The most amazing UFO sighting ever in U.S. history was in 1950

THE MOST SPECTACULAR MASS APPEARANCE OF UFOs in U.S. HISTORY TOOK PLACE IN 1950 IN FARMINGTON, NEW MEXICO

Forget about Roswell, 1947.
Forget about Phoenix, 1997.
Sure, these were undoubtedly very important in the annals of UFO sightings history.
But when it comes to the most amazing sightings ever recorded in the U.S., nothing can even come close to what transpired over the skies of Farmington, New Mexico in 1950.

The most spectacular mass appearance of UFOs in U.S. history took place over the skies of Farmington, New Mexico in March of 1950. It happened for three consecutive days.
The so-called 1997 Phoenix sightings pale in comparison to what happened in the town, not too far from the Four Corners area.

Anywhere from around 200 to 400 disc-shaped, metallic, silver-colored objects were seen in the sky, performing all kinds of maneuvers, making all kinds of formations and simply giving incredible flight show in the sky.
It all began at around noon-time on March 17, 1950 and lasted for about two hours.
For three consecutive days, hundreds of astonished citizens of this town witnessed the most spectacular daytime mass UFO sightings ever recorded.
And it all took place during broad daylight, usually from around noon, lasting for about two hours.
The front page headline of Farmington Daily Times of March 18, documented the amazing sightings: HUGE SAUCER ARMADA JOLTS FARMINGTON.

For some reason or other, this incident seemed to have been hushed up quickly.
A few years ago I was fortunate enough to visit Farmington and was able to interview an elderly gentleman who was one of hundreds of witnesses to this spectacular event. He confirmed to me practically all the aspects of that incident as was reported in Farming Daily Times news article.
I visited the Farmington Senior Center to find some witnesses. Their number is rapidly diminishing.
According to some townsfolk, government agents came to town quickly after the incident, discouraging people to talk about the incident for national security reasons and may even have bought up all the editions of the newspapers of March 18, 1950:

www.ufoevidence.org...


In the following article, one can still read the microfisched headline of Farmington Daily Times of March 17, 1950:

www.aliensthetruth.com...


-from Norio Hayakawa
www.myspace.com...

Is this not strange that this event took place over 3 consecutive days and no one not even the local newspaper had a camera at hand.

This may have been a major case in the annals of ufology but frankly there is not much to go on other then eye witness accounts and there are many events that fall into that category.

Interesting--never heard of this case. Too bad that over the course of several hours, in daylight, over a three day period, seemingly nobody took a photo of the hundreds of UFOs flying around...

All those flying saucers and no-one thought to take a photograph? I'll admit that in terms of numbers, this qualifies as "spectacular." Nevertheless, I'm just not sure what to make of it. The expression "mass hysteria" comes to mind. Admittedly, New Mexico was largely "empty" in those days, but surely an aerial display like that should have been visible from neighboring towns?

Who has the Microfiche. Is it in the newspapers archives? Did you view it and compare to others on adjacent days?

The font used in that headline. Was that a typeface used in that time?

Where cameras affordable for the majority of people back in the 1950's?

And was this town a small town?

Originally posted by Blaine91555
Who has the Microfiche. Is it in the newspapers archives? Did you view it and compare to others on adjacent days?

The font used in that headline. Was that a typeface used in that time?

Blaine91555.....

Here are the pic's of the headlines as linked to by the op.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/87cd1e4ba35d.gif[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/abdb3510a011.gif[/atsimg]

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

reply to post by Norio Hayakawa


Norio Hayakawa.....

Thanks for posting the reports of this interesting case.

Without pictures & occuring so long ago.....

Who knows what really went on.....

The descriptions in the reports are graphic & bizarre, to say the least!

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

WARNING SPECULATION!:
I have a few suggestions which might shed some light on the lack of photographic evidence in this case.
This was a town of hundreds rather than thousands, and although I have no background information on the town, that population figure suggests to me that prosperity might not have been enourmous. If that is an accurate assesment, that means that fewer people might have had access to photographic equipments and supplies, like film and developing services. Of course one would expect a towns journalists to have access to such things, which brings me neatly to my next point.
It is documented by the reports of the townspeople that they were also visited by government types, and told not to talk about this incident. One could be forgiven therefore for thinking that theres a good chance that the evidence which MAY have been recorded by the public, was taken by those same officials. After all , theres little point in telling someone to keep quiet, and then ignoring the hard evidence they may have in their possesion. I would have thought also , that if harvesting the evidence collected by the townspeople was a priority that they would have STARTED thier search for photographic evidence with the journalistic centres in that town. There might be a big drive now to support press freedom, but the fifties was right slap bang in the cold war era. I would have thought therefore that at the time, the secret service of the US would have had fairly broad powers to deal with possible breaches of security and secrecy, many of which might have seemed tyranical until recent terror related augmentations to civil rights laws showed us what government is capable of. Just my thoughts on this.

You can read a full transcript of the aticle HERE

reply to post by TrueBrit


Yes that is a feasible theory and had I been Norio one of the first questions I would have asked the surviving witnesses would have been "Was there any photographs" and if there was "What happened to them" however it seems that he did not as he did not mention it in his OP.

Military or government agents confiscating photographic material was indeed a common occurrence or so I have read so your conjecture has merit maybe an application under FOIA would be useful if it is confirmed photos existed originally.

The case is discussed here by Stan Friedman but does not add anything new :

www.youtube.com...

[edit on 17-5-2010 by sherpa]

reply to post by Norio Hayakawa


hmm...the roswell/corona crash victims 3 yrs earlier must've been very important people

Originally posted by Norio Hayakawa
THE MOST SPECTACULAR MASS APPEARANCE OF UFOs in U.S. HISTORY TOOK PLACE IN 1950 IN FARMINGTON, NEW MEXICO

Sure, these were undoubtedly very important in the annals of UFO sightings history.
But when it comes to the most amazing sightings ever recorded in the U.S., nothing can even come close to what transpired over the skies of Farmington, New Mexico in 1950.

Thanks for posting this really marvelous case Norio, that must indeed have been one hell of a sighting.

I did release the rest because I saw that Argyll posted that already in his link named HERE.

reply to post by Argyll



[edit on 17/5/10 by spacevisitor]

In New Mexico, in the 1950's? Military balloons would seem to be a conceivable explanation...much like Jaime Maussan's "UFO fleets" in Mexico.... Shame we don't have the photos (or better, video). If there were hundreds in the sky, the triangulation could have been off if the observer then looked at a "different" object (a distinct possibility given the circumstances)...

So, the next step would seem to be to investigate possible military projects in operation, in the area, at the time, that may have involved numerous reflective balloons.

Originally posted by Gazrok
So, the next step would seem to be to investigate possible military projects in operation, in the area, at the time, that may have involved numerous reflective balloons.

In his report to the Committee on Science and Astronautics, Dr James Mcdonald didn't seem to think the objects were balloons.

This once-headlined, but now almost forgotten multiple-witness case has been explained as resulting from the breakup of a Skyhook balloon. Skyhooks do shatter at the very low temperatures of the upper troposphere, and occasionally break into a number of smaller pieces. But to suggest that such fragments of transparent plastic at altitudes of the order of 40-50,000 ft. could be detected by the naked eye, and to intimate that these distant objects of low angular velocity could confuse dozens of persons into describing fast-moving disc-shaped objects (including a large red object) is simply not reasonable. However, to check further on this, I contacted first Holloman AFB and then the Office of Naval Research, who jointly hold records on all Alamogordo Skyhook releases. No Skyhooks or other experimental balloons had been released from the Holloman area or any other part of the country on or near the date of this incident. A suggestion that the witnesses were seeing only cotton-wisps was not only unreasonable, given the witness accounts, but was in fact tracked down by a local journalist to comments casually made by a law enforcement officer and overheard by another reporter. From my examination of this case, I see no ready explanation for the numerous disc-shaped objects moving in unconventional manner and seen by large numbers of Farmington residents on 3/17/50.

Link

reply to post by Norio Hayakawa


I have to make a correction to this item.
The sightings actually began on March 15, 1950 and not on March 17, 1950.
The sightings took place on March 15, 16 and 17.
The newspaper article came out on March 18.

Originally posted by DJW001
All those flying saucers and no-one thought to take a photograph? I'll admit that in terms of numbers, this qualifies as "spectacular." Nevertheless, I'm just not sure what to make of it. The expression "mass hysteria" comes to mind. Admittedly, New Mexico was largely "empty" in those days, but surely an aerial display like that should have been visible from neighboring towns?

A number of people in Las Vegas, New Mexico also witnessed a flight of formation moving in a westerly direction around the same time. This was between March 15 and March 17, 1950.
We must understand that 1950 was in the height of the Cold War. People were cooperative to the government. I really do not know why photos have never shown up. When government agents swarmed the town of Farmington immediately after the incident, I believe that people were cooperative.

Originally posted by Haydn_17
Where cameras affordable for the majority of people back in the 1950's?

And was this town a small town?

In 1950, the town of Farmington was a relatively small town, with a population of probably 3000 or even less.
Unlike today, most people never carried cameras (unlike the cell phones of today). The type of cameras then were heavy and most people didn't carry with them.
1950 was in the height of the Cold War.
When the governmental agents descended upon the town of Farmington, I believe that the people there then were very cooperative.

Originally posted by Maybe...maybe not
reply to post by Norio Hayakawa

 

Thanks for posting the reports of this interesting case.

Without pictures & occuring so long ago.....

Who knows what really went on.....

The descriptions in the reports are graphic & bizarre, to say the least!

Kind regards
Maybe...maybe not

You're welcome, Maybe...maybe not.
I am basically a healthy skeptic when it comes to UFOs, especially when it comes to the belief in UFOs as physical alien spacecraft.
But when I read something like this, it makes me wonder.

Originally posted by TrueBrit
WARNING SPECULATION!:
I have a few suggestions which might shed some light on the lack of photographic evidence in this case.
This was a town of hundreds rather than thousands, and although I have no background information on the town, that population figure suggests to me that prosperity might not have been enourmous. If that is an accurate assesment, that means that fewer people might have had access to photographic equipments and supplies, like film and developing services. Of course one would expect a towns journalists to have access to such things, which brings me neatly to my next point.
It is documented by the reports of the townspeople that they were also visited by government types, and told not to talk about this incident. One could be forgiven therefore for thinking that theres a good chance that the evidence which MAY have been recorded by the public, was taken by those same officials. After all , theres little point in telling someone to keep quiet, and then ignoring the hard evidence they may have in their possesion. I would have thought also , that if harvesting the evidence collected by the townspeople was a priority that they would have STARTED thier search for photographic evidence with the journalistic centres in that town. There might be a big drive now to support press freedom, but the fifties was right slap bang in the cold war era. I would have thought therefore that at the time, the secret service of the US would have had fairly broad powers to deal with possible breaches of security and secrecy, many of which might have seemed tyranical until recent terror related augmentations to civil rights laws showed us what government is capable of. Just my thoughts on this.