Page 52 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - June 2015 Edition
P. 52
42 How UFOs Conquered The World
HOW UFOS HOW UFOs
CONQUERED THE CONQUERED THE
WORLD WORLD
The History of a Modern
by David Clarke
Myth
My mother once saw an Unidentified Flying
Object, more than 35 years ago, in the middle of by David Clarke
a summer’s night over North London.
Neither a credulous work of conspiracy
Whatever it may have been, it was as theory nor a sceptical debunking of
clear as day, hovering in the sky for around 15 belief in 'flying saucers', How UFOs
minutes before zooming off at terrifying speed. Changed the World explores the origins
of UFOs in the build-up to the First
And you know what’s so annoying about World War and how reports of them have
that? She woke my younger brother to have a changed in tandem with world events,
look and confirm she wasn’t losing her mind. science and culture. The book will also
explore the overlaps between UFO belief
She let me sleep because I’d had a long and religion and superstition.
day and she thought I needed the rest. I’ve
forgiven her now. Nearly. Available on
The great question is, as it always has AMAZON.com
been, are little green men from distant planets
visiting Earth, or is it all a load of hooey? Dr much nearer than Arnold thought and much
David Clarke, academic and folklorist, has been smaller than flying saucers.
asking himself this since he was a child.
As you can imagine, UFO watchers
What he is interested in now, though, is divided very neatly on this issue. Indeed, those
the way in which the idea of UFOs has seeped who accept Easton’s explanation are now
into our lives and culture — to the extent that a known as ‘pelicanists’.
sizeable proportion of the U.S. population
genuinely believe they have been abducted by There are a lot of stories such as this in
aliens. So many say they have been taken, it’s the book. Clarke is a fan of Ockham’s razor, the
amazing there are any left. philosophical contention that a theory should
never propose the existence of anything more
The word he specifically uses is ‘myth’ than is needed for its explanation. In other
— not to mean that it’s untrue, but that it’s a words, don’t gild the lily. The simplest
story, unverified and possibly unverifiable, that explanation is usually the best.
millions of people have come to believe. On
occasion, this one goes all the way to the top. One of my favourite tales is of the great
UFO flap of 1967, when gentle Warminster
When Steven Spielberg arranged a became the UK’s saucer-spotting capital for a
screening of his film E.T. for Ronald Reagan in while. Every weekend, hordes of optimists
1982, the then-president turned afterwards to would camp out overnight in the hope of seeing
the astronauts and judges in the audience and something not of this world.
said: ‘And there are a number of people in this
room who know that everything on that screen One group of enthusiasts went along,
is absolutely true.’ saw nothing that they couldn’t attribute to car
headlights or weather balloons, and decided to
This all started in World War II, when test the hypothesis by building a fake UFO and
Allied bomber crews saw what they called ‘foo launching it. In fact, they launched three of the
fighters’, uncanny balls of light that seemed to things over several months — to the delight of
pursue them during raids over enemy territory. the waiting crowds.
They thought they were a German secret
weapon. The Germans saw them, too. They When the hoaxers admitted what they
thought they were an Allied secret weapon. had done, some UFO watchers refused to
believe them. They were absolutely certain they
But the red letter day in UFO history had seen the real thing.
was June 24, 1947, when a pilot called Kenneth
Arnold saw ‘nine peculiar-looking aircraft’ This is a disillusioned and, in some
flying ahead of him over Washington state. ways, rather sad book. Long ago, it seems, the
Eight of these were semi-circular, but the lead desire to establish some sort of objective truth
craft, flying slightly higher than the rest, was about UFOs was derailed by the need of people
crescent-shaped. to believe. Do flying saucers exist? We don’t
know. But the evidence for them, as Dr Clarke
Arnold was a meticulous observer and repeatedly demonstrates, is thin to the point of
watched them for one minute and 42 seconds. starvation.
Later, he worked out that they were flying at
1,200 mph — twice the speed of the fastest And however much government
aircraft of the time. evidence is made public by various Freedom of
Information laws, the more the believers remain
Of course, everyone went mad. Invasion certain a giant global conspiracy is hiding the
was afoot! It wasn’t until 1997 that a Scottish ‘real’ truth, as in an episode of The X-Files.
ufologist, James Easton, suggested these may
not have been alien forces from the planet Dr Clarke thinks nothing is being
Omicron Ceti III, but rather large pelicans, hidden. He thinks there’s nothing to hide.
indigenous to the area. Perhaps I should introduce him to my mother. []
‘Being predominantly white with black
wingtips, these birds have highly reflective
bodies that appear to sparkle or flash when
spotted in the far distance,’ he pointed out. And
they weren’t flying that fast, because they were
