It all started in the summer of 1947, when the pilot of a private plane was flying near the mountain Rainier in Washington and saw various disk-shaped things move through the air, one after another, on a wavy path, "like cake plates leaping into the water."

This report was printed in numerous newspapers and was quickly followed by an avalanche of similar reports from other parts of the country.

The lights in the sky were said to float and then come on at high speed, making zigzag curves impossible for any known aircraft. A flotilla of oval lights was seen and photographed in Lubbock, Texas. Radar operators at airports and on the planes above began to notice dots on their screens that did not correspond to any plane known to be present. They traced strange paths and sometimes suddenly disappeared.

Numerous photographs have been published, most with lights scattered in the dark, but some have shown well-defined outlines of saucer-like objects in a daytime sky. A cross-country driver took a moving photo of a mysterious group of white spots surrounding the desert near Tremonton, Utah.

Early reports used the term "flying saucers" and this name became popular for all the strange objects seen in the sky. But many of the things seen are not shaped like a saucer; therefore, they are more precisely called "unidentified flying objects" or UFOs for short.

Sometimes the UFOs became so numerous that thousands of people observed them, almost in collective hysteria. The newspapers filled their columns with interviews, official reports, rumors, and opinions. In July 1952, an avalanche of reports of radar observations and strange lights around the Washington, DC airport caused such fear. In Mexico City, in September 1965, rush hour traffic was congested for several nights in a row and people spent nights on rooftops watching the lights move across the sky.

Many descriptions of UFOs imply that they were under intelligent control and reacted to observers who tried to get closer to get a better view. Sometimes the patrol police promised to follow UFOs at low altitudes. They found that their cars couldn't keep up and returned terrified by the stories of their race chases. Military research aircraft have been mounted to try to make contact with visible targets or radars. One afternoon in 1948 in Kentucky, an unhappy pilot attempted to catch a UFO. He appeared in front of him and reported that he was climbing 20,000 feet. It was his last word. He was found dead in the wreckage of his plane.

Speculation

There has been much speculation about the origin of the mysterious "flying saucers". Was the United States secretly testing a new type of vehicle, powered by atomic or magnetic or even gravitational energy? Or perhaps a foreign power had mastered such a driving force and was showing off its new exploits in the skies over the United States. However, the most common was the theory that space visitors had come to study Earth and its inhabitants. There is no doubt that it was this idea that gave "flying saucers" their main appeal. The fact that man was preparing to venture into his earthly home to explore other worlds made him wonder if the intelligent creatures elsewhere had done so before him. On the other hand, the idea bothered those who believed that man was unique in the universe as a carnal and intelligent creation of God.

Some people claimed that the flying saucers landed in remote locations and cited flattened vegetation or scorched earth at the landing site as evidence. Close encounters with interplanetary vehicles would turn off the lights and stop the clocks and even the engines of the cars, leaving the magnetic metal and the radioactive environment. Some people claimed to have been brought to the "flying saucers", one in the California desert and the other on a Brazilian farm, and found travelers from Venus. Although their testimony was not confirmed, the believers were ready to believe. A religious aspect was introduced with the emergence of a new cult centered on the divine superman of Venus.

Most scientists tend to take advantage of emotions. Astronomers were not particularly impressed. They pointed out that it was their business to look at the sky, but they had not seen any "flying saucers". Did they also ask where they would come from? Mars? Venus? From what we already knew about these planets, it would be absolutely impossible for a human creature to live there, because there was neither air nor water. And interplanetary probes, testing the atmosphere of Venus and taking close-up pictures of Mars, reinforced this view. Venus was found hot enough to melt zinc, Mars cold and dead like the moon. Few scientists found the UFO subject interesting enough to dedicate time to research or even talk about it in public. This was rarely mentioned in their newspapers. An astronomer took the trouble to write a book showing how mirages can produce effects like "discs" seen in the bush Rainier, or the Lubbock lights.

It seemed likely that most of the "flying saucers" seen were simply misunderstandings about common things, like stars, meteorites, airplanes, balloons and mirages, without excluding disappointments and hallucinations. But the remaining question remained: could all the strange visions reported be attributed to such prosaic causes? Or could there be real "flying saucers" beyond the ability of scientists to explain?