UFO`er - UFO året 1947 kopiert? - AW&ST

Dersom du så serien "Contact" for mange år siden, hørte- og så du Carl Sagan predikere at det var mulig det fantes såkalte aliens der ute. Mulig det, men dersom du aksepterer at det er umulig å reise fortere enn lysets hastighet, er det grunn til å tro at de neppe kommer hit. Det har kommet en del UFO observasjoner av spesielt amerikanske flygere de siste årene. Noen kan forklares, andre ikke. Take your pick....(Red.)

The UFO Debate: Revenge Of The Aliens?

Joe Anselmo June 21, 2021

 

The 2017 revelation that a secret U.S. Defense Department program has investigated reports of UFOs is hardly a new topic: debate about whether the UFOs existed – and the Pentagon was covering up their existence -- was covered extensively in Aviation Week & Space Technology more than 50 years ago. And our reporting had a decidedly anti-extra-terrestrial bent.

Philip J. Klass, Aviation Week’s legendary avionics editor, published an in-depth analysis in the summer of 1966 suggesting that some reported sightings of UFOs were actually “luminous plasmas of ionized air, a special form of ‘ball lightning’ generated by electric corona that occurs on high-tension power lines under certain conditions.” 

Read the full analysis in Aviation Week's archive

Klass noted that a then-popular book about UFO sightings near Exeter, New Hampshire, “expresses the belief that top Air Force and government officials know that the UFOs are extra-terrestrial spacecraft but successfully kept this a secret for nearly two decades to prevent national panic.” But he was skeptical. “A much more plausible scientific explanation emerges when the Exeter sightings are analyzed,” he wrote, devoting another four pages to lay out that analysis.

Philip J. Klass' avocation was debunking sightings of UFOs

Klass went on to become a leading skeptic of UFO sightings, traveling extensively to conduct investigations first hand. In 1976, he, astronomer Carl Sagan, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov and other notables founded the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Klass also wrote six books debunking reports on UFO incidents and published “The Skeptics of UFO Newsletter” in his spare time.

I had the privilege of knowing Phil early in my career and even co-wrote an article with him – on signals intelligence, not UFOs – in the late 1990s. But when I went looking for his 2005 obituary in our bound volumes of past issues, the page had been mysteriously torn out.