67 Years of UFOs and Nobody Came...

[Gene Steinberg]

Curious that today, June 24, 2014, is the 67th anniversary of Kenneth Arnold's classic UFO encounter. 67 years! Boy do I feel old.

But we do have an active discussion of whether some of Bill Moore's alleged disinformation shenanigans may have been responsible for portions of UFO history. Maybe a bit of it, but Bill Moore didn't influence most of what passes for legendary cases in the field.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

And, it seems, nobody cares.

 

[Wade]

well at least you didn't go off like withoutlimits09 did just because it took awhile for a response on the Bill Moore thread

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I suspect a lot of our newer listeners just never heard of Bill Moore.

 

[Burnt State]

I think we're experiencing a discussion gap. Big voices are not around, holding back a little, protesting? lurking? Who knows? But the forum appetite for UFO talk seems slightly suppressed, or maybe on a diet.

Arnold's encounter is an incredible one, but even more bizarre are all the events that followed during the Maury Island affair, and he is a great indicator for the many twists, turns, obfuscation and closed doors that would mark out the territory and methods Ufology would explore.

As far as Moore goes - confessing to be a disinformation agent is just one more example of the manipulations that are part of the phenomenon. 67 years and we still don't know much, but love to argue about it and and still make attempts to control the discussion. Infighting ensues and so it goes.

 

[Polterwurst]

Well, I don't know about others, but for me the "UFO story" didn't start with Arnold's sighting nor does it suddenly go "poof" because charlatans, hoaxers and (for whatever reasons) disinformers like Bill Moore made up or muddied the waters with quite a few stories which are regarded as "cornerstones of the modern UFO era". There's no doubt that a myth has slowly built up since that particular sighting, but there's definetly a truth behind it that dates back far beyond that. How much of today's overall picture is pure bogus, I can't say, though. IMO there was quite probably at least some truth intermingled with the myth-making.

I think we're experiencing a discussion gap. Big voices are not around, holding back a little, protesting? lurking? Who knows? But the forum appetite for UFO talk seems slightly suppressed, or maybe on a diet.

I think that's just your typical summer low.

 

[stonehart]

And, it seems, nobody cares.

Been a long day here Gene and only got to log on now.

 

[storge]

Arnold's encounter is an incredible one, but even more bizarre are all the events that followed during the Maury Island affair, and he is a great indicator for the many twists, turns, obfuscation and closed doors that would mark out the territory and methods Ufology would explore...

Kenn Thomas says Maury predates Arnold's sighting near Mt. Rainier, which in turn predates Roswell by a few days. It seems the dates are all a little subject to conjecture at this point. Anyway, if my autism serves me correctly, Thursday today (June 26) would have been a Wednesday in 1947 (June 26). No, haven't forgotten, quietly in my own way marking that week of infamy.

 

[storge]

Oops, guess my autism tricked me again:

"CHAPTER I
How the "Big Story" Happened
It was Tuesday, June 24, 1947. ..."
--Coming of the Saucers, Kenneth Arnold, 1952

(Thursday was Thursday)

 

[Burnt State]

Kenn Thomas says Maury predates Arnold's sighting near Mt. Rainier, which in turn predates Roswell by a few days. It seems the dates are all a little subject to conjecture at this point. Anyway, if my autism serves me correctly, Thursday today (June 26) would have been a Wednesday in 1947 (June 26). No, haven't forgotten, quietly in my own way marking that week of infamy.

I was thinking about all the weird events surrounding Arnold's involvement with the investigation and the many shenanigans he found himself a party to.

 

[mike]

Ive been crazy busy the last few weeks, what was the question again ?

I meant to answer in the Moore thread

To the premise expressed in the title, no just no.

In order for it to be true, you need to discount all the reports from the rest of the world, places where they have never even heard of Moore.

They were released alongside another file dating back to 1952 which showed then British prime minister Winston Churchill requesting a briefing on UFOs from his secretary of state for air.
"What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth? Let me have a report at your convenience," he wrote.

While i dont doubt the US intel services have used UFO's and disinfo to their advantage, to suggest that disinfo is the source of the meme is to discount the witnesses the world over who have seen these craft with their own eyes.

When was the last time you heard about the british/canadian/australian/french insert a long list of other nations here having files on Ghosts, fairies, unicorn sightings etc etc etc......

There is something to this story, and it goes a lot deeper than US intel disinfo

 

[BobinDC]

UFO enlightenment from the Economist:

Most are seen on late Friday nights and the state of Washington leads the nation in sightings
.Close encounters: Everything you need to know about UFOs | The Economist

 

[Burnt State]

UFO enlightenment from the Economist:

Most are seen on late Friday nights and the state of Washington leads the nation in sightings
.Close encounters: Everything you need to know about UFOs | The Economist

Another classic example of how the media frames UFO witnesses as boozers, pot smokers and who are confusing the northern lights as interstellar craft. That would be the conservative position.

 

[storge]

Someone might appreciate this one, I hope:

It's 4:06 P.M. at the front desk at the Hotel Winthrop at 773 Broadway in Tacoma, Washington, on November 28, 1947.

Courtesy of the Tacoma Public Library, who provide this description:

Description: An unidentified bellman receives a room key from one of the employees working behind the front desk of the Hotel Winthrop in fall of 1947. In October of that year the hotel entered into a long term lease with Western Hotels Inc. The president of the Winthrop Hotel Company, E. J. Calloway, announced that Edward E. Carlson, Vice-President of Western Hotels and a native Tacoman, was to become the new general manager of the hotel, effective immediately. The Hotel Winthrop opened in May of 1925; it was converted into apartments for senior housing in 1973. (Photo ordered by Botsford, Constantine and Gardner, an advertising agency based out of Seattle.)

(And yes, of course, the weirdness around Maury extended into July and August if not later as well. Most people get the chronology of Roswell, Mt. Rainier and Maury mixed up, and I'm guilty of that as well. Kenn Thomas told me Maury was first.)

 

[storge]

I'm toying with the idea of making some sort of Maury Island Revisited thread with additional details and notes and corrections to what Ken Arnold wrote here on Paracast forums. It would have quotes from Arnold's book and then explanations by me, but just short quotes for purposes of literary criticism.

 

[DissectionStalker]

Are there any Paracast shows that recount what was happening during that time frame just before this event... before "AD" everything was labeled a flying saucer?

I'm especially interested in the kind of stories being told too... science fiction, Russian flying invasions, anything that would relate to this subject of UFO's, magazines, radio, books, etc.