Flying Saucer
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A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported type of disc-shaped
unidentified flying object An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shapes ...
(UFO). The term was coined in 1947 by the United States (US) news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed flew alongside his airplane above
Washington State Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington State to distinguish it from the national capital, both named after George Washington ...
. Newspapers reported Arnold's story with speed estimates implausible for aircraft of the period. The story preceded a wave of hundreds of sightings across the United States, including the
Roswell incident The Roswell Incident started in 1947 with the recovery of debris near Roswell, New Mexico. It later became the basis for conspiracy theories alleging that the United States military recovered a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. The debri ...
and the Flight 105 UFO sighting. A National Guard pilot died in pursuit of a flying saucer in 1948, and civilian research groups and conspiracy theories developed around the topic. The concept quickly spread to other countries. Early reports speculated about secret military technology, but flying saucers became synonymous with aliens by 1950. The more general military terms unidentified flying object (UFO) and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) have gradually replaced the term over time. In
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
, UFO sightings, UFO conspiracy theories, and broader popular culture, saucers are typically piloted by nonhuman beings. Most reported sightings describe saucers in the distance and do not mention a crew. Descriptions of the craft vary considerably. Early reports emphasized speed, but the descriptions shifted over the decades to the objects mostly hovering. They are generally said to be round, sometimes with a protrusion on top, but details of the shape vary between reports. Witnesses describe flying saucers as silent or deafening, with lights of every color, and flying alone or in formation. Size estimates range from small enough to fit in a
living room In Western architecture, a living room, also called a lounge room (Australian English), lounge (British English), sitting room (British English), or drawing room, is a room for relaxing and socializing in a Dwelling, residential house or apa ...
to over in diameter. Sightings are most frequent at night. Astronomer Donald Howard Menzel concluded that the reports were too varied to all be describing the same type of objects. Experts have identified most reported saucers as known phenomena, including astronomical objects such as
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...
, airborne objects such as balloons, and optical phenomena such as
sun dog A sun dog (or sundog) or mock sun, also called a parhelion (plural parhelia) in atmospheric science, is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a bright spot to one or both sides of the Sun. Two sun dogs often flank the Sun within ...
s. 1950s pop culture embraced flying saucers. The discs appeared in film, television, literature, music, toys, and advertising. Their reports influenced religious movements and were the subject of military investigations. The shape became visual shorthand for alien invaders. During the 1960s, saucers waned in popularity as UFOs were reported and depicted in other shapes. Discs ceased to be viewed as the standard shape for alien spacecraft but are still often depicted, sometimes for their retro value to evoke the early Cold War era.


History


Precursors

Reports of fantastical aircraft predate the first flying saucers. In antiquity, mysterious lights in the sky were interpreted as spiritual phenomena. In the 1800s, many newspapers reported massive airships with glowing lights and humming engines. These are often seen as precursors to flying saucer and UFO sightings. On January 25, 1878, the '' Denison Daily News'' printed an article in which John Martin, a local farmer, reported an object resembling a balloon flying "at wonderful speed". The newspaper said it appeared to be about the size of a saucer from his perspective, one of the first uses of the word "saucer" in association with a UFO. An outbreak of a number of sightings of mystery airships occurred in America in 1896 and 1897. During
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, Allied pilots reported balls of light following their planes. They named the lights foo fighters and believed they were advanced Axis aircraft. Many aspects of the typical flying saucer first appeared in
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
. French sociologist Bertrand Méheust noted, for example,
Jean de La Hire Jean de La Hire (pseudonym of the Comte Adolphe-Ferdinand Celestin d'Espie de La Hire) (28 January 1878 – 5 September 1956) was a prolific French author of numerous popular adventure, science fiction and romance novels. Adolphe d'Espie was b ...
's 1908 novel ''La Roue fulgurante'' ('' The Lightning Wheel''). In the novel, a flying disc-shaped machine abducts the protagonists via a beam of light. Science fiction magazine ''
Amazing Stories ''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearance ...
'' began publishing "The Shaver Mystery" in 1945. Written by Richard Sharpe Shaver and edited by Raymond A. Palmer, they were science fiction tales about technologically advanced "detrimental robots" that abducted humans, but the stories were presented as a true account of Shaver's life. Until the magazine ceased printing The Shaver Mystery, ''Amazing Stories letter column was regularly full of readers sharing their own purportedly true sightings of the robots. Before the flying saucer was coined as a term, fantasy artwork in
pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the Pulp (paper), wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their ...
s depicted flying discs. Skeptical physicist Milton Rothman noted the appearance of so-called flying saucers in the fantasy artwork of 1930s pulp science fiction magazines, by artists such as Frank R. Paul. One of Paul's earliest depictions of a flying saucer appeared on the cover of the November 1929 issue of
Hugo Gernsback Hugo Gernsback (; born Hugo Gernsbacher, August 16, 1884 – August 19, 1967) was a Luxembourgish American editor and magazine publisher whose publications included the first science fiction magazine, ''Amazing Stories''. His contributions to ...
's pulp science fiction magazine '' Science Wonder Stories''. Science fiction illustrator Frank Wu wrote:


Origins

The modern flying saucer concept, including the association with aliens, can be traced to the 1947
Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting On June 24, 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw a string of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at speeds that he estimated to be at least . This was the first post-World War II sighting in the ...
. On June 24, 1947, businessman and amateur pilot Kenneth Arnold landed at the Yakima, Washington airstrip. He told staff and friends that he'd seen nine unusual airborne objects. Arnold estimated their speed at 1,700 miles per hour, beyond the capabilities of known aircraft. Newspapers soon contacted Arnold for interviews. The '' East Oregonian'' reported his supposed aircraft as "saucer-like". In a June 26 radio interview, Arnold described them as "something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear". Headline writers coined the terms "flying saucer" and "flying disk" (or "disc") for the story. Arnold later told
CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. CBS News television programs include ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morn ...
that the early coverage "did not quote me properly ..when I described how they flew, I said that they flew like they take a saucer and throw it across the water. Most of the newspapers misunderstood and misquoted that, too. They said that I said that they were saucer-like; I said that they flew in a saucer-like fashion." The circular shape of typical flying saucers may be due to reporters mistaking Arnold's "saucer-like" description of motion. Arnold's story preceded a wave of hundreds of flying saucer reports. Lieutenant Governor of Idaho Donald S. Whitehead claimed he saw a fast-moving object resembling a meteor around the time of Arnold's sighting. In early July, head of
Air Materiel Command Air Materiel Command (AMC) was a United States Army Air Forces and United States Air Force command. Its headquarters was located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. In 1961, the command was redesignated the Air Force Logistics Command ...
Nathan F. Twining told reporters that "anyone seeing the objects" should contact Wright Field. The next widely publicized report was the sighting by a United Airlines crew on July 4 of nine more disc-like objects pacing their plane over
Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...
. The public was divided on the potential origin of the saucers. Arnold told military intelligence officers he suspected the discs were experimental aircraft, and early newspapers reported Arnold saying, "I don't know what they were—unless they were guided missiles." News media speculated on a Soviet origin, and many war veterans connected them to the foo fighters seen during World War II. A Gallup Poll found that 90% of Americans were aware of the saucer stories, and 16 percent believed they were secret military weapons, most likely American. The most common explanation given was some type of illusion or mirage. Less than one percent believed they were alien craft. One report from Seattle, Washington, described a
hammer and sickle The hammer and sickle (Unicode: ) is a communist symbol representing proletarian solidarity between industrial and agricultural workers. It was first adopted during the Russian Revolution at the end of World War I, the hammer representing wo ...
painted onto a flying disc. The stories spread to other countries, where they were influenced by local political and social concerns. In Europe, which was still recovering from the Second World War, saucers were often reported with rocket-like features. German newspapers reported flying saucers that exploded or had tails of fire. The names for the discs were largely derived from the English "flying saucer" including the French ''soucoupe volante'', Spanish ''platillo volante'', Portuguese ''disco voador'', Swedish ''flygande tefat'', German ''fliegende Untertasse'', and Italian ''disco volante''. The 1947 sightings peaked in the days after the
Fourth of July Independence Day, known colloquially as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States which commemorates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing th ...
and declined rapidly through mid-July. Multiple organizations offered $1,000 rewards for hard proof. In the widely reported July 7, 1947, Twin Falls saucer hoax, four teenagers in Idaho fabricated a crashed disc from jukebox parts. On July 8, the Army Air Force base at
Roswell, New Mexico Roswell () is a city in and the county seat of Chaves County, New Mexico, Chaves County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,422 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fi ...
, issued a press release saying that they had recovered a "flying disc" from a nearby ranch; the so-called
Roswell UFO incident The Roswell Incident started in 1947 with the recovery of debris near Roswell, New Mexico. It later became the basis for conspiracy theories alleging that the United States military recovered a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. The debri ...
made front-page news. International media covered the military's announcement of a crashed disc, but within 24 hours were reporting the military's retraction and explanation that the material was balloon debris. By July 11, the most widely reported story was a North Hollywood resident's claim that a 30-inch galvanized iron disc containing glass radio tubes had crashed in his garden. Newspapers quoted Fire Battalion Chief Wallace Newcombe's assessment, "It doesn't look to me like it could fly." The Air Force collected over a hundred reports at Wright Field, now
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene County, Ohio, Greene and Montgomery County, Ohio, Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patte ...
,
Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
. Air Force General Nathan Twining established Project SAUCER, later renamed
Project Sign Project Sign or Project Saucer was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) undertaken by the United States Air Force (USAF) and active for most of 1948. It was the precursor to Project Grudge. History The proje ...
, the first in a series of UFO investigations by the US Government. Other national governments followed suit. Canada began Project Magnet and the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
launched the Flying Saucer Working Party in 1950, which attributed saucer reports to meteorological phenomena, astronomical phenomena, misidentification, optical illusions, misconceptions, or hoaxes.


Development

By the 1950s, the term "flying saucer" was widely associated with extraterrestrial life. After commercial pilots Clarence Chiles and John Whitted reported a glowing cylindrical object flying past their plane in 1948, the US Air Force began to seriously investigate the possibility of an alien origin, but also concluded that reported discs "seem inconsistent with the requirements for space travel." In a 1950 interview on flying saucers, Kenneth Arnold said, "if it's not made by our science or our Army Air Forces, I am inclined to believe it's of an extra-terrestrial origin". This extraterrestrial hypothesis was accompanied by other unusual theories. Meade Layne speculated that they came from an alternate dimension. Many people claimed to be the inventors of the discs but could offer no evidence. From 1947 to 1970, there was a broad range of overlapping and contradictory explanations for the saucers' origin and purpose, even among proponents. Beliefs about flying saucers were influenced by pulp science fiction. ''Amazing Stories'' editor Ray Palmer transitioned from publishing the purportedly true Shaver Mystery, to publishing and organizing UFO investigations. In 1946, Palmer published Fred Crisman's letters about his encounters with underground beings. The following year, Crisman sent Palmer pale metallic fragments along with a report from his employee, Harold Dahl, about a malfunctioning flying saucer. Palmer recruited Kenneth Arnold to investigate Crisman and Dahl's Maury Island incident. The fragments turned out to be slag from a local smelter, but the
men in black In popular culture and UFO conspiracy theories, men in black (MIB) are government agents dressed in dark suits, who question, interrogate, harass, and threaten unidentified flying object (UFO) witnesses to keep them silent about what they have ...
that Crisman and Dahl claimed were following them would become a common element in later UFO literature. Gray Barker popularized the idea of "men in black" who intimidate or silence UFO witnesses in his book '' They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers''. Palmer launched the magazine ''
Fate Destiny, sometimes also called fate (), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predeterminism, predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. Fate Although often used interchangeably, the words wiktionary ...
'' in 1948, claiming to offer "the truth about flying saucers". It was the first of many non-fiction
paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...
magazines, a genre that flourished in the 1950s. A flying saucer movement developed during the 1950s. It was influenced by scientific research, occult practices, pop culture, existing religions, and earlier myths. In reports and in popular media such as the 1951 film ''
The Day the Earth Stood Still ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' is a 1951 American science fiction film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Julian Blaustein and directed by Robert Wise. It stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Billy Gray, F ...
'', saucers and their pilots were characterized as messengers. The first wave of so-called
contactees Contactees are persons who claim to have experienced contact with extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrials. Some claimed ongoing encounters, while others claimed to have had as few as a single encounter. Evidence is anecdotal in all cases. As a c ...
, George Van Tassel,
George Adamski George Adamski (17 April 1891 – 23 April 1965) was a Polish people, Polish-Americans, American author who became widely known in ufology circles, and to some degree in popular culture, after he displayed numerous photographs in the 1940s and ...
, Truman Bethurum, Orfeo Angelucci, and George Hunt Williamson, all claimed to have ridden aboard the saucers and brought back messages for humanity. New religions and institutions arose around the contactees. Van Tassel built the Integratron, a domed structure near Landers, California, intended to facilitate further contact with aliens, physical rejuvenation, and a kind of spiritual time travel. According to George King, he founded the
Aetherius Society The Aetherius Society is a new religious movement founded by George King in the mid-1950s, also in the " Marburg Journal of Religion"link to the article/ref> as the result of what King claimed were contacts with extraterrestrial intelligences, w ...
—a new religious movement influenced by
theosophy Theosophy is a religious movement established in the United States in the late 19th century. Founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and based largely on her writings, it draws heavily from both older European philosophies such as Neop ...
—at the direct instruction of an extraterrestrial. Some existing religions began to incorporate flying saucers. The
Nation of Islam The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A centralized and hierarchical organization, the NOI is committed to black nationalism and focuses its attention on the Afr ...
taught that the end of the world would be brought about by the "Mother Wheel" or "Mother Plane", a flying saucer half a mile wide. During the same time that
Margaret Murray Margaret Alice Murray (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was an Anglo-Indian Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, and folklorist. The first woman to be appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom, sh ...
's "Old Religion" or
witch-cult hypothesis The witch-cult hypothesis is a discredited theory that the Witch trials in the early modern period, witch trials of the Early Modern period were an attempt to suppress a Paganism, pagan religion that had survived the Christianization of Europe. A ...
was being discredited in academic circles, its core idea—a lost civilization remembered in myth—was being embraced in pulp fiction, occult groups, and the growing UFO movement. Several authors speculated that
ancient astronauts Ancient astronauts (or ancient aliens) refers to a Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific set of beliefs that hold that Extraterrestrial intelligence, intelligent Extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial beings (alien astronauts) visited Earth and m ...
piloting UFOs were the cause of myths and religions. Schoolteacher Robert Dione wrote ''God Drives a Flying Saucer'' to reframe biblical miracles and the
Miracle of the Sun The Miracle of the Sun (), also known as the Miracle of Fátima, is a series of events reported to have occurred miraculously on 13 October 1917, attended by a large crowd who had gathered in Fátima, Portugal, in response to a prophecy made by ...
as the work of humanoid aliens piloting flying saucers. Later, Erich von Däniken released '' Chariots of the Gods?'', a work of
pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable cl ...
that attributed ancient artifacts and monuments to its purported ancient astronauts.
Ufology Ufology, sometimes written UFOlogy ( or ), is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary claims, extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial hypothesis, extrate ...
developed as a parallel social movement. Well-known '' Variety'' columnist Frank Scully published ''Behind the Flying Saucers'' in 1950. The book presents the Aztec, New Mexico, crashed saucer hoax as the true account of an alien craft that "gently pancaked to earth like
Sonja Henie Sonja Henie (8 April 1912 – 12 October 1969) was a Norway, Norwegian figure skating, figure skater and film star. She was a three-time List of Olympic medalists in figure skating, Olympic champion (Figure skating at the 1928 Winter Olympics, ...
imitating a dying swan" and was recovered by the United States government. The hoaxers were convicted of fraud for selling useless
dowsing Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, Petroleum, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia),As translated from one preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active do ...
equipment to the oil industry based on a claimed alien origin, but the book described one of the men as a doctor with "more degrees than a thermometer". Donald Keyhoe took a "nuts and bolts" approach to the idea of the government covering up alien life in his 1950 book '' The Flying Saucers Are Real''. When the popular and respected ''
Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...
'' magazine ran " Have We Visitors From Space?" in 1952, taking seriously ideas of alien visitors, a wave of sightings followed. The 1952 sightings spurred Leonard H. Stringfield to form an early UFO investigation group called the Civilian Investigating Group for Aerial Phenomena and to publish research on UFOs. Albert K. Bender started his own International Flying Saucer Bureau in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1952. Influenced by these works, James W. Moseley began to tour the country interviewing witnesses and distributing a newsletter for the growing saucer subculture. Within a decade of the first saucer sightings, reports spread to other countries, leading to the emergence of local groups and ufologists. Antonio Ribera started ''Centro de Estudios Interplanetarios'' in Spain, and Edgar Jarrold founded the Australia Flying Saucer Bureau. In France, UFO groups overlapped with
occult The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysti ...
groups and the
anti-nuclear movement The Anti-nuclear war movement is a new social movements, social movement that opposes various nuclear technology, nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified them ...
. Reports have been more often made in the countries where UFO groups are in operation, such as the United States, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. By the end of the decade, ''The Case for the UFO'' author Morris K. Jessup reflected on his field: "This embryonic science is as full of cults, feuds, and dogmas as a dog is of fleas. There are probably more opinions about the nature and purpose of UFO's as there are Ufologers." UFO photography emerged as a subgenre of
documentary photography Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional ph ...
, showing often blurry or abstract discs framed by otherwise everyday settings. Notable examples include the 1950 McMinnville photographs, the Passaic UFO photographs, and the photographs of contactee George Adamski. Some of the alleged flying saucer photographs of the era were
hoax A hoax (plural: hoaxes) is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible. S ...
es, created using everyday objects such as
hubcap A hubcap or hub cap is a decorative disk on an automobile wheel that covers at minimum the central portion of the wheel, called the hub. An automobile hubcap is used to cover the wheel hub and the wheel fasteners to reduce the accumulation of ...
s. German rocket scientist Walther Johannes Riedel analyzed George Adamski's UFO photos and found them to be faked. The UFO's "landing struts" were
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...
light bulbs with GE logos visible on them. UFO researcher Joel Carpenter identified the body of Adamski's "flying saucer" as the
lampshade A lampshade is a fixture that envelops the light bulb to redirect the light it emits. The shade is often affixed onto a light fixture to reduce the intensity of the light to observers, shield the light from a harsh environment, or for decorati ...
from a 1930s pressure lantern. Flying saucers are now considered retro and emblematic of the 1950s and of science fiction
B movie A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second ...
s. The term "flying saucer" was gradually supplanted by "UFO" and later "UAP". Discs ceased to be the standard shape in UFO reports, and a broader variety of objects were reported. Recent reports more often describe spherical and triangular UFOs.


Description


Identification

Experts have identified the majority of flying saucer and broader UFO reports with known phenomena. British government investigations in the 1950s found that the vast majority of reports were misidentifications or hoaxes. Common explanations for saucer sightings include the planet Venus, weather phenomena such as ice crystals, balloons, and airborne trash. The US Navy and
General Mills General Mills, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded ultra-processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in ...
launched thousands of top-secret Skyhook spy balloons by the mid-1950s. Because they floated at high altitude, it was difficult to judge the speed of the massive balloons, and they were widely reported as flying saucers. Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell died while pursuing an unknown round object "of tremendous size", later identified as a Skyhook balloon. News media reported Mantell as having crashed "chasing flying saucer", and some lost Skyhook balloons were tracked down using news reports of UFO sightings. In the mid-1950s, psychologists began to study why people believed in flying saucers despite the lack of evidence. French psychiatrist Georges Heuyer viewed the phenomenon as a kind of global folie à deux, or shared delusion, triggered by fear of a possible
nuclear holocaust A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear annihilation, nuclear armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a Futures studies, theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes widespread destruction and radi ...
. In the 1970s, French UFO researcher Michel Monnerie compared reports that were later identified with those that remained unexplained. Monnerie found no difference in the frequency of paranormal phenomena reported alongside the sightings identified later as mundane known objects. These findings led him to develop the thesis that the saucer-specific experiences were a "psychosocial" process of myth-making triggered by but not caused by aerial phenomena. This
psychosocial UFO hypothesis In ufology, the psychosocial hypothesis, abbreviated PSH, argues that at least some UFO reports are best explained by psychological or social means. It is often contrasted with the better-known extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), and is particu ...
became a popular explanation in France.


Reported sightings

Eyewitness descriptions differ in reported appearance, movement, and purpose. In a 1963 overview of flying saucers, astronomer Donald Howard Menzel found some broad traits across sightings but noted that "no two reports describe exactly the same kind of UFO." Menzel found saucers were usually reported as round but included objects shaped like dining saucers, teardrops, cigars, kidney beans, the planet
Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...
, and yarn spindles. Saucers often were reported with a dome or knob-shaped protrusion on the top side. Size estimates ranged from 20 feet to over in diameter. Menzel found saucers reported in nearly every color, often glowing or flashing. The sightings had little consistency in reported movement. Witnesses described hearing sounds ranging from a thunderclap to total silence. Sightings typically took place at night, around sunset or sunrise. Almost all witnesses described distant saucers in flight.Scan
– via HathiTrust.
Menzel concluded, "No single phenomenon could possibly display such infinite variety." If a witness describes a saucer's crew, they usually regard them as extraterrestrial.
Grey aliens Grey aliens, also referred to as Zeta Reticulans, Roswell Greys, or simply, Greys, are purported extraterrestrial beings. They are frequently featured in claims of close encounter and alien abduction. Greys are typically described as having ...
gradually became the most reported type of pilot, but a vast range of beings have been reported. The diversity was greater in the 1950s and early 1960s, when witnesses reported the aliens variously as hairy, hairless, monstrous, gorgeous, gigantic, dwarfish, robotic, insectoid, avian, Nordic, or grey-skinned. Historian Greg Eghigian argues that this gradual standardization indicates a cultural process to create a broadly recognizable design. Witnesses consistently describe and depict flying saucers as ahead of contemporary technology. When comparing the 1947 saucer reports to the mystery airships of the 1800s, sociologist Robert Bartholomew found that the claimed observations "reflected popular social and cultural expectations of each period". The mystery airship sightings of the 1800s included details such as metal hulls, propellers, searchlights, and large wings. The 1947 sightings—occurring months before
Chuck Yeager Brigadier general (United States), Brigadier General Charles Elwood Yeager ( , February 13, 1923December 7, 2020) was a United States Air Force officer, flying ace, and record-setting test pilot who in October 1947 became the first pilot in his ...
broke the
sound barrier The sound barrier or sonic barrier is the large increase in aerodynamic drag and other undesirable effects experienced by an aircraft or other object when it approaches the speed of sound. When aircraft first approached the speed of sound, th ...
—emphasized the "incredible speed" of flying saucers. While most 1947 reports focused on speed, this fell to 41 percent in 1971 and 22 percent in 1986. In the 1950s, hovering flying saucers were associated with
contactees Contactees are persons who claim to have experienced contact with extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrials. Some claimed ongoing encounters, while others claimed to have had as few as a single encounter. Evidence is anecdotal in all cases. As a c ...
and hoaxes. By 1986, almost half of reported UFOs were said to hover slowly or remain motionless.


Fictional portrayals

In popular media, flying saucers underwent a change in motion similar to the shift in eyewitness reports. Early portrayals emphasized high speed maneuvers, but later media gradually shifted to slowly hovering discs. Early films such as '' The Flying Saucer'' (1950) and
film serial A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, ge ...
s such as '' Bruce Gentry – Daredevil of the Skies'' (1949), show saucers streaking past at high speeds. ''
The Day the Earth Stood Still ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' is a 1951 American science fiction film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Julian Blaustein and directed by Robert Wise. It stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Billy Gray, F ...
'' (1951) mentions high speeds tracked by radar but also includes a slow landing scene. The 1960s television series ''The Invaders'' prominently features a slow landing scene in every episode. Many later iconic flying saucer films, including ''
Close Encounters of the Third Kind ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' is a 1977 American science fiction film, science fiction drama film written and directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and François ...
'' (1977) and '' Fire in the Sky'' (1993), depict hovering and slow movements.


Popular culture

Since the late 1940s, flying discs have increasingly become associated with a cultural conception of aliens that reflects the social and political anxieties of the 20th century. Fictional flying saucers represent concerns about
atomic warfare Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a War, military conflict or prepared Policy, political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are Weapon of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conven ...
, the Cold War, loss of
bodily integrity Bodily integrity is the inviolability of the physical body and emphasizes the importance of personal autonomy, self-ownership, and self-determination of human beings over their own bodies. In the field of human rights, violation of the bodily int ...
,
xenophobia Xenophobia (from (), 'strange, foreign, or alien', and (), 'fear') is the fear or dislike of anything that is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression that is based on the perception that a conflict exists between an in-gr ...
, government secrecy, and the question of whether humanity is alone in the universe. Reports from witnesses influenced popular media, which led to greater interest in flying saucers. For the film '' Earth vs. the Flying Saucers'', producer Charles H. Schneer adapted Donald Keyhoe's UFO books for the screenplay, while special effects artist
Ray Harryhausen Raymond Frederick Harryhausen (June 29, 1920 – May 7, 2013) was an American-British animator and special effects creator who is regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of both fields. In a career spanning more than 40 ...
consulted with contactee George Adamski about the saucer design. No correlation has been found between the release of major UFO films and spikes in sightings. A disc, often domed or emitting a beam of light, has become visual shorthand for aliens. In 2017, the flying saucer emoji was added to
Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
. Although the symbol now signifies alien life, similar motifs had unrelated religious and astronomical meanings in the past. Some ufologists have attempted to re-interpret premodern art to support pseudohistorical claims of ancient alien interactions with humanity. Ufologists claim that early portrayals of flying discs can establish a historical basis for their existence as physical craft or some other type of external phenomena. However, experts have consistently explained purported portrayals of ancient UFOs as artifacts of the cultures producing them. For example, Italian Renaissance painter Carlo Crivelli put a disc-shaped element in his 1486 altarpiece '' The Annunciation, with Saint Emidius'' that art historian Massimo Polidoro described as "a vortex of angels in the clouds". The artists and audiences of the time understood it as an artistic device representing the influence of the Christian God, not extraterrestrials. The device is seen more clearly in many contemporary works, notably Luca Signorelli's 1491 ''
Annunciation The Annunciation (; ; also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord; ) is, according to the Gospel of Luke, the announcement made by the archangel Gabriel to Ma ...
''.


Literature

Several precursors to modern flying saucers appeared in science fiction literature, including The Shaver Mystery. Richard Sharpe Shaver's stories about a secret technologically advanced civilization of "detrimental robots" inside the earth were published as a true account of his life. Backlash from the science fiction community carried over to UFO literature. Saucers did appear in conventional science fiction, but a genre emerged that treated fantastical stories as either true or plausibly true. The debut issue of ''Mystic'' magazine asked readers, "When you read this story, you will tell yourself that it is fiction; the editors assure you that it is. But what if—it isn't?" ''The Fortec Conspiracy'', a science fiction novel, both drew from and fed into crashed saucer rumors. Major newspapers rarely did reviews for saucer books but printed their sensationalist advertisements claiming to prove that flying saucers had landed or were being covered up. Cultural studies scholar Jonathan Gray describes this type of widely-viewed alarmist ad as a paratext (related to the central text but not a part of it), which can reach a much broader audience than the text itself. Advertisements leveraged cultural interest in flying saucers from the earliest reports. Magazines were promoted as offering skeptical, debunking explanations for the phenomenon. From 1947 into the 1970s, marketing leveraged the discs' potential as advanced technology. By the 1980s, saucers in advertisement were used to evoke awe towards their potential pilots more than futurism. Aliens and flying discs were common in 1950s
science fiction comics Publication of comic strips and comic books focusing on science fiction became increasingly common during the early 1930s in newspapers published in the United States. They have since spread to many countries around the world. History The first ...
that flourished after the
Golden Age of Comic Books The Golden Age of Comic Books describes an era in the history of American comic books from 1938 to 1956. During this time, modern comic books were first published and rapidly increased in popularity. The superhero archetype was created and ma ...
. Launched in the 1960s, the comic book anthology ''UFO Flying Saucers'' featured illustrations of supposedly real sightings. The opening to its first issue declared, "Our scientists have seen them! Our airmen have fought them!" As the 1950s progressed, former pulp readers turned their attention to the growing medium of television.


Film and television

Many early portrayals of flying saucers linked them to the Cold War. The 1949 film serial '' Bruce Gentry – Daredevil of the Skies'' featured a man-made flying saucer, and the 1950 film '' The Flying Saucer'' focused on Cold War espionage. Saucer films in the 1950s featured alien pilots, but many continued to center on Cold War fears. '' The Thing from Another World'' (1951) was a loose adaptation of John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?", updated to include aliens and relocated to Alaska, where Americans feared a Russian attack. Later that year, ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' had its human-looking alien Klaatu give audiences explicit warnings about a possible nuclear holocaust. ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' and ''The Thing from Another World'' were financial successes that established the market for an "alien visitor" subgenre of science fiction that merged flying saucers into existing space opera tropes. Slowly hovering discs, such as the one from the landing scene in ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'', appeared throughout science fiction, including '' It Came from Outer Space'' (1953), ''Earth vs. the Flying Saucers'' (1956), and the television series '' The Invaders''. While contactees described aliens as benevolent messengers, Hollywood films often depicted them as monstrous antagonists. Other countries adapted the largely American phenomenon at different times, adding elements of the local culture. Early British films were low-budget productions such as '' Devil Girl from Mars'' (1954) and '' Stranger from Venus'' (1954). Japanese filmmakers incorporated flying discs and alien invaders into the ''
tokusatsu is a Japanese term for live-action films or television programs that make heavy use of practical special effects. Credited to special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, ''tokusatsu'' mainly refers to science fiction film, science fiction, War fi ...
'' tradition in mid-50s films such as ''
Fearful Attack of the Flying Saucers is a 1956 independent Japanese ''tokusatsu'' science fiction film directed and written by Shinichi Sekizawa, with special effects and cinematography by Sadao Uemura. Produced by Kokumotsu Films and distributed by Shintoho, it is Sekizawa's sole ...
'' and '' Warning from Space''.
Indian cinema The cinema of India, consisting of motion pictures made by the Indian film industry, has had a large effect on world cinema since the second half of the 20th century. Indian cinema is made up of various film industries, each focused on p ...
began to incorporate alien invaders in the 1960s, starting with the Tamil-language '' Kalai Arasi''. An adaptation of ''Bankubabur Bandhu'' by
Satyajit Ray Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian film director, screenwriter, author, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligraphy, calligrapher, and composer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influ ...
was never completed but may have influenced other works of science fiction. In Spain, alien-themed television shows became popular in the 1960s. Flying saucers quickly spread to other genres. In
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...
's big-budget ''
Forbidden Planet ''Forbidden Planet'' is a 1956 American science fiction action film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, produced by Nicholas Nayfack and directed by Fred M. Wilcox (director), Fred M. Wilcox from a script by Cyril Hume that was based on a film story by ...
'', a futuristic 1956 adaptation of William Shakespeare's play ''
The Tempest ''The Tempest'' is a Shakespeare's plays, play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, th ...
'', humans travel through space in the ''United Planets Cruiser C-57D'', a ship resembling a flying saucer. ''
The Twilight Zone ''The Twilight Zone'' is an American media franchise based on the anthology series, anthology television series created by Rod Serling in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described ...
''
episode An episode is a narrative unit within a larger dramatic work or documentary production, such as a serial (radio and television), series intended for radio, television or Streaming media, streaming consumption. Etymology The noun ''episode'' is ...
s "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", "Third from the Sun", " Death Ship", " To Serve Man", " The Invaders", and "
On Thursday We Leave for Home On, on, or ON may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * On (band), a solo project of Ken Andrews * ''On'' (EP), a 1993 EP by Aphex Twin * ''On'' (Echobelly album), 1995 * ''On'' (Gary Glitter album), 2001 * ''On'' (Imperial Teen album), 200 ...
", all make use of the iconic saucer from ''Forbidden Planet''. The ''C-57D'' was followed by other disc-shaped spacecraft in broader science fiction, such as the '' Jupiter 2'' from the television series ''
Lost in Space ''Lost in Space'' is an American science fiction television series created and produced by Irwin Allen, which originally aired between 1965 and 1968 on CBS. Lightly dramatic, sometimes comedic in tone, the series was inspired by the 1812 J ...
'' (1965–1968). Saucers appeared in the television series ''
Babylon 5 ''Babylon 5'' is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Tel ...
'' (1994–1998) as
starship A starship, starcraft, or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for interstellar travel, traveling between planetary systems. The term is mostly found in science fiction. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 1 ...
s used by a race called the Vree. Aliens in the film ''
Independence Day An independence day is an annual event memorialization, commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or Sovereign state, statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or after the end of a milit ...
'' (1996) attacked humanity in giant city-sized saucer-shaped spaceships. Flying saucers were supplanted by other concepts and fell out of favor with Hollywood filmmakers. After 1956, American saucer films were mainly
B movie A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second ...
s. ''Plan 9 from Outer Space'' is infamous for its "pie-pan" saucers dangled from visible piano wire. Television shows and British films continued to depict flying discs and alien invaders into the 1960s. Various saucer designs have appeared in ''
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...
'', such as those used by the
Dalek The Daleks ( ) are a fictional extraterrestrial race of extremely xenophobic mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme ''Doctor Who''. They were conceived by writer Terry Nation and first appeared in th ...
s in '' Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.'' or the Cybermen in " The Tenth Planet". Italy produced a wave of low-budget films, often space operas or comedies, including ''
Omicron Omicron (, ; uppercase Ο, lowercase ο, ) is the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. This letter is derived from the Phoenician letter ayin: . In classical Greek, omicron represented the close-mid back rounded vowel in contrast to '' o ...
'' (1963) and '' Il disco volante'' (1964). By the end of the 1960s, Japan, Italy, and Britain largely ceased producing saucer films. Disc-shaped spacecraft fell out of favor in straight science fiction but continued to be used ironically in comedies. The image is often invoked retrofuturistically to produce a
nostalgic Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word ''nostalgia'' is a neoclassical compound derived from Greek, consisting of (''nóstos''), a Homeric word meaning "homecomi ...
feel in period works. For example, ''
Mars Attacks! ''Mars Attacks!'' is a 1996 American science fiction film, science fiction black comedy, black comedy film directed by Tim Burton, who also co-produced it with Larry J. Franco. The screenplay by Jonathan Gems was based on the Topps trading ca ...
'' (1996) draws on the flying saucer as part of the larger satire of 1950s B movie tropes.


Architecture

The sleek, silver flying saucer is widely regarded as a symbol of 1950s culture. The motif is common in
Googie architecture Googie architecture ( ) is a type of futurist architecture influenced by car culture, Jet aircraft, jets, the Atomic Age and the Space Age. It originated in Southern California from the Streamline Moderne architecture of the 1930s, and was popu ...
and
Atomic Age The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear weapon, The Gadget at the '' Trinity'' test in New Mexico on 16 July 1945 during World War II. Although nuclear chain r ...
décor. Notable flying saucer structures include Seattle's
Space Needle The Space Needle is an observation tower in Seattle, Washington, United States. Considered to be an icon of the city, it has been designated a List of Seattle landmarks, Seattle landmark. Located in the Lower Queen Anne, Seattle, Lower Queen An ...
and Los Angeles International Airport's Theme Building. Googie architecture in California, such as the Chemosphere home, influenced the futuristic structures in the 1960s cartoon '' The Jetsons''. The cartoon popularized the style to such an extent, that it is often referred to as the "Jetsons look". Architect
Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...
, who collaborated on the design of the flying saucer in ''The Day The Earth Stood Still'', went on to use the flying saucer as an architectural motif. Wright's circular Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in
Wauwatosa, Wisconsin Wauwatosa ( ; colloquially Tosa) is a city in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 48,387 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Wauwatosa is a suburb located immediately west of Milwaukee and is part of the Milwa ...
, United States, is capped by a flattened dome over a hundred feet across. Spaceships are one of the subjects of
novelty architecture Novelty architecture, also called programmatic architecture or mimetic architecture, is a type of architecture in which buildings and other structures are given unusual shapes for purposes such as advertising or to copy other famous buildings. ...
. Also known as mimetic architecture, novelty architecture is the practice of creating structures shaped like other existing objects. The Communist-era Kielce Bus Station in Kielce, Poland, was designed by architect to resemble a UFO. The historic landmark arena in
Katowice Katowice (, ) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Katowice urban area. As of 2021, Katowice has an official population of 286,960, and a resident population estimate of around 315,000. K ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, is called
Spodek Spodek is a multipurpose arena complex in Katowice, Poland, opened on 9 May 1971. Aside from the main dome, the complex includes a gym, an ice rink, a hotel and three large car parks. It was the largest indoor venue of its kind in Poland until ...
(Polish for "saucer") based on its resemblance to the saucers of 1960s science fiction. Other
modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
and
brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the b ...
UFO structures include the Ukrainian Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, Bulgaria's concrete Buzludzha monument, the
Most SNP Most SNP ("Bridge of the Slovak National Uprising"), commonly referred to as Most Slovenského národného povstania or the UFO Bridge, and named Nový most ("New Bridge") from 1993 to 2012, is a road bridge over the Danube in Bratislava, the ca ...
in
Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...
, Slovakia, and The Flying Saucer in
Sharjah Sharjah (; ', Gulf Arabic: ''aš-Šārja'') is the List of cities in the United Arab Emirates, third-most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, after Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It is the capital of the Emirate of Sharjah and forms part of the D ...
,
United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab E ...
. The Westall UFO was commemorated with the Grange Reserve UFO Park, featuring a UFO with red slides modeled after the reported sighting.
Roswell, New Mexico Roswell () is a city in and the county seat of Chaves County, New Mexico, Chaves County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,422 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fi ...
, is a UFO tourist destination in the Southwestern United States. Many structures in Roswell, including the streetlights and the McDonald's, are designed around alien themes. Moonbeam, Ontario, Canada, has an alien for its mascot and a prominent roadside flying saucer at its welcome center. UFO-shaped homes include the Futuro pods designed by Matti Suuronen, the former Sanzhi UFO houses from the
Sanzhi District Sanzhi District () is a rural district in northern New Taipei, Taiwan. It is notable as the hometown of the former president Lee Teng-hui. History During the period of Japanese rule, , and was governed under of Taihoku Prefecture. Administr ...
,
New Taipei New Taipei City is a Special municipality (Taiwan), special municipality located in regions of Taiwan, northern Taiwan. The city is home to an estimated population of 4,004,367 as of January 2023, making it the most populous city in Taiwan, a ...
,
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
, and artist Harry Visser's iconic home in
Roodepoort Roodepoort ( ) is a city in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Formerly an independent municipality, Roodepoort became part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, Johannesburg municipality in the late 1990s, along with Randburg ...
, Johannesburg, South Africa.


Broader pop culture

Flying saucers were a ubiquitous part of pop culture from 1947 into the mid-1970s. Flying disc motifs were used in toys and other novelties soon after the earliest reports. The frisbee was released in 1948 and initially branded the "flying saucer". Flying saucer (confectionery), Flying saucer candy was introduced in the 1950s when a Belgian producer of communion wafers had a dip in sales. Along with other vintage candies, they have since seen renewed interest from customers as "retro". In the 1950s and early 1960s, Japan was a major manufacturer of tin toys often with space themes such as robots, rockets, and flying discs. Throughout the 1950s, musicians such as Billy Lee Riley, Jesse Lee Turner, and Betty Johnson released novelty songs about flying discs and alien invaders. Bill Buchanan (songwriter), Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman released the first break-in record, "The Flying Saucer (song), The Flying Saucer", which took the form of a mock news broadcast covering an alien invasion. Disneyland opened ''Flying Saucers (attraction), Flying Saucers'', an attraction where guests could pilot a hovering disc by tilting their own body. Video games have a long history of depicting flying saucers, typically as antagonists. In the arcades, the popular early shooting games ''Asteroids (video game), Asteroids'' (1979) and ''Space Invaders'' (1978) featured flying saucers as "bonus" enemies that only emerged briefly. ''Super Mario Land'', one of Nintendo's launch titles for the original Game Boy, contained spaceships modeled after photographs by George Adamski and set among various monuments falsely attributed to
ancient astronauts Ancient astronauts (or ancient aliens) refers to a Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific set of beliefs that hold that Extraterrestrial intelligence, intelligent Extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial beings (alien astronauts) visited Earth and m ...
, such as the Egyptian pyramids and the monolithic Moai of Easter Island. The ''XCOM'' series tasks players with countering an invasion of aliens landing on Earth in flying discs. Saucers have appeared as a craft that players can control in ''Fortnite'', ''Destroy All Humans'', and ''Spore''.


References

{{UFOs Flying saucers, 1940s neologisms Fictional spacecraft by type UFOs by type Articles containing video clips