Kenneth Arnold did not coin the phrase

a Texan farmer, John Martin, used the term "saucer" 69 years earlier to describe the flying object he saw on a hunting expedition in the surroundings of Denison, Texas, on January 2, 1878.
view here.

www.ufologie.net...

I'll just copy the whole page it is difficult to find.

Newspapers before 1940 -> Documents -> Home
Cette page en français
The first publicized flying "saucer" report?
DAYLIGHT UFO, TEXAS, USA, 1878:
The term "flying saucer" was made popular by a journalist covering Kenneth Arnold's sighting of nine flying disks in June of 1947. The journalist misquoted Arnold, who did not describe the objects as saucer shaped, but describes they strange movement as similar to a saucer thrown on water and bouncing several times: they "flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water."

*snip*


(mod edit to reduce copy paste)

no need to post the complete text as this can be found here
www.ufocasebook.com...

[edit on 18-9-2005 by pantha]

Very good find, Timoothy. You know, I've actually wondered myself if the first people to mention "Saucer" actually meant ... flying saucer.

I think that even if they didn't really mean a saucer shaped ship, we now see that there are several sightings and photographs of silvery metallic discs that seem to just zoom in and out across the sky. So maybe they didn't really meant "flying saucers" in a literal sense, but it really doesn't matter now, does it? We know now that there ARE such crafts that resemble saucers.

In fact, if you read the Magonia database (assuming it's valid and correct) and the many recorded sightings throughout the centuries ... you can see that "UFOs" (and I use the term literally, as in, Unidentified Flying Objects) have been called MANY things. From plates to flying shields, to wheels and frisbees! (Ok, maybe not frisbees, )

History has many interesting events, read up some and you'll know what I'm talking about.

So my point is that extraterrestrial or not, objects that couldn't be possibly identified throughout history have been called MANY things

Be Well.

[edit on 18-9-2005 by Zeta_101]

[edit on 18-9-2005 by Zeta_101]