The Paracast Newsletter
November 26, 2023
www.theparacast.com
Discover the Secret Origins of Reports About Flying Saucers and Ancient Artifacts with UFO Historian Chris Aubeck on The Paracast
The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus an enhanced version of The Paracast with the network ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present a thought-provoking talk with UFO historian and author Chris Aubeck, who reveals secrets about the origins of the terms flying saucer and ancient artifacts. Only these secrets were always in plain sight according to two of his books, "Alien Artifacts: The forgotten story of how we came to believe in visitors from the stars” and “Saucers: Tracing the Origins of Disc-Shaped UFOs.” Aubeck's interest in the historical and sociological aspects of unexplained aerial phenomena began at an early age. A student of language and folklore, he has helped compile the largest collection of pre-1947 UFO cases in the world. He has spoken on his research in many articles and on public radio. In 2008 he was awarded a prize for his contributions to the field by the Spanish organization Fundación Anomalía. In 2003 Chris Aubeck co-founded a remarkable collaborative network of librarians, students and scholars of paranormal history on the Internet. This group, known as the Magonia Project, extends from North and Central America to Russia and Germany.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on November 26: Further explorations of time, time travel, space and other dimensions with researcher Mike Ricksecker, as he continues his dUFO historian and author Chris Aubeck continues to explore the origins of the terms flying saucers and ancient artifacts. Speaking with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz, Aubeck talks about how the history of possible UFO disclosure has been repeated every few years, whether there are conventional explanations to the phenomena; indeed, whether it's meant to be resolved. He also talks about the checkered history of Kenneth Arnold, the "man who started it all," and controversial sci-fi and paranormal writer/editor Ray Palmer. Aubeck's interest in the historical and sociological aspects of unexplained aerial phenomena began at an early age. A student of language and folklore, he has helped compile the largest collection of pre-1947 UFO cases in the world. His books include "Alien Artifacts: The forgotten story of how we came to believe in visitors from the stars” and “Saucers: Tracing the Origins of Disc-Shaped UFOs.”
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums. Visit our new online shop for great branded merchandise at: https://www.theparacast.shop.
So What’s in a Name?
By Gene Steinberg
I have been chasing the flying saucers since I was age 11. At least that’s what I called them, but for good reason. Most of the books and magazine articles I read on the subject also used that label for the strange flying objects spotted across the world. So I went with the crowd.
But they were also words that attracted derision. Sure, the possibilities raised by cases that remained unknown were serious. It was very possible that the dream of contacting intelligent beings from other planets was going to be fulfilled. It wasn’t just the stuff of sci-fi and scientific speculation. It appeared to be something real.
But calling them flying saucers? It seemed silly enough, and skeptics were happy to exploit the often nonsensical implications.
All right, a book by a former head of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, helped introduce the more serious alternate. For many, his 1956 book, “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,” acquainted people to an acronym with a more scientific connotation — UFOs. Yes, that’s the ticket.
The saucers might be the stuff of illusion, but UFOs? That surely conveyed a proper serious impression. Only most people still referred to them as flying saucers. Most books and magazines still referred to them that way. It would be a hard nut to crack.
But there was one niggling factor: Most sightings were not of saucer-shaped objects; indeed, only a tiny minority actually look that way even though witnesses continued to refer to them as flying saucers.
Consider someone reporting a UFO sighting. They are apt to say they saw a flying saucer even though the objects were shaped differently, such as cigars, triangles, spheres, hubcaps? And so on and so forth.
Although I continued to use the original label, I didn’t ignore the more serious alternative. Indeed, my first magazine on the subject was entitled UFO Reporter. But that was largely a staid alternate to a magazine published by my new friend, Jim Moseley, known as Saucer News. Indeed, he continued to use a variation of that name until the end of his days. His final publication, filled with serious and not-to-serious content, was known as Saucer Smear.
So where did this flying saucer thing begin?
Well, as you know, it reportedly all started with Kenneth Arnold’s “classic” UFO sighting from June 24, 1947. His sighting of nine objects, flying in formation, became known, incorrectly, as the very first sighting of unknowns in the modern “saucer” era.
But what did Arnold see anyway?
Arnold didn’t originally call them flying saucers. That came out of the press reports where he was quoted as saying their motion resembled saucers skipping over water. Thus flying saucers.
I remember at the time describing them as “disc shaped,” but that wasn’t quite correct.
The real history is not simply explained. But UFO historian Chris Aubeck has made a worthy effort in his new book, “Saucers: Tracing the Origins of Disc-Shaped UFOs.”
In his deep dive into saucer lore, Aubeck finds references to disc-shaped craft going back many decades, long before the Arnold incident. Indeed, the original description of those nine flying things that Arnold reported closely resembled flying bat-wings with a circular edge on one side.
Maybe he was thinking of the Bat Signal from the comic books.
But once a legend takes hold, there was nothing Arnold could do to change the story. He was “the man who started it all,” according to his sometimes friend Ray Palmer. And thus he lived the rest of his life with that label.
In the real world — or what passes for a real world these days — Aubeck’s extensive research revealed that less than 1% of the cases he collected, consisting of tens of thousands of saucer reports (there I go again) were truly disc-shaped.
Other records of sightings also place the percentage of flying saucer sightings in the single digits.
Now in addition to the appellation UFO, there were other descriptions for the objects reported. In the early days, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) referred to them as UAOs, for Unidentified Aerial Objects. Through the lifetimes of APRO’s founders, Coral and Jim Lorenzen, they stubbornly insisted on referring to them that way, but the label never really took hold outside of their group.
In addition to UFOs, of course, we have the U.S. government’s two versions on the term UAO, which, variously, stand for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.
If one is being politically correct, I’d go for the latter.
That said, it’s not as if the Pentagon’s UAP task force is helping much. As the years go by, it’s name and staffing have undergone some curious musical chairs. Today, at least as I write this column, it’s known as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). But if you think that’s not something that falls trippingly off the tongue, consider the previous names about which the less said the better.
I suppose it’s easy to attribute these changes to the government’s confusing approach to the study of UAPs. Conspiracy theorists might suggest it’s all meant as a disinformation scheme. The more things change, the more people forget what’s actually going on.
Eventually it all disappears from the media, at least until the next sighting wave of course.
Now when it comes to the use of the name flying saucers for anomalous phenomena, that’s a change from the way it used to apply. According to Aubeck’s research, that label was first applied to the circular flapjack-type objects you’d toss into the sky when you were engaged in skeet shooting. That little hobby dates back to 1920.
But when recreational shooting was largely suspended as resources were poured into fighting World War II, the name came into disuse.
That is, of course, until they were applied to those weird things flying around even though, when you look at the situation carefully, very few people report actual flying saucers.
Now call me stubborn, call me set in my ways, but I have been using that term for decades, even though I should, and do, know better. So has a large portion of the general public. Indeed, even when people see something that is decidedly not disk-shaped, it’s still a flying saucer to them.
And so it goes.
Note: Chris Aubeck has recorded an excellent thought-provoking interview for the November 26, 2023 episode of both The Paracast and After The Paracast. He also talks about yet another of his books, “Alien Artifacts: The forgotten story of how we came to believe in visitors from the stars.”
‘Nuff said.
Copyright 1999-2023 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!
November 26, 2023
www.theparacast.com
Discover the Secret Origins of Reports About Flying Saucers and Ancient Artifacts with UFO Historian Chris Aubeck on The Paracast
The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus an enhanced version of The Paracast with the network ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode: Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present a thought-provoking talk with UFO historian and author Chris Aubeck, who reveals secrets about the origins of the terms flying saucer and ancient artifacts. Only these secrets were always in plain sight according to two of his books, "Alien Artifacts: The forgotten story of how we came to believe in visitors from the stars” and “Saucers: Tracing the Origins of Disc-Shaped UFOs.” Aubeck's interest in the historical and sociological aspects of unexplained aerial phenomena began at an early age. A student of language and folklore, he has helped compile the largest collection of pre-1947 UFO cases in the world. He has spoken on his research in many articles and on public radio. In 2008 he was awarded a prize for his contributions to the field by the Spanish organization Fundación Anomalía. In 2003 Chris Aubeck co-founded a remarkable collaborative network of librarians, students and scholars of paranormal history on the Internet. This group, known as the Magonia Project, extends from North and Central America to Russia and Germany.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively for Paracast+ subscribers on November 26: Further explorations of time, time travel, space and other dimensions with researcher Mike Ricksecker, as he continues his dUFO historian and author Chris Aubeck continues to explore the origins of the terms flying saucers and ancient artifacts. Speaking with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz, Aubeck talks about how the history of possible UFO disclosure has been repeated every few years, whether there are conventional explanations to the phenomena; indeed, whether it's meant to be resolved. He also talks about the checkered history of Kenneth Arnold, the "man who started it all," and controversial sci-fi and paranormal writer/editor Ray Palmer. Aubeck's interest in the historical and sociological aspects of unexplained aerial phenomena began at an early age. A student of language and folklore, he has helped compile the largest collection of pre-1947 UFO cases in the world. His books include "Alien Artifacts: The forgotten story of how we came to believe in visitors from the stars” and “Saucers: Tracing the Origins of Disc-Shaped UFOs.”
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums. Visit our new online shop for great branded merchandise at: https://www.theparacast.shop.
So What’s in a Name?
By Gene Steinberg
I have been chasing the flying saucers since I was age 11. At least that’s what I called them, but for good reason. Most of the books and magazine articles I read on the subject also used that label for the strange flying objects spotted across the world. So I went with the crowd.
But they were also words that attracted derision. Sure, the possibilities raised by cases that remained unknown were serious. It was very possible that the dream of contacting intelligent beings from other planets was going to be fulfilled. It wasn’t just the stuff of sci-fi and scientific speculation. It appeared to be something real.
But calling them flying saucers? It seemed silly enough, and skeptics were happy to exploit the often nonsensical implications.
All right, a book by a former head of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, helped introduce the more serious alternate. For many, his 1956 book, “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,” acquainted people to an acronym with a more scientific connotation — UFOs. Yes, that’s the ticket.
The saucers might be the stuff of illusion, but UFOs? That surely conveyed a proper serious impression. Only most people still referred to them as flying saucers. Most books and magazines still referred to them that way. It would be a hard nut to crack.
But there was one niggling factor: Most sightings were not of saucer-shaped objects; indeed, only a tiny minority actually look that way even though witnesses continued to refer to them as flying saucers.
Consider someone reporting a UFO sighting. They are apt to say they saw a flying saucer even though the objects were shaped differently, such as cigars, triangles, spheres, hubcaps? And so on and so forth.
Although I continued to use the original label, I didn’t ignore the more serious alternative. Indeed, my first magazine on the subject was entitled UFO Reporter. But that was largely a staid alternate to a magazine published by my new friend, Jim Moseley, known as Saucer News. Indeed, he continued to use a variation of that name until the end of his days. His final publication, filled with serious and not-to-serious content, was known as Saucer Smear.
So where did this flying saucer thing begin?
Well, as you know, it reportedly all started with Kenneth Arnold’s “classic” UFO sighting from June 24, 1947. His sighting of nine objects, flying in formation, became known, incorrectly, as the very first sighting of unknowns in the modern “saucer” era.
But what did Arnold see anyway?
Arnold didn’t originally call them flying saucers. That came out of the press reports where he was quoted as saying their motion resembled saucers skipping over water. Thus flying saucers.
I remember at the time describing them as “disc shaped,” but that wasn’t quite correct.
The real history is not simply explained. But UFO historian Chris Aubeck has made a worthy effort in his new book, “Saucers: Tracing the Origins of Disc-Shaped UFOs.”
In his deep dive into saucer lore, Aubeck finds references to disc-shaped craft going back many decades, long before the Arnold incident. Indeed, the original description of those nine flying things that Arnold reported closely resembled flying bat-wings with a circular edge on one side.
Maybe he was thinking of the Bat Signal from the comic books.
But once a legend takes hold, there was nothing Arnold could do to change the story. He was “the man who started it all,” according to his sometimes friend Ray Palmer. And thus he lived the rest of his life with that label.
In the real world — or what passes for a real world these days — Aubeck’s extensive research revealed that less than 1% of the cases he collected, consisting of tens of thousands of saucer reports (there I go again) were truly disc-shaped.
Other records of sightings also place the percentage of flying saucer sightings in the single digits.
Now in addition to the appellation UFO, there were other descriptions for the objects reported. In the early days, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) referred to them as UAOs, for Unidentified Aerial Objects. Through the lifetimes of APRO’s founders, Coral and Jim Lorenzen, they stubbornly insisted on referring to them that way, but the label never really took hold outside of their group.
In addition to UFOs, of course, we have the U.S. government’s two versions on the term UAO, which, variously, stand for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.
If one is being politically correct, I’d go for the latter.
That said, it’s not as if the Pentagon’s UAP task force is helping much. As the years go by, it’s name and staffing have undergone some curious musical chairs. Today, at least as I write this column, it’s known as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). But if you think that’s not something that falls trippingly off the tongue, consider the previous names about which the less said the better.
I suppose it’s easy to attribute these changes to the government’s confusing approach to the study of UAPs. Conspiracy theorists might suggest it’s all meant as a disinformation scheme. The more things change, the more people forget what’s actually going on.
Eventually it all disappears from the media, at least until the next sighting wave of course.
Now when it comes to the use of the name flying saucers for anomalous phenomena, that’s a change from the way it used to apply. According to Aubeck’s research, that label was first applied to the circular flapjack-type objects you’d toss into the sky when you were engaged in skeet shooting. That little hobby dates back to 1920.
But when recreational shooting was largely suspended as resources were poured into fighting World War II, the name came into disuse.
That is, of course, until they were applied to those weird things flying around even though, when you look at the situation carefully, very few people report actual flying saucers.
Now call me stubborn, call me set in my ways, but I have been using that term for decades, even though I should, and do, know better. So has a large portion of the general public. Indeed, even when people see something that is decidedly not disk-shaped, it’s still a flying saucer to them.
And so it goes.
Note: Chris Aubeck has recorded an excellent thought-provoking interview for the November 26, 2023 episode of both The Paracast and After The Paracast. He also talks about yet another of his books, “Alien Artifacts: The forgotten story of how we came to believe in visitors from the stars.”
‘Nuff said.
Copyright 1999-2023 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!