Flying Saucers

Today marks the 64th anniversary of pilot Kenneth Arnold's sighting of nine strange ships flying in formation in the area of Mount Rainier, the extinct volcano that towers over Seattle. His report of the incident touched off the modern UFO era.

Of course, early on, they were called "flying saucers" after Arnold's description of the flight characteristics of the objects he saw; "UFO" came into usage much later. After Arnold's report, a wave of similar reports swept the nation, leading up to the Roswell Incident about two weeks later. Since then, UFO reports, for whatever reason, have tended to come in waves.

Today, we can explain virtually all UFO reports of the first few decades of the era in Earthly terms. We also know the CIA encouraged UFO mania as a cover for the flights of its exotic spy planes. Still, there is a small core of reports that defy explanation. Often, that's because the information in the reports is not specific and detailed enough to allow hypotheses to be formed and tested. That will always be an issue for science in the field, however. There are also complex reports by seemingly capable people, sometimes with (claimed) physical evidence. What to make of those?