, unknown saucer-like
objects are still reported, such as in the widely publicized
2006 sighting over Chicago-O'Hare airport.
Many of the alleged flying saucer photographs of the era are now believed to be
hoaxes. The flying saucer is now considered largely an icon of the 1950s and of
B-movies in particular, and is a popular subject in
comic science fiction.
[1]
Beyond the common usage of the phrase, there have also been man-made
saucer-like craft. The first flying disc craft was called the
Discopter and was patented by
Alexander Weygers in 1944. Other designs have followed, such as the American
Vought V-173 / XF5U "
Flying Flapjack", the British
GFS Projects
flying saucer, or the British "S.A.U.C.E.R." ("Saucer Aircraft
Utilising Coanda Effect Reactions") flying saucer, by inventor Alf
Beharie.
Sightings
News notice printed in Nuremberg, describing the 4th April 1561
Nuremberg mass sighting. Discs and spheres were said to emerge from large cylinders. From
Wickiana collection in Zurich.
A manuscript illustration of the 10th-century
Japanese narrative,
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, depicts a round flying machine similar to a flying saucer.
[2][3]
A record of a saucer-shaped object is from 1290 of a silver disc flying over a village in
Yorkshire.
[4]
Disc-like flying objects were occasionally reported throughout the
millennium. For example, in a mass sighting over Nuremberg in 1561,
discs and spheres were reported emerging from large cylinders. (woodcut
at left) They are also claimed by ufologists to frequently show up in
religious artwork.
[5][6]
Possibly the first well-documented instance to specifically compare
the objects to saucers, and the first to be widely reported, was the
Kenneth Arnold sighting on June 24, 1947, while Arnold was flying near
Mount Rainier.
[4] He reported seeing 9 brightly reflecting vehicles, one shaped like a
crescent but the others more disc- or saucer-shaped, flying in an
echelon formation,
weaving like the tail of a kite, flipping and flashing in the sun, and
traveling with a speed of at least 1,200 miles per hour (1,900 km/h).
[7]
In addition to the saucer or disc shape (Arnold also used the terms
"pie plate" and half-moon shaped), he also later said he described the
motion of the craft as "like a saucer if you
skip it across water", leading to the term "flying saucer" and also "flying disc" (which were synonymous for a number of years).
Immediately following the report of, hundreds of sightings of usually
saucer-like objects were reported across the United States and also in
some other countries. The most widely publicized of these was the
sighting by a
United Airlines crew on July 4 of nine more disc-like objects pacing their plane over
Idaho, not far from Arnold's initial sighting. On July 8, the Army Air Force base at
Roswell, New Mexico issued a press release saying that they had recovered a "flying disc" from a nearby ranch, the so-called
Roswell UFO incident, which was front-page news until the military issued a retraction saying that it was a weather balloon.
On July 9, the Army Air Force Directorate of Intelligence, assisted by the
FBI,
began a secret study of the best of the flying saucer reports,
including Arnold's and the United Airlines' crew. Three weeks later they
issued an intelligence estimate describing the typical characteristics
reported (including that they were often reported as disc-like and
metallic) and concluded that something was really flying around. A
follow-up investigation by the
Air Materiel Command at
Wright Field, Ohio arrived at the same conclusion. A widespread official government study of the saucers was urged by General
Nathan Twining. This led to the formation of
Project Sign (also known as Project Saucer) at the end of 1947, the first public Air Force UFO study. This evolved into
Project Grudge (1949–1951) and then
Project Blue Book (1952–1970).
The term "flying saucer" quickly became deeply ingrained in the English
vernacular. A Gallup poll from August 1947 found that 90% had heard about the mysterious flying saucers or flying discs, and a 1950
Gallup poll
found that 94% of those polled had heard the term, easily beating out
all other mentioned commonly used terms in the news such as "
Cold War", "
universal military training", and "
bookie."
Air Force statistics indicated that the basic saucer-shape continued
to be the most commonly reported one through the 1950s and 1960s until
Project Blue Book ended in 1970. There have been some claims, still
undocumented by scientific study, that reports of saucers began to
decline in the 1970s, being supplanted by other craft such as black
triangles, cylinders, and amorphous shapes. It has also been asserted
that despite the increase in portable
cameras, photographs dwindled as Cold War and
Space Race interest decreased and a number of notable images were exposed as fakes.
[citation needed]
Explanations
A lenticular cloud. Studies show such clouds account for less than 1% of flying saucer reports.
In addition to the
extraterrestrial hypothesis,
a variety of possible explanations for flying saucers have been put
forward. One of the most common states that most photos of saucers were
hoaxes; cylindrical metal objects such as pie tins,
hubcaps and
dustbin lids were easy to obtain, and the poor focus seen in UFO images makes the true scale of the object difficult to ascertain.
[citation needed]
However, some photos and movies were deemed authentic after intensive
study. An example was the saucer-like object photographed by farmer
Paul Trent near
Portland, Oregon in 1950, which passed all tests when studied by the
Condon Committee in the 1960s.
[8]
Another theory states that most are natural phenomena such as
lenticular clouds and
balloons, which appear disc-like in some lighting conditions.
[9]
A third theory puts all saucer sightings down to a form of
mass hysteria.
Arnold described the craft he saw as saucer-like but not perfectly
round (he described them as thin, flat, rounded in front but chopped in
back and coming to a point), but the image of the circular saucer was
fixed in the public consciousness. The theory posits that as the use of
the term flying saucer in popular culture decreased, so too did
sightings.
[10]
However, one Air Force commissioned study contradicted some of these
contentions. A scientific and statistical analysis of 3200 Air Force
cases by the
Battelle Memorial Institute
from 1952 to 1954 found that most were indeed due to natural phenomena,
about 2% were due to hoaxes or psychological effects and only 0.4% were
thought due to clouds. Other very minor contributors were birds, light
phenomena such as
mirages or
searchlights, and various miscellany such as
flares or
kites.
The vast majority of identified objects (about 84%) were explained as
balloons, aircraft, or astronomical objects. However, about 22% of all
sightings still defied any plausible explanation by the team of
scientists, and percentage of unidentifieds rose to 33% for the best
witnesses and cases. Thus when carefully studied, a substantial fraction
of reports (given the available data) is currently not understood.
Fata Morgana (mirages) and flying saucers
Fata Morgana of distant islands distorted images beyond recognition
Fata Morgana, a type of mirage, may be responsible for some flying
saucers sightings, by displaying objects located below the astronomical
horizon hovering in the sky, and magnifying and distorting them.
Similarly some unidentifieds seen on
radar might also be due to Fata Morgana-type atmospheric phenomena, though more technically known as "
anomalous propagation" and more commonly as "radar ghosts". Official UFO investigations in France suggest:
As is well known, atmospheric ducting is the explanation for certain
optical mirages, and in particular the arctic illusion called "fata
morgana" where distant ocean or surface ice, which is essentially flat,
appears to the viewer in the form of vertical columns and spires, or
"castles in the air."
People often assume that mirages occur only rarely. This may be true of
optical mirages, but conditions for radar mirages are more common, due
to the role played by water vapor which strongly affects the atmospheric
refractivity in relation to radio waves. Since clouds are closely
associated with high levels of water vapor, optical mirages due to water
vapor are often rendered undetectable by the accompanying opaque cloud.
On the other hand, radar propagation is essentially unaffected by the
water droplets of the cloud so that changes in water vapor content with
altitude are very effective in producing atmospheric ducting and radar
mirages.
Fata Morgana was named as a hypothesis for the mysterious Australian phenomenon
Min Min light[11]
Earth-based examples
The
Avrocar, a one-man flying saucer style aircraft
The first documented patent for a lenticular flying machine was submitted by
Romanian inventor
Henri Coanda.
[citation needed] He made a functional small scale model which was flown in 1932 and a patent was granted in 1935
[12] At a Symposionum organized by the Romanian Academy in 1967 Coanda said:
"These airplanes we have today are no more than a perfection of a toy
made of paper children use to play with. My opinion is we should search
for a completely different flying machine, based on other flying
principles. I consider the aircraft of the future, that which will take
off vertically, fly as usual and land vertically. This flying machine
should have no parts in movement. The idea came from the huge power of
the cyclons" [13]
Other attempts have been made, with limited success, to produce
manned vehicles based on the flying saucer design. While some, such as
the
Avrocar and
M200G Volantor have been produced in limited numbers, most fail to leave the drawing board. The Avrocar, with
vertical takeoff and landing, was originally intended to replace both the
Jeep and the
helicopter
in combat situations, but proved to be inadequate for both. In spite of
a powerful turbojet, it could not rise more than four or five feet off
the ground, i.e., out of
ground effect.
[14] Thus, the Avrocar could be seen as a prototype for the early generations of
hovercraft, lacking only a 'skirt' to make it a truly effective example of the type. Unmanned saucers have had more success; the
Sikorsky Cypher is a saucer-like
UAV which uses the disc-shaped shroud to protect rotor blades.
Some more advanced flying saucers capable of spaceflight have been proposed, often as
black projects by aeronautics companies. The
Lenticular Reentry Vehicle was a secret project run by
Convair for a saucer device which could carry both
astronauts and
nuclear weapons into orbit; the nuclear-powered system was planned in depth, but is not believed to have ever flown. More exotically,
British Rail worked on plans for the
British Rail "Space Vehicle" a proposed, saucer-shaped craft based on so far undiscovered technologies such as
nuclear fusion and
superconductivity, which was supposed to have been able to transport multiple passenger between planets, but never went beyond the
patent stage.
[1]
There is at least one design that received a US patent in 2005:
U.S. Patent 6,960,975 It claims to be "propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state".
Additionally, a professor at the
University of Florida has begun work on a Wingless
Electromagnetic Air Vehicle (WEAV) for
NASA which has received public interest because of its coincidental resemblance to a flying saucer.
[15][16][17]
In popular culture
Long before the Kenneth Arnold sighting of 1947 and the adoption of
the term "flying saucer" by the press, spacecraft of human or alien
origin were often illustrated as classic flying saucers in the popular
press, dating back to at least 1911.
[18]
After 1947, the flying saucer quickly became a stereotypical symbol of both extraterrestrials and
science fiction, and features in many films of mid-20th century science fiction, including
The Atomic Submarine,
The Day the Earth Stood Still,
Plan 9 from Outer Space,
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, as well as the television series
The Invaders.
As the flying saucer was surpassed by other designs and concepts, it
fell out of favor with straight science-fiction movie makers, but
continued to be used
ironically in comedy movies, especially in reference to the low-budget
B movies which often featured saucer-shaped alien craft.
MGM, however, gave its high production value 1956 film
Forbidden Planet a flying saucer called the
United Planets Cruiser C-57D, presenting a plausible human exploration, faster-than-light starship of the 23rd century.
In the TV show
Lost in Space, the Robinson family had a disc-shaped space ship.
The saucer design did, however, make a temporary comeback on the television series
Babylon 5 as the standard ship design used by a race called the
Vree,
described in the series as one of Earth's long-standing allies who had
visited Earth in the distant past, and who bore a strong resemblance to
the "
Greys".
Aliens in the film
Independence Day attacked humanity in giant city-sized saucer-shaped space ships.
The sleek, silver flying saucer in particular is seen as a symbol of 1950s culture; the motif is common in
Googie architecture and in
Atomic Age décor.
[19] The image is often invoked
retrofuturistically to produce a
nostalgic feel in period works, especially in comic science fiction; both
Mars Attacks![20] and
Destroy All Humans![21] draw on the flying saucer as part of the larger satire of 1950s B movie tropes.
The Twilight Zone episodes "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", "Third from the Sun", "
Death Ship", "
To Serve Man", "
The Invaders" and "
On Thursday We Leave for Home" all make use of
Forbidden Planet's iconic saucer.
McMinnville UFO photographs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One of the McMinnville UFO photographs
The
McMinnville UFO photographs were taken on a farm near
McMinnville, Oregon, in 1950. The photos were reprinted in
Life magazine and in newspapers across the nation, and are often considered to be among the most famous ever taken of a
UFO. The photos remain controversial, with many
ufologists claiming they show a genuine, unidentified object in the sky, while many UFO skeptics claim that the photos are a
hoax.
The incident
At 7:30 p.m. on May 11, 1950, Evelyn Trent was walking back to her
farmhouse after feeding rabbits on her farm. Mrs. Trent and her husband
Paul lived on a farm approximately nine miles from McMinnville (closer
to
Sheridan, Oregon).
[1]
Before reaching the house she claimed to see a "slow-moving, metallic
disk-shaped object heading in her direction from the northeast."
[1]
She yelled for her husband, who was inside the house; upon leaving the
house he claimed he also saw the object. After a short time he went back
inside their home to obtain a camera; he managed to take two photos of
the object before it sped away to the west. Paul Trent's father claimed
he briefly viewed the object before it flew away.
[1]
Publicity and investigation
It took some time for Paul Trent to have the film developed, and he
apparently sought no publicity immediately following the incident. When
he mentioned the incident to his banker, Frank Wortmann, the banker was
intrigued enough to display the photos from his bank window in
McMinnville.
[2]
Shortly afterwards Bill Powell, a local reporter, convinced Mr. Trent
to loan him the negatives. Powell examined the negatives and found no
evidence that they were tampered with or faked. On June 8, 1950,
Powell's story of the incident—accompanied by the two photos—was
published as a front-page story in the local McMinnville newspaper, the
Telephone-Register.
The headline read: "At Long Last—Authentic Photographs Of Flying
Saucer[?]" The story and photos were subsequently picked up by the
International News Service (INS) and sent to other newspapers around the nation, thus giving them wide publicity.
Life magazine published cropped versions of the photos on June 26, 1950, along with a photo of Trent and his camera.
[3] The Trents had been promised that the negatives would be returned to them; however, they were not returned—
Life magazine told the Trents that it had misplaced the negatives.
[2]
In 1967 the negatives were found in the files of the
United Press International (UPI), a news service which had merged with INS years earlier. The negatives were then loaned to Dr.
William K. Hartmann, an
astronomer who was working as an investigator for the
Condon Committee, a government-funded UFO research project based at the
University of Colorado Boulder.
[4]
The Trents were not immediately informed that their "lost" negatives
had been found. Hartmann interviewed the Trents and was impressed by
their sincerity; the Trents never received any money for their photos,
and he could find no evidence that they had sought any fame or fortune
from them.
[5]
In Hartmann's analysis, he wrote to the Condon Committee that "This is
one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric,
psychological, and physical, appear to be consistent with the assertion
that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped,
tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight
of two witnesses."
[6]
After Hartmann concluded his investigation he returned the negatives
to UPI, which then informed the Trents about them. In 1970 the Trents
asked Philip Bladine, the editor of the
News-Register (the successor of the
Telephone-Register),
for the negatives; the Trents noted that they had never been paid for
the negatives and thus wanted them back. Bladine asked UPI to return the
negatives, which it did. However, for some reason Bladine never told
the Trents that the negatives had been returned.
[4] In 1975 the negatives were found in the files of the
News-Register by Dr.
Bruce Maccabee, an optical physicist for the U.S. Navy and a
ufologist.
Maccabee did his own extensive analysis of the negatives and concluded
that they were not hoaxed and showed a "real, physical object" in the
sky above the Trent's farm.
[7] He then ensured that the negatives were finally returned to the Trents.
In the 1980s two UFO skeptics,
Philip J. Klass and
Robert Sheaffer, argued that the photos were faked, and that the entire event was a
hoax.
[8]
Their primary argument was that shadows on a garage in the left-hand
side of the photos proved that the photos were taken in the morning
rather than in the early evening, as the Trents had claimed.
[9]
Klass and Sheaffer argued that since the Trents had apparently lied
about the time the photos were taken, their entire story was thus
suspect. Klass and Sheaffer also argued that the Trents had shown an
interest in UFOs prior to their sighting, and their analysis of the
photos indicated that the object photographed was small and likely a
model hanging from power lines visible at the top of the photos. They
also believed the object may have been the detached rear-view mirror of a
vehicle.
[9]
When Sheaffer sent his studies on the case to William Hartmann,
Hartmann withdrew the positive assessment of the case he had sent to the
Condon Committee. However, Maccabee offered a rebuttal to the
Klass-Sheaffer theory by arguing that cloud conditions in the
McMinnville area on the evening of the sighting could have caused the
shadows, and that a close analysis of the UFO indicated that it was not
suspended from the power lines and was in fact located some distance
above the Trent's farm; thus, in his opinion, the Klass-Sheaffer
explanation was flawed.
[10]
In April 2013, three researchers with IPACO posted two studies to
their website entitled "Back to McMinnville pictures" and "Evidence of a
suspension thread."
[11]
They used proprietary computer software designed to analyze UFO photos
by François Louange, who previously has done image analysis for
NASA, the
European Space Agency, and
GEIPAN.
They concluded the geometry of the photographs is most consistent with a
small model with a hollow bottom hanging from a wire, though no thread
was detected. Further investigation, however, detected the presence of a
thread, and the study concluded: "the clear result of this study was
that the McMinnville UFO was a model hanging from a thread."
In August 2013, UFO researcher Brad Sparks posted a rebuttal
regarding the IPACO McMinnville UFO studies in which he stated that the
studies contained multiple foundation measurement inconsistencies. An
example of this was IPACO applying and working with a 5 inch diameter
for the UFO [in the McMinnville photos] in some instances, and also
applying and working with a 6 inch diameter for it in others. Sparks
argued that certain measurements within the studies were manipulated
whenever they proved unable to support the
"UFO-model-hanging-by-a-string" hoax hypothesis.
[12]
Aftermath
Today, the McMinnville UFO photographs remain among the
best-publicized in UFO history; and are among the most-discussed and
debated. To many ufologists, the two photos rate as being among the most
reliable and persuasive in arguing for the existence of UFOs as a
"real," physical phenomenon. To many skeptics, however, the photos are
likely hoaxes and/or fakes. Evelyn Trent died in 1997 and Paul Trent in
1998; they both insisted to their deaths that their sighting, and the
photos, were genuine. The interest surrounding the Trent UFO photos led
to an annual "UFO Festival" being established in McMinnville; it is now
the largest such gathering in the
Pacific Northwest, and is the second-largest UFO festival in the nation after the one held in
Roswell, New Mexico.
Antônio Vilas Boas
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Antonio Vilas Boas |
| Biography |
| Born |
1934
Brazil |
| Died |
1991 (aged 56–57) |
| Alleged abduction |
| Status |
Single Abductee |
| First abduction date |
October 16, 1957 |
| Location |
São Francisco de Sales, Brazil |
| Taken from |
Open Fields |
Antônio Vilas-Boas (in many English sources misspelled "Villas-Boas") (1934–1991) was a
Brazilian farmer who claimed to have been abducted by
extraterrestrials in 1957. Though similar stories had circulated for years beforehand, Vilas Boas' claims were among the first
alien abduction stories to receive wide attention.
[1][2]
Vilas-Boas' story
At the time of his alleged abduction, Antônio Vilas-Boas was a 23-year-old
Brazilian farmer who was working at night to avoid the hot temperatures of the day.
[3] On October 16, 1957, he was ploughing fields near
São Francisco de Sales
when he saw what he described as a "red star" in the night sky.
According to his story, this "star" approached his position, growing in
size until it became recognizable as a roughly circular or egg-shaped
aerial craft, with a red light at its front and a rotating
cupola
on top. The craft began descending to land in the field, extending
three "legs" as it did so. At that point, Boas decided to run from the
scene.
According to Boas, he first attempted to leave the scene on his
tractor, but when its lights and engine died after traveling only a
short distance, he decided to continue on foot.
[4] However, he was seized by a 1.5 m (five-foot) tall
humanoid,
who was wearing grey coveralls and a helmet. Its eyes were small and
blue, and instead of speech it made noises like barks or yelps. Three
similar beings then joined the first in subduing Boas, and they dragged
him inside their craft.
Location of São Francisco de Sales, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Once inside the craft, Boas said that he was stripped of his clothes and covered from head-to-toe with a strange
gel.
He was then led into a large semicircular room, through a doorway that
had strange red symbols written over it. (Boas claimed that he was able
to memorize these symbols and later reproduced them for investigators.)
In this room the beings took samples of Boas' blood from his chin. After
this he was then taken to a third room and left alone for around half
an hour. During this time, some kind of
gas was pumped into the room, which made Boas become violently ill.
Shortly after this, Boas claimed that he was joined in the room by
another humanoid. This one, however, was female, very attractive, and
naked. She was the same height as the other beings he had encountered,
with a small, pointed chin and large, blue catlike eyes. The hair on her
head was long and white (somewhat like
platinum blonde) but her underarm and pubic hair were bright red.
[5] Boas said he was strongly attracted to the woman, and the two had
sexual intercourse. During this act, Boas noted that the female did not kiss him but instead nipped him on the chin.
When it was all over, the female smiled at Boas, rubbing her belly and gestured upwards.
[6] Boas took this to mean that she was going to raise their child in space.
[6]
The female seemed relieved that their "task" was over, and Boas himself
said that he felt angered by the situation, because he felt as though
he had been little more than "a good stallion" for the humanoids.
[7]
Boas said that he was then given back his clothing and taken on a
tour of the ship by the humanoids. During this tour he said that he
attempted to take a clock-like device as proof of his encounter, but was
caught by the humanoids and prevented from doing so. He was then
escorted off the ship and watched as it took off, glowing brightly. When
Boas returned home, he discovered that four hours had passed.
[8]
Antonio Vilas Boas later became a lawyer, married and had four children.
[8] He stuck to the story of his alleged abduction for his entire life.
[9] Though some sources say he died in 1992, he died on January 17, 1991.
[10] [11]
Investigation
Following this alleged event, Boas claimed to have suffered from nausea and weakness, as well as headaches and
lesions
on the skin which appeared with any kind of light bruising. Eventually,
he contacted journalist Jose Martins, who had placed an ad in a
newspaper looking for people who had had experiences with
UFOs.
Upon hearing Boas' story, Martins contacted Dr. Olavo Fontes of
National School of Medicine of Brazil; Fontes was also in contact with
the American UFO research group
APRO. Fontes examined the farmer and concluded that he had been exposed to a large dose of
radiation from some source and was now suffering from mild
radiation sickness. Writer Terry Melanson states:
- Among [Boas's] symptoms were 'pains throughout the body, nausea,
headaches, loss of appetite, ceaselessly burning sensations in the eyes,
cutaneous lesions at the slightest of light bruising...which went on
appearing for months, looking like small reddish nodules, harder than
the skin around them and protuberant, painful when touched, each with a
small central orifice yielding a yellowish thin waterish discharge.' The
skin surrounding the wounds presented 'a hyperchromatic violet-tinged
area.'[3]
According to Researcher Peter Rogerson, the story first came to light
in February, 1958, and the earliest definite print reference to Boas's
story was from the April–June 1962 issue of the Brazilian UFO periodical
SBESDV Bulletin. Rogerson notes that the story had definitely
circulated between 1958 and 1962, and was probably recorded in print,
but that details are uncertain.
Boas was able to recall every detail of his purported experience without the need for
hypnotic regression. Further, Boas' experience occurred in 1957, which was still several years before the famous
Hill abduction which made the concept of alien abduction famous and opened the door to many other reports of similar experiences.
Researcher Peter Rogerson, however, doubts the veracity of Boas's
story. He notes that several months before Boas first related his
claims, a similar story was printed in the November 1957 issue of the
periodical
O Cruzeiro, and suggests that Boas borrowed details of this earlier account, along with elements of the
contactee stories of
George Adamski. Rogerson also argues:
- One reason why the [Boas] story gained credibility was the
prejudiced assumption that any farmer in the Brazilian interior had to
be an illiterate peasant
who 'couldn't make this up'. As Eddie Bullard pointed out to me, the
fact that the Villas Boas family possessed a tractor put them well above
the peasant class ... We now know that AVB was a determinedly upwardly
mobile young man, studying a correspondence course and eventually
becoming a lawyer (at which news the ufologists who had considered him
too much the rural simpleton to have made the story up, now argued that
he was too respectable and bourgeois to have done so).[12]
The Trindade Island's UFO
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A photograph of the supposed U.F.O. taken by Almiro Baraúna. The object
is the small gray dot just to the right of the image center.
The
Trindade Island's U.F.O. refers to a
unidentified flying object which was seen and photographed over the
Trindade Island
on January 16, 1958. The photographs were rumored as being a hoax. In
August 2010, a major T.V. show in Brazil aired information stating that
the original photographer had made "hoax" photographs in the past. To
date, the authenticity of the photograph remains a mystery.
The story
At 12:00 p.m. on January 16, 1958,
Brazilian ship Almirante Saldanha, taking part in projects of the
International Geophysical Year, was preparing to sail away from
Ilha de Trindade, off the coast of
the state of EspÃrito Santo.
Among the crew of the ship, there was a member of the
Brazilian Air Force, Captain José Teobaldo Viegas, the submarine photographer
Almiro Baraúna, several scientists and a group of highly trained explorers.
Reportedly Captain Viegas was on the deck with several scientists and
members of the crew when he suddenly noticed a flying object, which had
a "ring" around it, just like
Saturn. Witnesses present reportedly saw the
U.F.O. at the same time.
It reportedly came toward the island from the east, flew towards the "Pico Desejado" (
Wished Peak), made a steep turn and went away very quickly to the north-west.
As soon as the object was noticed, Almiro Baraúna was sought for
photography. After getting the camera and going up the quarter-deck, he
managed to take several pictures of the object.
After being disclosed, the pictures were exhaustively analyzed by the
Laboratório de Reconhecimento Aéreo da Marinha (Brazilian Navy's Aerial Reconnaissance Laboratory) and by the
Serviço Aerofotogramétrico Cruzeiro do Sul.
All the pictures were considered genuine, taken from a real occurrence,
with the certification of military personnel. The pictures even
received confirmation from
Juscelino Kubitschek,
president of Brazil at that time.
To this day because of the certification of the witnesses and the
official recognition, the object in Almiro Baraúna's pictures remains
unexplained.
In 2010, a document containing a testimonial by Baraúna was unveiled:
[1]
| “ |
On January 16, 1958, the Navy training ship "Almirante Saldanha" was moored at a bay in Trindade Island, some eight hundred miles off the coast of EspÃrito Santo. It was around 11:00 a.m., the sky was clear and the crew was getting ready to return to Rio de Janeiro when suddenly a group of people at the stern, among them the retired Força Aérea Brasileira captain-aviator José Viegas, alerted everyone.
Instantly, all who were in the deck (some fifty people) started to
see a strange, silver, saucer-shaped object moving above the sea towards
the island. The object didn't make any sound, was shiny and sometimes
it moved quickly, then slowly, up and slightly down and when it
accelerated, it would leave a white phosphorescent trail that would
disappear shortly. In its trajectory, the object disappeared behind the
Desejado Peak and all expected it to reappear on the other side of the
island, it reappeared from the same direction, stopped for some seconds
and then disappeared again with great speed at the horizon. At first,
when the object returned, I was able to take six pictures, two of which
were lost due to the confusion at the deck, and the other four showed
the object on the horizon, in a reasonable sequence, approaching the
island from the mountain's side, and finally disappearing, going away. I
took the film from my camera twenty minutes later following the
commander's request, who wanted to know if the pictures had good
quality. Almost the entire crew of the ship saw the film and they were
unanimous in their reports to the Secret Service of the Brazilian Navy.
These were the crew of the ship:
Chief Amilar Vieira Filho, banker, diver and athlete; Vice-chief:
retired Força Aérea Brasileira captain-aviator José Viegas; Divers:
Aluizio and Mauro; Photographer: Almiro Baraúna.
The group above was part of a group of spearfishing from IcaraÃ.
Among the five members, only Mauro and Aluizio didn't see the object
because they were at the ship's kitchen and when they ran to see it, it
was already gone. According to the rumors I heard at the deck, the
electronic equipment of the ship stopped working during the apparition
of the object; what I can confirm is that after the ship left the
island, the equipment malfunctioned three more times and the officials
didn't have any plausible explanation for what was happening. Every time
the ship stopped, the lights weakened slowly until the point they
completely went out. When this happened, the officials would walk to the
deck with their binoculars, however, the sky was clouded and they
couldn't see anything. I need to say that if the reporter of the
newspaper Correio da Manhã hadn't been smart enough to take
copies of the pictures offered to then president Juscelino Kubitscheck,
maybe no one would ever be aware of this pictures since the Navy had
"marked" me, asking how much did I want not to publicize the pictures. I
would like to make it clear that every official with whom I had contact
during all the period of the interrogation were quite lovely with me, I
felt completely comfortable and they didn't impose any objection to the
possible unveiling of the case. they only mentioned that the
sensationalist nature of the case could cause panic among the population
and that was the reason the Brazilian Air Force wanted to avoid the
publicizing of such cases |
” |
Controversy
Other investigators of the case have questioned the authenticity of the photos.
Project Blue Book
(the controversial U.S. Air Force investigation into the U.F.O.
phenomenon) concluded that the photographs were hoaxed. The credibility
of Barauna himself has been questioned. He had produced hoaxed
photographs in the past (not only of U.F.O.s) and in the past had
written an article showing how a well-known U.F.O. photograph taken some
years earlier could have been hoaxed. Also, Barauna had the negatives
for two days before the Brazilian Navy took them from him for their
investigation, and he had cut them away from the remainder of the film
negatives. Also, the
Brazilian Navy
did not get statements from the witnesses immediately after the event.
Therefore, the actual number of witnesses is not known with certainty.
[2]
See also
