Carole Stott ponders saucers, aliens and Sid
FLYING saucers and aliens are part of life in the late 20th century. They鈥檙e
in comics and magazines, on the cinema screen and on TV. In the clubs and the
high street, 鈥済rey alien鈥� faces adorn T-shirts and pendants.
Flying saucers and aliens are, in fact, big business. About 95 per cent of
all unidentified flying objects can be explained in terms of everyday things.
The rest remain unexplained. For some, these have become the subject of an
obsessive passion, itself worthy of study.
Advertisement
It all started fifty years ago, when pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing
nine silvery crescent-shaped objects as he flew over the Cascade range in
Washington state in the US. It was a slow news day: the press made his report a
front-page story. Arnold believed he鈥檇 seen a new type of US military aircraft.
Others thought differently. His description of the craft moving 鈥渓ike a saucer
skipping across the water鈥� led a headline writer inadvertently to coin the term
鈥渇lying saucer鈥�. And the flood of sightings has not abated.
Shelves of UFO books have been published to coincide with the 50th
anniversary of Arnold鈥檚 sighting in 1947. Anyone new to the subject will find
Alien Contact by Jenny Randles (Collins & Brown, 拢14.99, ISBN
1855854155) a fine year-by-year introduction. Randles doesn鈥檛 get bogged down in
arguments about the truth of the incidents: readers are left alone to study the
stories and pictures and to work out for themselves what鈥檚 really going on.
In UFOs 1947鈥�1997: Fifty Years of Flying Saucers, compiled by
Hilary Evans and Dennis Stacy (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 拢16.99, ISBN
1870870999), an international group of UFO specialists covers the past fifty
years decade by decade, embellishing their effort with copious illustrations.
Kenneth Arnold鈥檚 report, the abduction experience of students on a camping trip
in 1976, and the story of what Zimbabwean children saw as they played during
break at school in 1994, are all included.
One of the most famous of all UFO cases is known simply as 鈥淩oswell鈥�, after
the place in New Mexico where a craft and aliens were said to have crash-landed
just two weeks after Arnold鈥檚 sighting. New testimony occasionally arises,
fuelling intense debate about what landed and who recovered what. Michael
Hesemann and Philip Mantle鈥檚 well illustrated Beyond Roswell (Michael
O鈥橫ara Books, 拢15.99, ISBN 185479227X) gives a detailed account of the
events of 1947, the period immediately after, and of the 1990s when, it is
claimed, archive film showing wreckage and an alien autopsy came to light.
Stanton Friedman has been involved in UFO research for a quarter of a
century. He has a self-confessed obsession with crashed saucers and Majestic
12鈥攖he US government鈥檚 secret body set up to investigate the Roswell
incident. In Top Secret/Majic (Michael O鈥橫ara Books, 拢15.99, ISBN
1854792032) he embellishes his conviction that extraterrestrials do visit, and
are covered up. This is not for the sceptical: Friedman has little time for
them.
Larry Warren is another firm believer that aliens have landed. In 1980, he
was 19 years old, and a member of the US Air Force security police at
Bentwaters, Suffolk. On the night of 28 December, he saw a UFO land in
Rendlesham Forest close to the NATO base. Left at East Gate (Michael
O鈥橫ara Books, 拢15.99, ISBN 1854792318) is a readable account of his
experiences, and the results of investigations carried out with coauthor Peter
Robbins.
Kjartan Poskitt鈥檚 The Gobsmacking Galaxy, the latest in 鈥淭he
Knowledge鈥� series (Scholastic Children鈥檚 Books, 拢3.50, ISBN 059019013X)
turns the tables. Sid goes to visit aliens, though his closest encounter is with
a black hole. Sid is an imaginary character used to introduce pre-teens and
younger teenagers to our Galaxy and beyond. The rest of the cast includes Morag
and her Scottish dance music, kangaroos, and a washing machine, all of which
feature in numerous cartoons. Poskitt鈥檚 irreverent approach works well. Young
readers will enjoy their imaginary journey in space and will recognise when
Poskitt is supplying fact or merely having fun.
But can the same be said about their elders and their UFO books? Can they
decide what is fact, speculation, misinformation or plain hoaxing?