Non-Fiction Reviews
After the Flying Saucers Came
A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon
(2024) Greg Eghigian, Oxford University Press, £22.99, hrdbk, xi +388pp, ISBN 978-0-190-86987-8
This is not a book about UFOs themselves, this is a study of the phenomena of UFOs and the public’s interest in them. The author is a Professor of History and Bioethics at Pennsylvania State University and the dust jacket says of him: ‘An expert on the history of the abnormal and the paranormal in the modern world, his research has been supported by NASA and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’. The main text runs to 317 pages, followed by 41 pages of notes (mostly references), 20 pages of Bibliography, and an Index of 8 pages. The main text is preceded by 3 pages of Acknowledgments.
To start with, as he explains, people see things up in the sky and cannot always explain them. These things, at least to them, truly are Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) or, to use the new name, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). The question people ask of UFOs/UAPs is ‘what are they?’. It has long been known that most sightings can be easily explained by aircraft of various types, whereas other sightings can be due to atmospheric and optical affects (hence the new term ‘aerial phenomena’ allowing that the UAP might be purely optical and not the result of a physical object). But what of the others, the unexplained sightings? Are they truly ‘Flying Saucers’, a general term for craft that do not come from our world?
This book does not answer this question, nor does it even attempt to. What this book looks at, and charts the history of, is the reports of such phenomena over time. It looks at the history of UFO watching, some of the more notable people involved, and the various organisations that have formed in different parts of the world to investigate sightings. Most groups are composed of ordinary citizens, often determined to investigate what they believe their governments and their militaries are ignoring or glossing over. Whilst many governments have formed teams to investigate UFOs, they have never, at least publicly, found them to be anything other than our own (human) aircraft or natural phenomena. There are, though, citizens in many countries who do not believe the official line, often citing their own experiences. Although UFOs and UFO spotting have an international nature, the majority of reports and UFO research groups are from the United States.
The book looks at many of the individuals involved and the organisations they created, as well as their internal politics. It looks at the cultural influences of the times and asks if there are connections. For example, the film The Day The Earth Stood Still was released in 1951 and featured an alien who brought a message of hope from the stars but also the warning that humankind must be careful how it behaved with nuclear power; in real life, George Adamski, a self-styled spiritual leader in California, claimed that in 1952 he had met an extraterrestrial, an inhabitant of Venus, who brought a message warning of the dangers of testing nuclear weapons. Whilst science was learning more and more about the atmospheres and conditions on Mars and Venus, which would make civilisations such as we think of them impossible, so reports of meetings with Venusians and Martians tailed off.
In later years, the author notes, science fiction films would cover themes such as aliens capturing humans and taking over their bodies; in the same period reports of alien abductions grew, with many reporting that they had been probed by the aliens. Is there a cultural connection, the author wonders, do people who have had a strange experience of some kind relate to it in terms of current cultural ideas?
Hundreds of years ago, people reported being the victims of devils and other strange, mythical creatures, perhaps travelling in chariots in the sky; such people did not know of aircraft and other worlds so how else could they explain their experiences? The same applies today - how do you explain an experience without referring to things others already know and understand? For example, in 1946 witnesses in southern Sweden saw ‘ghost rockets’ - silent, wingless projectiles which baffled them; they often appeared as if they were landing (or crashing) at some distance away, perhaps in dense forest or lakes where the observers could not trace them.
In retrospect these accounts seem similar to the V1 rockets, or ‘flying bombs’, which had been launched against England from Germany during the recent war. The German Vergeltungswaffen, or Vengeance Weapons, had been launched from Peenemünde, an area that was now in the hands of Russia - were the Soviets test flying captured devices? In the United States, the U2 spy plane was a secret known only to the CIA, not even the Air Force knew of it - how many American UFO sightings were really manmade aircraft on secret missions?
As evidence of strange ‘somethings’ in the sky grew, so did rumours, and some people became very interested in them. If their governments were not going to investigate them openly and publicly, then they would. And so civilian UFO investigating organisations came into being, formed of amateurs. As with anything, various groups formed, some based on or inspired by earlier groups, but with other groups doing things differently, and people in different groups did not always agree with each other or each other’s methods of investigation. Hypnotic regression became a useful tool for recalling deeply buried memories of alien abductions, though later the technique would be revealed to be unreliable unless used very, very carefully by skilled medical practitioners as it could easily encourage the mind to invent stories - how many abductions were really fantasies created by careless use of the technique? Over time these groups became larger and better known but ultimately, having produced nothing concrete, interest substantially died away. Whilst most groups have faded away, they are not completely gone and there are still those who are interested in UFOs. One thing, though, is that the more science discovers and the more the public become aware of its discoveries, the less likely many of the stories seem.
This book provided an interesting history of UFO sightings and UFO groups. If you are interested in such things, this is a good and informative read.
Peter Tyers
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