UFOs ‘Official’ History Part 1 : Before the Saucers Came

a reply to: mirageman

Thanks for your effort and for sharing! Really well written and readable!

S&F

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: WilliamtheResolute

As good a writer and presenter as he is, I take a little salt when digesting anything David Wilcox puts out for consumption.

And bringing chest-waiters and a shovel is a smart idea also.


Excellent work OP thanks for sharing

just a quick skim to bump say merry xmas everyone.

Now one of the best books on the early airship reports along with there pilots no less is written in great detail and researched excellently. The book is titled "operation trojan hoarse" and written by the great late John Keel.
I own a 1st edition and find myself returning back to this Gem to read over the early stuff.
Some of the accounts are just plain bizarre and it's interesting that the sightings of the time recorded would kind of fit with what would be classed as "the latest progression" in aviation I.E. airships,balloons with a pontoon below with pilot and the lowering of anchors in some cases! very interesting and equally baffling.

IMHO this book is a must have/read if your into the UFO/paranormal experience!
Keel fell victim to the "phenomenon" himself whilst delving into this realm and some of the effects startled him and were quite unsettling for him.

Again Great Thread MirageMan, I'll be reading away over the Christmas period.

a reply to: mirageman

Ooooooh this is awesome!! Thank you so much for posting. The battle of LA in particular has always captured my interest.

Here: Let me Contribute Some Pics

Well Before 1947 The Roswell incident...
there were Spacecraft Concepts In Illustrations and art work
from Pulp Sci Fi Magazine Covers
Yes Stories from Pilots from Both Sides of the War
Talked about Foo Fighters or Fire Balls


Earliest So far Ive have Seen was 1911 in Modern Electronics
although Blimp Like

( Modern Electronics )
( 1911 Space Flyer )


( Modern Electronics 1912 )


So here is some Random UFOS

Foo Fighter ( like a Christmas Bulb ) in 1926 December



( Typical Disk Shape )
Amazing Story's Quarterly Winter Edition ( 1930 )


( Foo Fighter way before WW2 )
(July 1931)


During World War II
Super Science Stories (1942 November )


To be Continued ...

A1

a reply to: Wolfenz



Wonder Stories Quarterly 1931


Foo Fighters from 1929 & 1930




UFO Disk's aka Saucers from 1930





To be Continued ...
A2

a reply to: Wolfenz

Well How about Alien Encounter Abduction!!


You Must of heard theses Stories

Beams you up

Wonder Stories 1931 June



Long Mechanical Tentacles Operating & Experimenting on you
while you on a Table Strapped & Binded

Startling Stories May 1939

a reply to: Wolfenz

Wonder Stories 1931




Some more Disk Shaped Ufos



Astounding Stories August 1937



Attacking a Sail Boat


Well there's more ... in these Various Company Scifi Pulp Magazines
from the 1920s into the 1950s then too Digests


The Questions are the Concepts or Someone Actually had seen them and had an Artist do the Artwork..
or perhaps the Artist themselves had seen them...

These Magazines do exist ..
and you can digitally Download them from Archive.org

I have Some actual Genuine Pulp Mags .. That has these Type of Illustrations ...

Most of the 3 typical Shapes Cylinder or Ballistic , Disk and Sphere

originally posted by: DAVID64
Just marking my spot for now, in case I don't get to read it all in one sitting. Busy day ahead!
I've always been very interested in the history of UFOs, especially in ancient paintings.

I look forward to any thoughts you have about ancient paintings relating to UFOs/UAPs/etc (assuming you are talking about ancient paintings having an angle in the UFO phenomenon) .

Just a heads up: there's a subscribe button at the top of each page that will alleviate the need to post to in an attempt "to mark your spot" - it will be on your "MY ATS" - if you're already aware then just take it as some sincere, friendly advice.

a reply to: mirageman

This is a truly brilliant thread, suitable for many other's whom wish to do research to also reference and it enriches the ATS forum as a result.

Thank you - and also happy Christmas.

a reply to: mirageman

Have you seen the original film negative of the 'Battle Over LA' picture that appears on the front page of the newspaper you embedded?

SciFi is old but for modern writings you start with Frankenstein and Gullivers Travels.
Genre
FOO Fighters can be explained as Ball Lightening to a degree or flares dropped from aircraft or fired from the ground.

In the beginning there was a rock, ripe for life. And life was placed here, then people screwed it all up and invented Religion and Evolution.

a reply to: mirageman
Could the "Battle of LA" have been some manner of early hologram test? It is very reminiscent of the WWI rumors wherein religious projections would be cast upon the sky above enemy trenches to panic enemy soldiers. The truth of this I know not, but it would certainly explain why artillery and rifle fire could not hit what people could clearly see!

As for the Foo Fighters my dear friend traveled to Germany and dug up some old archives. I know from discussions that he believes they were German devices. They certainly liked to experiment with exotic sciences.

He also mentioned that they had a 'sound cannon', which could be related to your Japanese death ray. Interesting!

Great thread sir, really interesting read and I learned a few new things..

What actually gets me is that even today we simply cannot explain a lot of these things ie silent self moving 'rockets' that change direction but having no see able way to do it (thrusters on the sides of rockets would have left the same exhaust plume and these plumes have never been mentioned so its not that way they change direction.

The silent bit also totally intrigues me...No stealth tech then and today's stealth tech isn't that quiet..

originally posted by: BeefNoMeat

originally posted by: DAVID64
Just marking my spot for now, in case I don't get to read it all in one sitting. Busy day ahead!
I've always been very interested in the history of UFOs, especially in ancient paintings.

I look forward to any thoughts you have about ancient paintings relating to UFOs/UAPs/etc (assuming you are talking about ancient paintings having an angle in the UFO phenomenon) .

.

I do hope this forthcoming article from him takes in to account the depiction of the Sun and Moon in old paintings which are often drawn as a form of space craft in look when in fact its their way of drawing a planet / star...

So many folk still get caught by these paintings, even claiming alien death rays in some when its firstly the sun and secondly the sun's rays

a reply to: mirageman

I'm fascinated with stories about foo fighter sightings --- I even saw one myself...one night in November 1976, approximately 40 miles west of Washington D.C.

Great quality thread! There is a remarkable and exacting expanse of collective UFO awareness on this forum. This thread alone, via both the initial headline postings, as well as collective input responses, literally sum the underpinnings of the phenomena IMO.

Possibly reality as we experience is a relevant human response to a virtually` limitless environmental field of information. It may be that we (humanity) are at a point in our species naturally progressive evolution that simply won't allow for a naturally willful, or paralleled artificial modification of, this informational field. Thus we are effectively contained within it much like a fish is contained within water. UFOs may be informational feedback constructs derived from our species' collective informational negative (memories) by a much older and evolved post biological species. One that we have been living with humanity while we both share this yet understood environment of information.

Here are a few ufo photo's pre 1942's "The Battle of L.A"



1870 - Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. This photo is dubbed, "the oldest UFO photograph ever taken." This item was the subject of bidding at Ebay in 2002, when finally the photo was purchased for $385.00 by Samuel M. Sherman, who was the president of Independent-International Pictures Corp.
This was originally a "stereo" photograph. Certainly it was difficult to manipulate photos at that time, and remember, there were no flying objects then; at least, not from this world.



1927 - Oregon. Taken in Cave Junction, Oregon. There is some question as to whether the photo was taken in '26 or '27, but nonetheless, if this is an authentic photograph it is incredible. Reportedly snapped by a volunteer fireman.



1929 - SlideWard - Colorado Ward Sawmill, April - This incident is retold by the photographers daughter: "This photo was taken by my father Edward Pline at the sawmill in Ward where we lived at the time. I think it was 1929. I was about six years old then. My father was there to photograph the sawmill for some reason or another, and as he was taking the photo, he described a 'terrible thunderous bellow,' and a large round thing as big as a very large boulder that moved through the air above them. You can see it in the picture.



1932 - St. Paris, Ohio. This picture was taken of a man named George Sutton near midday, May, 1932. We can see that it was in 1932 from the license plate on the automobile in the photo that accompanied this shot.
The unidentified flying object in the picture could not have been a street lamp, simply because there were no street lamps at the time. There are no power poles or power lines visible anywhere in this picture. This picture shows a vintage automobile.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
Nicely done thread mirageman.

originally posted by: mirageman
So is the Battle of LA really nothing more than a story of war jitters and nothing to do with alien spacecraft?

Sort of, but the story is more than just war jitters. It's an example of how numerous witnesses can all observe the same event and perceive drastically different things. In this example even the same witness perceived different things of the same event:

The acting commander of the anti-aircraft artillery brigade in the area testified that he had first been convinced that he had seen fifteen planes in the air, but had quickly decided that he was seeing smoke...

Is that 15 planes, or is it smoke? This is sadly one of the factors that some ufologists dismiss and say things like "anybody could tell the different between 15 planes and smoke", but this is where the war jitters probably had a psychological factor. If there wasn't a war and if Japan hadn't attacked the coast a few days earlier, we might suspect the witnesses would be less likely to expect to see enemy planes in the sky.

originally posted by: mirageman
American Physicist, David T. Griggs (pictured), was drafted in to investigate these strange sightings and actually flew on both training and combat missions during the war. Working under the command of General Harry ‘Hap’ Arnold, Griggs was tasked with collating information on the ‘foo fighters’ and filing reports through the echelons of command. In 1969, although he had none of the original reports in his possession, Griggs agreed to an interview with James McDonald.

Griggs made it clear that many reports stemmed from misinterpretations. But he still felt that there had been something real involved without being able to ever resolve the ‘foo fighter’ mystery.

I would love to read all his original reports. It's disappointing he didn't even have them by 1969, I wonder what happened to them. Could they have been destroyed before they were FOIA'd? I tried searching for foo fighter reports one time and I didn't come up with much that was useful, but Griggs' reports would be very useful.

I believe that the USA's FOIA first came into force in 1967, and basically established the proviso that agencies should tend toward disclosure of all information - with the threat of courts being able to force disclosure if they saw no reason for the material to be withheld. This is in essence similar to current practice in the UK with which I am very familiar, although today's practice has enshrined in law certain 'exemptions' by which relevant information will always be withheld, or will be withheld if there is a justifiable Public Interest Test applied which suggests the bemefits of disclosure are in some way outweighed.
In a basic conclusion, if an agency has sensitive material they do not want disclosed, there are always going to be perfectly legal ways and supportive mechanisms in place to prevent disclosure. By and large, the destruction of evidence would not be required for fear of FOIA.
I think it is more likely that the previous generation's more laissez-faire record-keeping habits are to blame. Perhaps... :-)

An excellent thread, MM, and some very thoughtful responses too. A pleasure to read.