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 and records is readily forthcoming — so readily, in fact, that a report of all such sightings of mysterious objects which the observer “could not identify” would fill the entire space devoted to the project report as a whole.
The wealth of ancient “UFOs” is due to a basic fact about man’s perception of his contemporary universe. A concentrated glance backward in time quickly reveals that throughout our recorded history (and presumably before that), mankind has always seen UFOs and reported “sightings” that remained unexplained even after examination by persons believed to be competent.
Our earliest ancestor gazed earnestly into terrestrial and outer space to witness an infinite variety of phenomena and — understood virtually none of them. In fact, his entire universe, both “external” to himself, as well as “internal,” was largely outside of his comprehension. He had only the most rudimentary pragmatic knowledge and was totally unable to explain factually or conceptually whatever he plainly saw. In short, to him everything was UFO.
This in no way prevented him from interpreting what he saw or utilizing his interpretations in a manner that seems to have been convenient to the needs of his contemporary society. A reminder of the social consequences of the ancient attitudes toward “things seen in the sky” may, therefore, be helpful in dealing with present-day reactions to UFO reports.
We know some of early man’s UFO sightings as the sun,
- moon,
- lunar halo,
- stars,
- constellations,
- galaxies,
- meteors,
- comets,
- auroras,
- rainbows,
- wind,
- rain,
- storm,
- tornado,
- hurricane,
- drought;
- others as the sunrise,
- sunset,
- mirage,
- phosphorescence,
- lightning, etc., etc.
In modern times, inductive scientists have given us rational explanations for a great many natural phenomena, or they have asked us to suspend judgments of the still vast unknowable, pending further investigation. But our inveterate impatience persists.
Perhaps the most persistent and dramatic early UFO sightings of the species that has with characteristic self-importance designated itself as Homo sapiens (intelligent man) were the “heavenly” lights he saw whenever he looked upward or outward into space. Without knowing what they were — and what wild guesses were made! — Man was still able to use the moving points of light for his navigating, hunting or migrating orientations. But our ancestors could not endure living without immediate explanations for all of the natural phenomena that surrounded them.
So, in the absence of scientific explanations for what they saw, they conjured up other interpretations equally satisfying to them: the poetic, the dramatic, the supernatural, the mythological, and even the nonsensical, or comic. Any explanation was better than none at all, because man, a part of nature, abhors a (mental) vacuum. Indeed the need to establish orientation by means of hastily improvised hypotheses or fantasies appears to be a fundamental, almost instinctual biological adjunct.
Bits of the vast accumulations of intuitive rationalizations concocted by an early man while he waited impatiently for more accurate answers, still continue to satisfy our craving for poetry, drama and other imaginative story-telling. Francis Thompson wrote: “Man was able to live without soap for thousands of years, but he could never live without poetry.” So for multi millennia, we have had poetry and allegory and all sorts of remarkably ingenious supernatural fantasies standing in for crucially needed, verifiable factual truth.
Sometimes the interim quasi-sciences have served us pragmatically and have led to positivistic science and to some degree of environmental control. But, on balance, it becomes painfully evident from reading history that hasty, premature, wrong explanations — however pretty or ingenious — have led only to more wrong explanations, to a crippling of correct analytical functioning, to the substitution of dogma for fresh research, to the stifling of debate, to punishment for dissent — and to frequent disasters.
There were always some isolated scientific experimenters who worked in many fields (usually in secret), but they did not make much headway against the politically entrenched supernatural theoreticians and their MIFOs – mistakenly identified flying objects. It was not until the end of the sixteenth century that emerging nationalistic power-politics and the new mercantile and manufacturing demands of Western Europe made scientific methods highly desirable and profitable.
Before that, for hundreds of thousands of years, most human procedures were based on magical interpretations of environmental phenomena. From remote times, magicians and astrologers were consulted before any political or military decisions were made; and justice was administered according to magical formulae.
Until a moment or two ago in man’s long history all natural phenomena were devoutly believed to be gods,
- angels,
- spirits,
- devils,
- fairies,
- witches,
- vampires,
- succubi and incubi;
- or omens of fortune,
- good and evil.
What remains today as semantic residues, or charming fairy tales or myths, were once life-and-death formulations acted upon with the utmost seriousness.
In many of the so-called “primitive” societies still extant, the magical interpretation of the world still prevails. Even today, most American newspapers print magical astrological predictions. In 1962, all governmental business in India was suspended on the day when for the first time in several hundred years seven of the major planets were lined up in conjunction. All of India heaved a collective sigh of relief when that fruitcake day ended.