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9. Conclusion There is a positive side to all of this, however, The low-grade controversy generated by “devout believers in the existence of UFOs” (book ad in The New York Times) has attracted a great deal of attention in the news media of the world. A lot of rubbish about UFOs has been printed, and the entire field of speculation remains chronically inconclusive, but attention has also been drawn to a profound question: Are we alone in the universe? Is there life on other planets? And indirectly all of this has led to support and interest in governmental space programs. But what of UFOs, ancient or modern? The best proposition I know for evaluating any hypothesis was offered 40 years ago by Bertrand Russell […] Read More

8. The “Tulli Papyrus” Then there is the “UFO sighting” some time “during the reign of Thutmose III, (1504-1450 B. C.),” cited by Trench (1966): Among the papers of the late Professor Alberto Tulli, former director of the Egyptian Museum at the Vatican, was found the earliest known record of a fleet of flying saucers written on papyrus long, long, ago in ancient Egypt. Although it was damaged, having many gaps in the hieroglyphics, Prince Boris de Rachewiltz subsequently translated the papyrus and irrespective of the many broken sections he stated that the original was part of the Annals of Thutmose III, circa 1594-1450 B. C. The following is an excerpt: “In the year 22, of the third month of winter, the sixth hour of […] Read More

7. The “Book of Dyzan” A second “spot-check,” made of one of the more spectacular “ancient UFO reports,” has produced some fascinating results. It is the “UFO legend” offered by Mr. Frank Edwards in his Flying Saucers — Serious Business (1966). In his opening chapter entitled “What Goes On Here?” Edwards, from a source not mentioned, gives us the following awesome account: A chronicle of ancient India known as the Book of Dzyan is in a class by itself, not only because of its age but because of a surprising account therein. The Book is a compilation of legends passed down through the ages before men were able to write and finally gathered by the ancient scholars who preserved them for us. They tell […] Read More

6. The “Byland Abbey Sighting” Let us take as an example one particular “UFO case history” given credence and awesome attention in books by Vallee, Green, Trench, Desmond and Adamski, Jessup, and Thomas. The report is an alleged “observation made in 1290 at Byland Abbey, Yorkshire, of a large silvery disk flying slowly, a classical one and [one that] can be found in a number of books” (Vallee, 1965). Each of these authors quotes it from one of his colleagues but none has taken the precaution of checking on the “manuscript scroll that was discovered several years ago (1953) in Ampleforth Abbey in England. After deciding to check on the “Byland Abbey sighting on 1290,” I backtracked through the various books and read the […] Read More

5. “Ancient” UFO Reports The selected list of “ancient” UFO reports that follows is taken mainly from various books written by contemporary ufologists. They are all writers who believe “flying saucers” really exist, and who offer various speculations on their origin, mode of “flight” and significance. 213 B. C. “In Hadria an ‘altar‘ was seen in the sky, accompanied by the form of a man in white clothing. A total of a dozen such sightings between 222 and 90 B. C. can be listed, but we have eliminated many more sightings because we felt that they could best be interpreted as misinterpretations of meteors or atmospheric phenomena.” (Vallee, 1965). 218 B. C. “In Amiterno district in many places were seen the appearance of men […] Read More

4. UFO Books Led by the genius poet-investigator, Charles Fort (1874-1932), who for about 40 years assiduously gathered reports of “strange phenomena” from scientific journals and news media, the ufologists have ferreted out and compiled many hundreds of reports of “UFOs” that were seen before the age of aviation and rocketry. The use of selected UFO books — with frequent spot checks of their sources and veracity — serves a double purpose. It enables us to read the “ancient reports” in them and — this is nearly as important — it permits us to see what the modern ufologist selects from the past and how he utilizes and interprets the evidence he has compiled. Such compilations pose some serious problems for the reader not […] Read More

2. Ancient Theories of the Cosmos In their book Lure and Lore of Outer Space, Ernst and Johanna Lehner (1964) have compiled an illustrated review of the cosmos as it was understood and visualized by earlier cultures. The Lehners make it evident that the inventors of cosmic diagrams were convinced that their images of outer space were real and completely factual. Pseudo-explanations of the nature of the cosmos were at the very core of their religious and political ideologies; belief in them was mandatory and could be disputed only at the risk of imprisonment or death. The Chinese evolved a celestial globe completely different from the Western concept in which our earth was surrounded by the Four Supernatural Creatures presiding over The Four Quadrants of Heaven: the Azure Dragon over […] Read More

3. Ancient Theories of the Rainbow In The Rainbow, Carl Boyer writes: Anaxagoras, the friend and tutor of Pericles, found a popular atmosphere in Athens which was hostile to natural science; and, when he asserted that the sun, far from being a divinity, was nothing but a huge white-hot stone, he was jailed for impiety. Anaxagoras also courageously questioned the divinity of Iris, the Goddess of the Rainbow. It seems that Iris has been a major UFO for many thousands of years, with a highly charged emotional effect upon those who witnessed the phenomenon. Some like the Hebrews, were delighted to see the rainbow, because they interpreted it as a sign of God’s forgiveness of the few survivors on Noah’s Ark after He had […] Read More

1. Introduction In his summary of the work of the Colorado project, which appears as Section II of this report, Dr. Condon defines (at p. 13 supra) a UFO as follows: An unidentified flying object (UFO, pronounced OOFO) is defined as the stimulus for a report made by one or more individuals of something seen in the sky (or an object thought to be capable of flying but seen when landed on the earth) which the observer could not identify as having an ordinary natural origin … (emphasis–SR). Dr. Condon’s definition accurately mirrors the persistent, tantalizing inconclusiveness of all UFO reports, modern and ancient. In this chapter this definition will be applied to the past from which a sampling of “UFO reports” gathered from various books […] Read More