flying saucer

File:Science Wonder Stories Nov 1929 - flying saucer.jpg]]

Reports of fantastical aircraft predate the first flying saucers.{{cite book |last1=Eghigian |first1=Greg |title=After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon |date=2024 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York, NY |isbn=9780190092054 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0VoIEQAAQBAJ&q=After+the+Flying+Saucers+Came.+A+Global+History+of+the+Ufo+Phenomenon}}{{rp|24}} In antiquity, mysterious lights in the sky were interpreted as spiritual phenomena.{{cite book |last1=Bader |first1=Christopher D. |last2=Mencken |first2=F. Carson |last3=Baker |first3=Joseph O. |title=Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture |date=2011 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-8642-0 |pages=46–50 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pSSnLpYK7gQC |language=en}} In the 1800s, many newspapers reported massive airships with glowing lights and humming engines. These are often seen as precursors to flying saucer and UFO sightings.{{cite journal |last1=Welsch |first1=Robert |title='This Mysterious Light Called an Airship': Nebraska 'Saucer' Sightings, 1897 |journal=Nebraska History |date=1979 |volume=60 |pages=92–113 |url=https://history.nebraska.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/doc_publications_NH1979UFOs.pdf}} On January 25, 1878, the Denison Daily News printed an article in which John Martin, a local farmer, reported an object resembling a balloon flying "at wonderful speed". The newspaper said it appeared to be about the size of a saucer from his perspective, one of the first uses of the word "saucer" in association with a UFO.{{Cite web |date=2012-08-19 |work=American Chronicle |title=Before the Wright Brothers...There Were UFOs |url=http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/17732 |access-date=2022-07-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120819213938/http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/17732 |archive-date=19 August 2012}} An outbreak of a number of sightings of mystery airships occurred in America in 1896 and 1897. During World War II, Allied pilots reported balls of light following their planes. They named the lights foo fighters and believed they were advanced Axis aircraft.{{rp|2}}

Many aspects of the typical flying saucer first appeared in science fiction.{{cite web |url=http://ufopop.org/ufopop_mags.php |title=Early 20th Century Magazine Covers with "Flying Saucer"-Like Craft |publisher=Ufopop.org |access-date=23 March 2013}}{{rp|pp=206–8}} French sociologist Bertrand Méheust noted, for example, Jean de La Hire's 1908 novel La Roue fulgurante (The Lightning Wheel).{{cite book |first=Bertrand |last=Meheust |title=Science Fiction et Soucoupes Volantes |publisher=Mercure de France |date=1978}} In the novel, a flying disc-shaped machine abducts the protagonists via a beam of light.{{cite book |first=Jeffrey J. |last=Kripal |title=Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred |publisher=University of Chicago Press |date=2010 |url=https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo8490174.html}}{{rp|pp=206–8}} Science fiction magazine Amazing Stories began publishing "The Shaver Mystery" in 1945. Written by Richard Sharpe Shaver and edited by Raymond A. Palmer, they were science fiction tales about technologically advanced "detrimental robots" that abducted humans, but the stories were presented as a true account of Shaver's life.{{cite journal |last1=Mckee |first1=Gabriel |title="Reality – Is It a Horror?": Richard Shaver's Subterranean World and the Displaced Self |journal=The Journal of Gods and Monsters |date=18 July 2020 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=1–17 |doi=10.58997/jgm.v1i1.1}}{{rp|pp=1–3}} Until the magazine ceased printing The Shaver Mystery, Amazing Stories' letter column was regularly full of readers sharing their own purportedly true sightings of the robots.{{rp|3}}

Before the flying saucer was coined as a term, fantasy artwork in pulp magazines depicted flying discs.{{Cite book |last1=Prothero |first1=Donald R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G5SFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA319 |title=UFOs, Chemtrails, and Aliens: What Science Says |last2=Callahan |first2=Timothy D. |date=2017-08-02 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-03338-3 |pages=319–321 |language=en}} Skeptical physicist Milton Rothman noted the appearance of so-called flying saucers in the fantasy artwork of 1930s pulp science fiction magazines, by artists such as Frank R. Paul.{{cite web |last=Wu |first=Frank |date=1998 |title=Gallery of Frank R. Paul's Science Fiction Artwork |url=http://www.frankwu.com/Paul-8.html |access-date=April 1, 2015 |website=www.frankwu.com |publisher=}}{{cite web |last=Darr |first=Jennifer |title=Coming To A Sky Near You |publisher=Philadelphia Citypaper |date=July 3, 1997 |url=http://citypaper.net/articles/070397/article005.shtml |access-date=April 1, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151001154047/http://citypaper.net/articles/070397/article005.shtml |archive-date=1 October 2015 |df=dmy-all}} One of Paul's earliest depictions of a flying saucer appeared on the cover of the November 1929 issue of Hugo Gernsback's pulp science fiction magazine Science Wonder Stories. Science fiction illustrator Frank Wu wrote:

{{blockquote|The point is that the idea of space vehicles shaped like flying saucers was imprinted in the national psyche for many years prior to 1947, when the Roswell incident took place. It didn't take much stretching for the first observers of UFOs to assume that the unknown objects hovering in the sky had the same disk shape as the science fictional vehicles.}}

{{1947 flying disc craze}}

Image:Arnold AAF drawing.jpg (AAF) intelligence with sketches]]

The modern flying saucer concept, including the association with aliens, can be traced to the 1947 Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting. On June 24, 1947, businessman and amateur pilot Kenneth Arnold landed at the Yakima, Washington airstrip. He told staff and friends that he'd seen nine unusual airborne objects.{{cite news |last1=Wright |first1=Phil |title=The Sighting |url=https://www.eastoregonian.com/news/local/the-sighting/article_1dc33f61-868d-5c36-b159-87c8465fb662.html |access-date=14 July 2024 |work=East Oregonian |date=16 June 2017 |language=en}} Arnold estimated their speed at 1,700 miles per hour, beyond the capabilities of known aircraft.{{cite news |last1=Garber |first1=Megan |title=The Man Who Introduced the World to Flying Saucers |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/the-man-who-introduced-the-world-to-flying-saucers/372732/ |access-date=14 July 2024 |work=The Atlantic |date=15 June 2014 |language=en}} Newspapers soon contacted Arnold for interviews. The East Oregonian reported his supposed aircraft as "saucer-like".{{cite news |last1=Lee |first1=Russell |title=1947: Year of the Flying Saucer |url=https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/1947-year-flying-saucer |access-date=18 July 2024 |work=airandspace.si.edu |date=24 June 2022 |language=en |quote=He told his story to reporters Bill Bequette and Nolan Skiff of the East Oregonian newspaper the day after his sighting. Skiff used the words 'saucer-like aircraft' when he published a short print article that same day. After suggesting to Arnold that a wire story might generate comments from the military on flights of experimental aircraft that could explain Arnold’s sighting, Bequette published a brief story picked up by the Associated Press wire service, using the words 'nine bright saucer-like objects' to describe what Arnold said he saw.}} In a June 26 radio interview, Arnold described them as "something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear".{{cite interview |title=12:15 News |last=Arnold |first=Kenneth |date=June 26, 1947 |interviewer-last=Smith |interviewer-first=Ted |publisher=KWRC |location=Pendleton, Oregon |type=Radio}}{{cite news |last1=Meyer |first1=Dave |title=64th Anniversary of Flying Saucers at Mt. Rainier |url=https://www.knkx.org/other-news/2011-06-24/64th-anniversary-of-flying-saucers-at-mt-rainier |access-date=18 July 2024 |work=KNKX Public Radio |date=24 June 2011 |language=en |quote=Arnold described the shiny objects as 'something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear' and that they flew 'like a saucer if you skipped it across the water.' The term 'flying saucer' made it into a newspaper headline and the rest, as they say, is history.}} Headline writers coined the terms "flying saucer" and "flying disk" (or "disc") for the story.{{cite news |location=Chicago |newspaper=Chicago Sun |date=June 26, 1947 |title=Supersonic Flying Saucers Sighted by Idaho Pilot |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chicago_Sun_1947-06-26-2_Flying_Saucer_headline-th.jpg}} Arnold later told CBS News that the early coverage "did not quote me properly [...] when I described how they flew, I said that they flew like they take a saucer and throw it across the water. Most of the newspapers misunderstood and misquoted that, too. They said that I said that they were saucer-like; I said that they flew in a saucer-like fashion." The circular shape of typical flying saucers may be due to reporters mistaking Arnold's "saucer-like" description of motion.

Arnold's story preceded a wave of hundreds of flying saucer reports. Lieutenant Governor of Idaho Donald S. Whitehead claimed he saw a fast-moving object resembling a meteor around the time of Arnold's sighting.{{Cite book|last=Bartholomew|first=Robert E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8XR55jphsw4C&q=Whitehead&pg=PA172 |page=172 |title=Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking|date=2010-11-02|publisher=Prometheus Books|isbn=978-1-61592-338-0|language=en}} In early July, head of Air Materiel Command Nathan F. Twining told reporters that "anyone seeing the objects" should contact Wright Field.{{cite book |last1=Arnold |first1=Gordon |title=Flying Saucers Over America: The UFO Craze of 1947 |date=17 December 2021 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-4652-7 |page=55 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8GBVEAAAQBAJ |language=en}} The next widely publicized report was the sighting by a United Airlines crew on July 4 of nine more disc-like objects pacing their plane over Idaho.{{cite news |last1=Renshaw |first1=Eric |title=Argus Leader Subscription Offers, Specials, and Discounts |url=https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2021/03/19/looking-back-flying-saucer-hype-reached-sioux-falls-late-1940-s/4754123001/ |website=Argus Leader |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230517115137/https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2021/03/19/looking-back-flying-saucer-hype-reached-sioux-falls-late-1940-s/4754123001/ |archive-date=2023-05-17}}{{cite book |last=Peebles |first=Curtis |author-link=Curtis Peebles |url=https://archive.org/details/watchskieschroni0000peeb_k3q2 |title=Watch the Skies!: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth |date=1994 |publisher=The Smithsonian Institution |isbn=978-1-56098-343-9 |location=Washington, DC}}{{rp|10}}

The public was divided on the potential origin of the saucers.{{cite journal |last1=Bartholomew |first1=Robert E. |title=From Airships to Flying Saucers: Oregon's Place in the Evolution of UFO Lore |journal=Oregon Historical Quarterly |date=2000 |volume=101 |issue=2 |pages=192–213 |jstor=20615052 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20615052 |issn=0030-4727}}{{rp|206}} Arnold told military intelligence officers he suspected the discs were experimental aircraft, and early newspapers reported Arnold saying, "I don't know what they were—unless they were guided missiles."{{cite news |title=Whizzing 'Pie-Pan' Plane Report Gets Army Skepticism |date=26 June 1947 |newspaper=The Oregon Daily Journal |location=Pendleton, Oregon |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregon-daily-journal/159608237/}} News media speculated on a Soviet origin, and many war veterans connected them to the foo fighters seen during World War II.{{cite book |last1=Geppert |first1=Alexander C. T. |title=Imagining Outer Space: European Astroculture in the Twentieth Century |date=2012 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |url=https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/25970/Geppert%202012%20-%20Imagining%20Outer%20Space.pdf |location=New York |isbn=978-0-230-23172-6 |pages=227}}{{rp|21}} A Gallup Poll found that 90% of Americans were aware of the saucer stories, and 16 percent believed they were secret military weapons, most likely American. The most common explanation given was some type of illusion or mirage.{{cite journal |last1=Gabilliet |first1=Jean-Paul |title=Making a Homefront Without a Battlefront: The Manufacturing of Domestic Enemies in the Early Cold War Culture |journal=European Journal of American Studies |date=29 March 2012 |volume=7 |issue=2 |doi=10.4000/ejas.9549}} Less than one percent believed they were alien craft.{{cite news |title=9 out of 10 Heard of Flying Saucers |date=15 August 1947 |last=Gallup |first=George |work=Tampa Bay Times |location=St. Petersburg, Florida |quote='What do you think these saucers are?' No answer, don't know: 33%. Imagination, optical illusion, mirage, etc.: 29%. Hoax: 10%. U.S. secret weapon, part of atomic bomb, etc.: 15%. Weather forecasting devices: 3%. Russian secret weapon: 1%. Searchlights on airplanes: 2%. Other explanations: 9%.}}{{rp|206}} One report from Seattle, Washington, described a hammer and sickle painted onto a flying disc.{{rp|207}} The stories spread to other countries, where they were influenced by local political and social concerns. In Europe, which was still recovering from the Second World War, saucers were often reported with rocket-like features. German newspapers reported flying saucers that exploded or had tails of fire.{{cite journal |last1=Eghigian |first1=Greg |title='A Transatlantic Buzz': Flying Saucers, Extraterrestrials and America in Postwar Germany |journal=Journal of Transatlantic Studies |date=3 July 2014 |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=282–303 |doi=10.1080/14794012.2014.928032}} The names for the discs were largely derived from the English "flying saucer" including the French soucoupe volante, Spanish platillo volante, Portuguese disco voador, Swedish flygande tefat, German fliegende Untertasse, and Italian disco volante.{{multiref2

|{{cite dictionary |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/french-english/soucoupe-volante |title=Soucoupe Volante |dictionary=Cambridge Dictionary}}

|{{cite dictionary |url=https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/platillo%20volante |title=Platillo Volante |dictionary=SpanishDictionary.com}}

|{{cite dictionary |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/portuguese-english/disco-voador |title=Disco Voador |dictionary=Cambridge Dictionary}}

|{{cite dictionary |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/swedish-english/flygande-tefat |title=Flygande Tefat |dictionary=Cambridge Dictionary}}

|{{cite dictionary |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/german-english/fliegende-untertasse |title=Fliegende Untertasse |dictionary=Cambridge Dictionary}}

|{{cite dictionary |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/italian-english/disco-volante |title=Disco Volante |dictionary=Cambridge Dictionary}} }}{{rp|pp=83–6}}

The 1947 sightings peaked in the days after the Fourth of July and declined rapidly through mid-July.{{cite book |last1=Bloecher |first1=Ted |title=Report on the UFO Wave of 1947 |date=1967 |url=http://kirkmcd.princeton.edu/JEMcDonald/bloecher_67.pdf |oclc=429980 |quote=which reached its peak on July 6–7, 1947}} Multiple organizations offered $1,000 rewards for hard proof.{{cite news |title=Thinking Flashes in the Sky (Part 3) |work=San Diego Reader |url=https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2013/oct/09/second-thinking-flashes-sky-part-3/ |language=en}}{{cite magazine |last1=Watson |first1=Nigel |title=75 Years On, the Roswell Mythology Continues to Captivate Ufologists and the Public Alike |magazine=The Skeptic |date=22 August 2022 |url=https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2022/08/75-years-on-the-roswell-mythology-continues-to-captivate-ufologists-and-the-public-alike/}} In the widely reported July 7, 1947, Twin Falls saucer hoax, four teenagers in Idaho fabricated a crashed disc from jukebox parts.{{cite news |date=July 12, 1947 |title=Twin Falls Falling Disc Proves Ingenious Hoax of 4 Teen-Age Boys |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94298643/twin-falls-falling-disc-proves/ |work=Deseret News |via=Newspapers.com |page=9}}{{cite book |last=Weeks |first=Andy |date=2015 |title=Forgotten Tales of Idaho |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3efuBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT67 |chapter=Fooled by a, Um... UFO |publisher=The History Press |location=Charleston, South Carolina |isbn=9781625852465}} On July 8, the Army Air Force base at Roswell, New Mexico, issued a press release saying that they had recovered a "flying disc" from a nearby ranch; the so-called Roswell UFO incident made front-page news.{{cite news |last1=Becket |first1=Stefan |title=Recently Uncovered 1947 Headline From Long-Defunct Newspaper Offers "Amazing Glimpse" at UFO Incident in Roswell |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/roswell-ufo-incident-1947-headline-dispatch/ |work=CBS News |date=1 July 2022}}{{cite book |last=Goldberg |first=Robert Alan |author-link=Robert Alan Goldberg |date=2001 |title=Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z8e5YELGGFAC |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, Connecticut |isbn=978-0300132946 |page=192}} International media covered the military's announcement of a crashed disc, but within 24 hours were reporting the military's retraction and explanation that the material was balloon debris.{{cite book |last=Pflock |first=Karl |author-link=Karl T. Pflock |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781573928946 |title=Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe |date=2001 |publisher=Prometheus Books |isbn=978-1-57392-894-6 |location=Amherst, New York |pages=27, 171}}{{cite book |last=Wright |first=Susan |date=1998 |title=UFO Headquarters: Investigations on Current Extraterrestrial Activity in Area 51 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=81xoS94LSncC&pg=PA39 |location=New York |publisher=St. Martin's Press |page=39 |isbn=9780312207816}} By July 11, the most widely reported story was a North Hollywood resident's claim that a 30-inch galvanized iron disc containing glass radio tubes had crashed in his garden. Newspapers quoted Fire Battalion Chief Wallace Newcombe's assessment, "It doesn't look to me like it could fly."{{multiref2

|{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-press-democrat-another-one-found/163392483/ |title=Another One 'Found' |date=10 July 1947 |page=3 |work=The Press Democrat}}

|{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-chronicle-telegram-flying-saucers-gi/163392579/ |title=Flying Saucers Give Jokesters a Field Day |date=10 July 1947 |page=10 |work=The Chronicle-Telegram}}

|{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-lexington-herald-flying-disc-with-ra/163392625/ |title=Flying Disc With Radio Tube Found |date=10 July 1947 |page=2 |work=The Lexington Herald}}

|{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/bartlesville-examiner-enterprise-flying/163392701/ |title=Flying? Disc Found |date=10 July 1947 |page=1 |work=Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise}}

}}

The Air Force collected over a hundred reports at Wright Field, now Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.{{cite book |last=Dick |first=Steven J. |year=1998 |title=Life on Other Worlds: The 20th-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, UK |isbn=0521620120 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sk51eo3fKEgC&pg=PA141 |page=141}} Air Force General Nathan Twining established Project SAUCER, later renamed Project Sign,{{Cite web |title=CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 — Central Intelligence Agency |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/ufo.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613113822/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/ufo.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 13, 2007 |website=www.cia.gov |access-date=2020-04-30}} the first in a series of UFO investigations by the US Government.{{cite web |last=Eghigian |first=Greg |date=19 December 2017 |title=That Secret Government Program to Track UFOs? It's Not the First |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/secret-government-program-track-ufos-its-not-first-180967597/ |website=Smithsonian Magazine |access-date=29 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230709040210/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/secret-government-program-track-ufos-its-not-first-180967597/ |archive-date=9 July 2023 |url-status=live}} Other national governments followed suit. Canada began Project Magnet and the United Kingdom launched the Flying Saucer Working Party in 1950, which attributed saucer reports to meteorological phenomena, astronomical phenomena, misidentification, optical illusions, misconceptions, or hoaxes.{{cite news |last1=Posted |first1=Chris Rutkowski |title=May 2022: Disdain, Confusion Around Officials' Handling of UFO Reports |url=https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/books/2022/05/21/disdain-confusion-around-officials-handling-of-ufo-reports |access-date=22 August 2024 |work=Winnipeg Free Press |date=21 May 2022}}{{cite news |last1=Blackshaw |first1=Ethan |last2=O'sullivan |first2=John |title=UK's Hidden UFO Probes by MoD and Their Strong Verdicts Unveiled |url=https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/uk-ufo-investigation-results-mod-33104213 |work=Irish Star |date=25 June 2024 |language=en}}

File:Trent2 UFOA 600dpi.jpg from 1950]]

By the 1950s, the term "flying saucer" was widely associated with extraterrestrial life.{{rp|50}} After commercial pilots Clarence Chiles and John Whitted reported a glowing cylindrical object flying past their plane in 1948, the US Air Force began to seriously investigate the possibility of an alien origin, but also concluded that reported discs "seem inconsistent with the requirements for space travel."{{rp|58–59}}{{rp|22–23}} In a 1950 interview on flying saucers, Kenneth Arnold said, "if it's not made by our science or our Army Air Forces, I am inclined to believe it's of an extra-terrestrial origin". This extraterrestrial hypothesis was accompanied by other unusual theories. Meade Layne speculated that they came from an alternate dimension.{{Cite book |last=Reece |first=Gregory L. |title=UFO Religion: Inside Flying Saucer Cults and Culture |publisher=I. B. Tauris |year=2007 |isbn=978-1845114510}}{{rp|16}} Many people claimed to be the inventors of the discs but could offer no evidence.{{rp|87–90}} From 1947 to 1970, there was a broad range of overlapping and contradictory explanations for the saucers' origin and purpose, even among proponents.{{rp|32}}

Beliefs about flying saucers were influenced by pulp science fiction. Amazing Stories editor Ray Palmer transitioned from publishing the purportedly true Shaver Mystery, to publishing and organizing UFO investigations.{{rp|pp=52–56}} In 1946, Palmer published Fred Crisman's letters about his encounters with underground beings.{{cite book |last1=Kinsella |first1=Michael |title=Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong's Hat |date=2011 |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |location=Jackson |isbn=9781604739848 |url=https://academic.oup.com/mississippi-scholarship-online/book/18426 |edition=1. pr}} The following year, Crisman sent Palmer pale metallic fragments along with a report from his employee, Harold Dahl, about a malfunctioning flying saucer. Palmer recruited Kenneth Arnold to investigate Crisman and Dahl's Maury Island incident. The fragments turned out to be slag from a local smelter, but the men in black that Crisman and Dahl claimed were following them would become a common element in later UFO literature.{{Cite book |last=Harrison |first=Albert A. |author-link=Albert Harrison (psychologist) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ORNcQUBAEjUC&pg=PA123 |title=Starstruck: Cosmic Visions in Science, Religion, and Folklore |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-84545-286-5 |page=123 |access-date=October 2, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012231551/http://books.google.com/books?id=ORNcQUBAEjUC&pg=PA123 |archive-date=October 12, 2013 |url-status=live}}{{Cite book |last=Gulyas |first=Aaron John |url=https://archive.org/details/paranormalparano0000guly |title=The Paranormal and the Paranoid: Conspiratorial Science Fiction Television |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2015 |isbn=9781442251144 |location=Lanham, Maryland |pages=30–31 }} Gray Barker popularized the idea of "men in black" who intimidate or silence UFO witnesses in his book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.{{cite news |title=The Legacy of Men in Black |url=https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/24/living/the-legacy-of-men-in-black/index.html |access-date=4 September 2024 |work=CNN |date=24 May 2012 |language=en}} Palmer launched the magazine Fate in 1948, claiming to offer "the truth about flying saucers".{{rp|54}} It was the first of many non-fiction paranormal magazines, a genre that flourished in the 1950s.{{rp|3}}

File:Integratron-3.jpg|thumb|left]]

A flying saucer movement developed during the 1950s.{{rp|83}} It was influenced by scientific research, occult practices, pop culture, existing religions, and earlier myths. In reports and in popular media such as the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still, saucers and their pilots were characterized as messengers.{{cite book |last1=Partridge |first1=Christopher |title=UFO Religions |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=0-415-26323-9}}{{rp|275}} The first wave of so-called contactees, George Van Tassel, George Adamski, Truman Bethurum, Orfeo Angelucci, and George Hunt Williamson, all claimed to have ridden aboard the saucers and brought back messages for humanity.{{rp|pp=103–119}} New religions and institutions arose around the contactees.{{rp|4}} Van Tassel built the Integratron, a domed structure near Landers, California, intended to facilitate further contact with aliens, physical rejuvenation, and a kind of spiritual time travel.{{rp|132}} According to George King, he founded the Aetherius Society—a new religious movement influenced by theosophy—at the direct instruction of an extraterrestrial.{{rp|140}} Some existing religions began to incorporate flying saucers. The Nation of Islam taught that the end of the world would be brought about by the "Mother Wheel" or "Mother Plane", a flying saucer half a mile wide.{{rp|pp=280–281}} During the same time that Margaret Murray's "Old Religion" or witch-cult hypothesis was being discredited in academic circles, its core idea—a lost civilization remembered in myth—was being embraced in pulp fiction, occult groups, and the growing UFO movement.{{cite journal |last1=Card |first1=Jeb J. |title=Witches and Aliens: How an Archaeologist Inspired Two New Religious Movements |journal=Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions |date=2019 |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=44–59 |doi=10.1525/nr.2019.22.4.44 |jstor=26770451 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26770451 |issn=1092-6690|url-access=subscription }} Several authors speculated that ancient astronauts piloting UFOs were the cause of myths and religions. Schoolteacher Robert Dione wrote God Drives a Flying Saucer to reframe biblical miracles and the Miracle of the Sun as the work of humanoid aliens piloting flying saucers. Later, Erich von Däniken released Chariots of the Gods?, a work of pseudoscience that attributed ancient artifacts and monuments to its purported ancient astronauts.{{Cite web |last=Peters |first=Ted |date=1993 |title=Chariots, UFOs, and the Mystery of God |url=https://www.religion-online.org/article/chariots-ufos-and-the-mystery-of-god/ |website=Religion Online}}

File:1952 UFO Flap - Air Force frequency graph of UFO reports.png

Ufology developed as a parallel social movement.{{cite journal |last1=Zeller |first1=Benjamin E. |title=(Dis)Enchanted Ufology |journal=Nova Religio |date=1 November 2021 |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=61–86 |doi=10.1525/nr.2021.25.2.61}}{{rp|63}} Well-known Variety columnist Frank Scully published Behind the Flying Saucers in 1950. The book presents the Aztec, New Mexico, crashed saucer hoax as the true account of an alien craft that "gently pancaked to earth like Sonja Henie imitating a dying swan" and was recovered by the United States government. The hoaxers were convicted of fraud for selling useless dowsing equipment to the oil industry based on a claimed alien origin, but the book described one of the men as a doctor with "more degrees than a thermometer".{{cite book |last=McAndrew |first=James |url=https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/UFOsandUAPs/RoswellReportCaseClosed.pdf?ver=2017-05-22-113519-430 |title=The Roswell Report: Case Closed |date=1997 |publisher=US Government Printing Office |isbn=9780160490187 |location=Washington, DC |pages=84–85}}{{rp|34}} Donald Keyhoe took a "nuts and bolts" approach to the idea of the government covering up alien life in his 1950 book The Flying Saucers Are Real.{{rp|18, 109}} When the popular and respected Life magazine ran "Have We Visitors From Space?" in 1952, taking seriously ideas of alien visitors, a wave of sightings followed.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rjwrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA123 |title=Implausible Beliefs: In the Bible, Astrology, and UFOs |first=Allan |last=Mazur |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-51322-7 |via=Google Books}}{{rp|123}} The 1952 sightings spurred Leonard H. Stringfield to form an early UFO investigation group called the Civilian Investigating Group for Aerial Phenomena and to publish research on UFOs.{{rp|96}} Albert K. Bender started his own International Flying Saucer Bureau in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1952.{{rp|97}} Influenced by these works, James W. Moseley began to tour the country interviewing witnesses and distributing a newsletter for the growing saucer subculture.{{rp|98}}

Within a decade of the first saucer sightings, reports spread to other countries, leading to the emergence of local groups and ufologists.{{rp|103}} Antonio Ribera started Centro de Estudios Interplanetarios in Spain, and Edgar Jarrold founded the Australia Flying Saucer Bureau.{{rp|104}} In France, UFO groups overlapped with occult groups and the anti-nuclear movement.{{rp|108}} Reports have been more often made in the countries where UFO groups are in operation, such as the United States, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina.{{cite web |last1=Todd |first1=Iain |title=Historian Greg Eghigian Looked at the History of Reported UFO Sightings. This Is What He Found. |url=https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/flying-saucers-ufo-history |website=www.skyatnightmagazine.com |date=7 August 2024 |access-date=7 September 2024 |language=en}} By the end of the decade, The Case for the UFO author Morris K. Jessup reflected on his field: "This embryonic science is as full of cults, feuds, and dogmas as a dog is of fleas. There are probably more opinions about the nature and purpose of UFO's as there are Ufologers."{{cite news |last1=Dirda |first1=Michael |title='Flying Saucers Are Real!': Womack's New Book Looks at the Heyday of UFO Lore |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/flying-saucers-are-real-womacks-new-book-looks-at-the-heyday-of-ufo-lore/2016/10/12/d15d6134-8b27-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html |access-date=24 August 2024 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=12 April 2023 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20221014164916/https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/flying-saucers-are-real-womacks-new-book-looks-at-the-heyday-of-ufo-lore/2016/10/12/d15d6134-8b27-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html |archive-date=2022-10-14}}{{rp|115}}

{{multiple image

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| footer = Scientist Walther Riedel said Adamski faked this 1952 UFO photo (top) using GE light bulbs for landing struts. Adamski is believed to have also used a 1930s gas lantern (bottom).

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UFO photography emerged as a subgenre of documentary photography, showing often blurry or abstract discs framed by otherwise everyday settings. Notable examples include the 1950 McMinnville photographs,{{Cite web |last=Sheaffer |first=Robert |date=10 September 2010 |title=The Trent UFO Photos McMinnville, Oregon - May 11, 1950 |url=http://www.debunker.com/trent.html |website=The Debunker's Domain}}{{Cite web |last=Sheaffer |first=Robert |date=September 10, 2014 |title=The Trent UFO Photos - |url=http://www.debunker.com/trent.html |access-date=12 April 2018 |website=www.debunker.com}}{{rp|pp=207–208}} the Passaic UFO photographs,{{cite web |title=Ronald Reagan Sees a UFO |url=https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/ronald-reagan-ufo.htm |website=HowStuffWorks |access-date=4 September 2024 |language=en-us |date=1 January 1970}} and the photographs of contactee George Adamski.{{Citation |last=Joseph |first=Branden W. |title=Nose-To-Nose With a Mutant: UFO Photography |date=2015 |work=Imponderable: The Archives of Tony Oursler |url=https://comparativemedia.columbia.edu/nose-nose-mutant-ufo-photography |place=Zurich |publisher=LUMA Foundation}} Some of the alleged flying saucer photographs of the era were hoaxes, created using everyday objects such as hubcaps. German rocket scientist Walther Johannes Riedel analyzed George Adamski's UFO photos and found them to be faked. The UFO's "landing struts" were General Electric light bulbs with GE logos visible on them.{{cite news |last1=Nóng |first1=Xã Luận Tin |title=Do You Remember Dolores Barrios, the Woman from the Planet Venus?? |url=https://www.xaluannews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3226334 |access-date=21 August 2024 |work=www.xaluannews.com |date=4 August 2021}}{{cite book |last1=Moseley |first1=James W. |last2=Pflock |first2=Karl T. |title=Shockingly Close to the Truth! Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist |date=2002 |publisher=Prometheus Bks |location=Amherst, NY |isbn=1-57392-991-3 |page=69}} UFO researcher Joel Carpenter identified the body of Adamski's "flying saucer" as the lampshade from a 1930s pressure lantern.{{cite web |url=http://www.beamsinvestigations.org/Adamski%20Scout%20Ship%20Hoax.pdf |title=Preliminary Notes on the Adamski Scout Ship Photos |access-date=8 June 2017 |last=Carpenter |first=Joel}}{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/ACriticalAppraisalOfGeorgeAdamskiTheManWhoSpokeToTheSpaceBrothers |title=A Critical Appraisal of George Adamski The Man Who Spoke to the Space Brothers |last=Hallet |first=Marc |publisher=Self-published |date=2015 |page=70}}

Flying saucers are now considered retro and emblematic of the 1950s and of science fiction B movies.{{cite news |last1=Kelly |first1=Jon |title=The Lasting Allure of the Flying Saucer |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27796697 |work=BBC News |date=12 June 2014}}{{cite web |last1=Barber |first1=Nicholas |date=14 July 2022 |title=The UFO Sightings That Swept the US |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220714-the-ufo-sightings-that-swept-the-us |website=BBC |access-date=7 September 2024}} The term "flying saucer" was gradually supplanted by "UFO" and later "UAP".{{Cite magazine |last=Eghigian |first=Greg |title=UFOs, UAPs—Whatever We Call Them, Why Do We Assume Mysterious Flying Objects Are Extraterrestrial? |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/ufos-uapswhatever-we-call-them-why-do-we-assume-mysterious-flying-objects-are-extraterrestrial-180978374/ |access-date=18 July 2024 |magazine=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}} Discs ceased to be the standard shape in UFO reports,{{cite news |last1=Rao |first1=Smriti |title=UFO Sightings: The Shapes They Are A-Changing |url=https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/ufo-sightings-the-shapes-they-are-a-changing |access-date=22 August 2024 |work=Discover Magazine |date=Jun 28, 2023 |language=en}}{{Cite magazine |last=Wiley |first=Chris |date=2023-08-04 |title=The Enticing Mysteries of U.F.O. Photography |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-enticing-mysteries-of-ufo-photography |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230804165219/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-enticing-mysteries-of-ufo-photography |archive-date=2023-08-04 |magazine=The New Yorker}} and a broader variety of objects were reported. Recent reports more often describe spherical and triangular UFOs.{{cite web |last1=Gottschalk |first1=Molly |title=These Drawings Show How Pop Culture Has Changed the Way We See UFOs |url=https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-drawings-pop-culture-changed-way-ufos |website=Artsy |language=en |date=20 March 2018}}{{cite web |title=Flying Saucers Are So 1947. This Is the New Shape of the Modern UFO |url=https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a43918091/new-shape-of-modern-ufos/ |website=Popular Mechanics |access-date=12 October 2024 |date=17 May 2023}}

File:Sun dog with reflection over Brofjorden.jpg caused by ice crystals, visible to the left of the sun]]

Experts have identified the majority of flying saucer and broader UFO reports with known phenomena.{{cite news |last1=Huang |first1=Nancy |title=UFO Sightings Are Real, but Aliens Are Not Responsible |url=https://now.northropgrumman.com/ufo-sightings-are-real-but-aliens-are-not-responsible |work=Northrop Grumman |date=21 March 2022 |language=en}} British government investigations in the 1950s found that the vast majority of reports were misidentifications or hoaxes.{{rp|111}} Common explanations for saucer sightings include the planet Venus, weather phenomena such as ice crystals, balloons, and airborne trash.{{cite news |last1=Achenbach |first1=Joel |title=Dear Earthlings: Please Stop Obsessing About UFOs |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/08/11/stop-ufo-mania-no-evidence-of-aliens/ |newspaper=Washington Post |date=11 August 2021 |language=en}} The US Navy and General Mills launched thousands of top-secret Skyhook spy balloons by the mid-1950s. Because they floated at high altitude, it was difficult to judge the speed of the massive balloons, and they were widely reported as flying saucers.{{cite news |last1=Baker |first1=Nicholson |title=No Aliens Haven't Visited the Eart |url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/leslie-kean-ufo-sightings-aliens.html |access-date=9 October 2024 |work=Intelligencer |date=31 January 2024 |language=en}} Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell died while pursuing an unknown round object "of tremendous size",{{rp|pp=18-22}} later identified as a Skyhook balloon.{{cite news |last1=Graff |first1=Garrett M. |title=A History of Confusing Stuff in the Sky |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/-chinese-spy-balloon-shot-down-ufo-history/672982/ |access-date=16 November 2023 |work=The Atlantic |date=8 February 2023 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230209131504/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/-chinese-spy-balloon-shot-down-ufo-history/672982/ |archive-date=9 February 2023 |language=en}} News media reported Mantell as having crashed "chasing [a] flying saucer", and some lost Skyhook balloons were tracked down using news reports of UFO sightings.{{cite magazine |last1=Hambling |first1=David |title=The Secrets of Area 51: classified balloons and flying saucers |url=https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2002/07/the-secrets-of-area-51-classified-balloons-and-flying-saucers/ |website=The Skeptic |date=1 July 2002}}

In the mid-1950s, psychologists began to study why people believed in flying saucers despite the lack of evidence. French psychiatrist Georges Heuyer viewed the phenomenon as a kind of global folie à deux, or shared delusion, triggered by fear of a possible nuclear holocaust.{{rp|182}} In the 1970s, French UFO researcher Michel Monnerie compared reports that were later identified with those that remained unexplained. Monnerie found no difference in the frequency of paranormal phenomena reported alongside the sightings identified later as mundane known objects. These findings led him to develop the thesis that the saucer-specific experiences were a "psychosocial" process of myth-making triggered by but not caused by aerial phenomena. This psychosocial UFO hypothesis became a popular explanation in France.{{cite book |last=Monnerie |first=Michel |date=1977 |title=Et Si Les OVNIs N'existaient Pas? |location=Paris |publisher=Les Humanoïdes Associés |language=fr |trans-title=What If UFOs Do Not Exist?}}{{rp|pp=249–250}}

File:UFO Sightings Chart.jpg

Eyewitness descriptions differ in reported appearance, movement, and purpose. In a 1963 overview of flying saucers, astronomer Donald Howard Menzel found some broad traits across sightings but noted that "no two reports describe exactly the same kind of UFO."{{rp|7}} Menzel found saucers were usually reported as round but included objects shaped like dining saucers, teardrops, cigars, kidney beans, the planet Saturn, and yarn spindles. Saucers often were reported with a dome or knob-shaped protrusion on the top side. Size estimates ranged from 20 feet to over {{convert|2000|ft|m}} in diameter. Menzel found saucers reported in nearly every color, often glowing or flashing. The sightings had little consistency in reported movement. Witnesses described hearing sounds ranging from a thunderclap to total silence. Sightings typically took place at night, around sunset or sunrise. Almost all witnesses described distant saucers in flight.{{Cite book |last1=Menzel |first1=Donald Howard |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66639 |title=The World of Flying Saucers: A Scientific Examination of a Major Myth of the Space Age |last2=Boyd |first2=Lyle Gifford |language=en |date=1963 |via=Project Gutenburg |chapter=The Saucer Worlds |pages=[https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66639/pg66639-images.html#Page_7 7], [https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66639/pg66639-images.html#Page_9 9], [https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66639/pg66639-images.html#Page_10 10]}} [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001115219 Scan] – via HathiTrust. Menzel concluded, "No single phenomenon could possibly display such infinite variety."{{rp|9}}

If a witness describes a saucer's crew, they usually regard them as extraterrestrial. Grey aliens gradually became the most reported type of pilot, but a vast range of beings have been reported.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/closeencounterso00brya_0|title=Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien Abduction, UFOs, and the Conference at M.I.T.|last=Bryan|first=C. D. B.|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf, Inc|year=1995|isbn=978-0-679-42975-3|edition=First|location=NY, US|oclc=32390030|author-link=C. D. B. Bryan|url-access=registration|page=68}} The diversity was greater in the 1950s and early 1960s, when witnesses reported the aliens variously as hairy, hairless, monstrous, gorgeous, gigantic, dwarfish, robotic, insectoid, avian, Nordic, or grey-skinned.{{cite book |last=Sagan |first=Carl |author-link=Carl Sagan |url=https://archive.org/details/B-001-001-709 |title=The Demon-Haunted World |date=1997 |publisher=Headline |isbn=978-0-7472-5156-9 |edition=Paperback |location=London |pages=69, 123–127}} Historian Greg Eghigian argues that this gradual standardization indicates a cultural process to create a broadly recognizable design.

Witnesses consistently describe and depict flying saucers as ahead of contemporary technology. When comparing the 1947 saucer reports to the mystery airships of the 1800s, sociologist Robert Bartholomew found that the claimed observations "reflected popular social and cultural expectations of each period".{{rp|209}} The mystery airship sightings of the 1800s included details such as metal hulls, propellers, searchlights, and large wings.{{rp|195}} The 1947 sightings—occurring months before Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier—emphasized the "incredible speed" of flying saucers.{{cite book |last=Kottmeyer |first=Martin S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eHo2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT238 |title=Why Statues Weep: The Best of the "Skeptic" |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1134962525 |editor-last=Grossman |editor-first=Wendy M. |location=Oxfordshire, England |chapter=Why Have UFOs Changed Speed Over the Years? |editor-last2=French |editor-first2=Christopher C. |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/whystatuesweepbe0000gros/page/170/}}{{rp|171}} While most 1947 reports focused on speed, this fell to 41 percent in 1971 and 22 percent in 1986.{{rp|pp=173–174}} In the 1950s, hovering flying saucers were associated with contactees and hoaxes. By 1986, almost half of reported UFOs were said to hover slowly or remain motionless.{{rp|174}}

In popular media, flying saucers underwent a change in motion similar to the shift in eyewitness reports. Early portrayals emphasized high speed maneuvers, but later media gradually shifted to slowly hovering discs.{{rp|pp=173–175}} Early films such as The Flying Saucer (1950) and film serials such as Bruce Gentry – Daredevil of the Skies (1949), show saucers streaking past at high speeds. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) mentions high speeds tracked by radar but also includes a slow landing scene. The 1960s television series The Invaders prominently features a slow landing scene in every episode. Many later iconic flying saucer films, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Fire in the Sky (1993), depict hovering and slow movements.{{rp|175}}

{{see also|UFOs in fiction}}

File:Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) by Fred F. Sears, trailer.webm

Since the late 1940s, flying discs have increasingly become associated with a cultural conception of aliens that reflects the social and political anxieties of the 20th century. Fictional flying saucers represent concerns about atomic warfare, the Cold War, loss of bodily integrity, xenophobia, government secrecy, and the question of whether humanity is alone in the universe.{{Cite web |last=Horton |first=Adrian |date=25 June 2021 |title=How Pop Culture Has Shaped Our Understanding of Aliens |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jun/25/how-pop-culture-has-shaped-our-understanding-of-aliens |access-date=12 September 2024 |website=The Guardian}} Reports from witnesses influenced popular media, which led to greater interest in flying saucers. For the film Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, producer Charles H. Schneer adapted Donald Keyhoe's UFO books for the screenplay, while special effects artist Ray Harryhausen consulted with contactee George Adamski about the saucer design.{{cite book |last1=Hankin |first1=Mike |title=Ray Harryhausen - Master of the Majicks Vol. 2: The American Films |date=14 September 2008 |publisher=Ray Harryhausen - Majicks |isbn=978-0-9817829-0-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1voGbBwpB9sC |pages=146–147}} No correlation has been found between the release of major UFO films and spikes in sightings.{{rp|p=222}} A disc, often domed or emitting a beam of light, has become visual shorthand for aliens. In 2017, the flying saucer emoji was added to Unicode.{{multiref2

|{{Cite web |date=26 May 2021 |title=Ready To Make Contact With The 🛸 UFO Emoji? |url=https://www.dictionary.com/e/emoji/ufo-emoji/ |access-date=4 September 2024 |website=Dictionary.com}}

|{{cite dictionary |title=🛸 UFO emoji |date=26 May 2021 |url=https://www.dictionary.com/e/emoji/ufo-emoji/ |dictionary=Dictionary.com}}

|{{cite news |title=Face palm: When the emoji you want doesn't exist |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57848226 |access-date=4 September 2024 |date=23 July 2021 |first1=Sarah |last1=Treanor |first2=Vivienne |last2=Nunis}}

}}

Although the symbol now signifies alien life, similar motifs had unrelated religious and astronomical meanings in the past. Some ufologists have attempted to re-interpret premodern art to support pseudohistorical claims of ancient alien interactions with humanity. Ufologists claim that early portrayals of flying discs can establish a historical basis for their existence as physical craft or some other type of external phenomena. However, experts have consistently explained purported portrayals of ancient UFOs as artifacts of the cultures producing them. For example, Italian Renaissance painter Carlo Crivelli put a disc-shaped element in his 1486 altarpiece The Annunciation, with Saint Emidius that art historian Massimo Polidoro described as "a vortex of angels in the clouds". The artists and audiences of the time understood it as an artistic device representing the influence of the Christian God, not extraterrestrials. The device is seen more clearly in many contemporary works, notably Luca Signorelli's 1491 Annunciation.{{multiref2

|{{cite magazine |last1=Kreidler |first1=Marc |title=There's a UFO in My Painting! |date=1 May 2005 |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=22–23 |magazine=Skeptical Inquirer |url=https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2005/05/22164635/p22.pdf}}

|{{cite magazine |last1=Polidoro |first1=Massimo |date=2018 |title=Does the Vatican Hold a Painting of a UFO? |journal=Skeptical Inquirer |publisher=Committee for Skeptical Inquiry |volume=42 |issue=3 |page=19 |authorlink=Massimo Polidoro}}

|{{Cite web |last=Cuoghi |first=Diego |date=2002 |title=Part 1 |url=http://sprezzatura.it/Arte/Arte_UFO_1_eng.htm |website=Art and UFO |translator-first=Daniela |translator-last=Cisi}}

|{{cite web |last1=Cuoghi |first1=Diego |title=Part 2 |url=http://sprezzatura.it/Arte/Arte_UFO_2_eng.htm |work=Art and UFO |translator-first=Daniela |translator-last=Cisi |date=2002}}

|{{cite web |last1=Cuoghi |first1=Diego |title=Part 5 |url=http://sprezzatura.it/Arte/Arte_UFO_5_eng.htm |work=Art and UFO |translator-first=Leonardo |translator-last=Serni |date=2002}}

|{{Cite web |last=Speigel |first=Lee |date=2015-12-23 |title=Look! Is That A UFO Over Jesus' Head? |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ufos-in-renaissance-art_n_5679991de4b014efe0d7044b |access-date=2024-09-13 |website=HuffPost |language=en}}

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| footer = Flying disc-shaped craft depicted on pulp magazines from 1946 and 1957

}}

Several precursors to modern flying saucers appeared in science fiction literature, including The Shaver Mystery.{{cite web |last1=Maughan |first1=Tim |title=Your Coffee Table Needs This Lavish Collection of Retro UFO Pulp Fiction Art |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/flying-saucers-are-real-jack-womack-pulp-fiction-cover-art/ |website=VICE |access-date=2 October 2024 |date=10 August 2016}} Richard Sharpe Shaver's stories about a secret technologically advanced civilization of "detrimental robots" inside the earth were published as a true account of his life.{{cite book |last1=Gulyas |first1=Aaron John |title=Extraterrestrials and the American Zeitgeist: Alien Contact Tales Since the 1950s |date=11 May 2013 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-0168-7 |pages=30–36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bPxRk_-Wv1wC |language=en}} Backlash from the science fiction community carried over to UFO literature. Saucers did appear in conventional science fiction,{{cite book |last1=Asimov |first1=Isaac |editor-last1=Asimov |editor-first1=Isaac |editor-last2=Greenberg |editor-first2=Martin Harry |editor-last3=Waugh |editor-first3=Charles Gordon |title=Flying Saucers |date=1987 |publisher=Fawcett Crest |isbn=978-0-449-21400-8 |language=en |chapter=Introduction}} but a genre emerged that treated fantastical stories as either true or plausibly true.{{cite journal |last1=Stupple |first1=David |last2=Dashti |first2=Abdollah |title=Flying Saucers and Multiple Realities: A Case Study in Phenomenological Theory |journal=Journal of Popular Culture |date=1977 |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=479–493 |doi=10.1111/j.0022-3840.1977.00479.x |hdl=2027.42/75099 |url=https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/75099/j.0022-3840.1977.00479.x.pdf}} The debut issue of Mystic magazine asked readers, "When you read this story, you will tell yourself that it is fiction; the editors assure you that it is. But what if—it isn't?"{{cite web |last1=Crumm |first1=David |title=Amazing Ray Palmer, the Pulp Pioneer Behind the Flying Saucer Craze |url=https://readthespirit.com/explore/ray-palmer-interview-with-biographer-fred-nadis-about-flying-saucers-and-pulp-fiction/ |website=Read the Spirit |publisher=Front Edge Publishing |access-date=2 October 2024 |date=June 29, 2013}} The Fortec Conspiracy, a science fiction novel, both drew from and fed into crashed saucer rumors.{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Toby |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9qSxyR0i6goC |title=Little Gray Men: Roswell and the Rise of a Popular Culture |date=2000 |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |isbn=978-0826321213 |location=Albuquerque |page=82}} Major newspapers rarely did reviews for saucer books but printed their sensationalist advertisements claiming to prove that flying saucers had landed or were being covered up. Cultural studies scholar Jonathan Gray describes this type of widely-viewed alarmist ad as a paratext (related to the central text but not a part of it), which can reach a much broader audience than the text itself.

File:They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers ad (crop).png

Advertisements leveraged cultural interest in flying saucers from the earliest reports. Magazines were promoted as offering skeptical, debunking explanations for the phenomenon. From 1947 into the 1970s, marketing leveraged the discs' potential as advanced technology. By the 1980s, saucers in advertisement were used to evoke awe towards their potential pilots more than futurism.{{cite journal |last1=McAllister |first1=Matthew P. |last2=Eghigian |first2=Greg |title=Flying Saucers and UFOs in US Advertising During the Cold War, 1947–1989 |journal=Advertising & Society Quarterly |date=2022 |volume=23 |issue=3 |doi=10.1353/asr.2022.0028 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/868219 |issn=2475-1790}}

Aliens and flying discs were common in 1950s science fiction comics that flourished after the Golden Age of Comic Books. Launched in the 1960s, the comic book anthology UFO Flying Saucers featured illustrations of supposedly real sightings.{{cite web |last1=Reece |first1=Gregory L. |title=Where Do They Come From? What Do They Want? |url=https://www.popmatters.com/182966-where-do-they-come-from-what-do-they-want-2495648430.html |website=PopMatters |access-date=1 October 2024 |date=19 June 2014}} The opening to its first issue declared, "Our scientists have seen them! Our airmen have fought them!"{{cite comic |title=UFO Flying Saucers |issue=1 |date=1968 |publisher=Gold Key Comics |story=The UFOs and Flying Saucers! |url=https://archive.org/details/ufo-flying-saucers-issue-1/page/n2/mode/1up |page=1 |writer=Dorfman, Leo |artist=Certa, Joe}} As the 1950s progressed, former pulp readers turned their attention to the growing medium of television.{{cite news |title=Out of This World |url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/out-of-this-world-20050423-gdl6jq.html |website=The Sydney Morning Herald |access-date=2 October 2024 |language=en |date=23 April 2005}}

File:Encina Drive-in Ad - 4 May 1956, CA.jpg for a drive-in theater showing Forbidden Planet]]

Many early portrayals of flying saucers linked them to the Cold War.{{rp|p=65}} The 1949 film serial Bruce Gentry – Daredevil of the Skies featured a man-made flying saucer,Greer, John Michael. The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation. Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 2009. {{ISBN|978-0-73871-319-9}}. p.33 and the 1950 film The Flying Saucer focused on Cold War espionage.{{rp|p=65}} Saucer films in the 1950s featured alien pilots, but many continued to center on Cold War fears.{{rp|14, 67}} The Thing from Another World (1951) was a loose adaptation of John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?", updated to include aliens and relocated to Alaska, where Americans feared a Russian attack.{{rp|44}} Later that year, The Day the Earth Stood Still had its human-looking alien Klaatu give audiences explicit warnings about a possible nuclear holocaust.{{rp|4}} The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing from Another World were financial successes that established the market for an "alien visitor" subgenre of science fiction that merged flying saucers into existing space opera tropes.{{rp|p=66}} Slowly hovering discs, such as the one from the landing scene in The Day the Earth Stood Still, appeared throughout science fiction, including It Came from Outer Space (1953), Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), and the television series The Invaders.{{rp|175}} While contactees described aliens as benevolent messengers, Hollywood films often depicted them as monstrous antagonists.{{rp|p=222}}

Other countries adapted the largely American phenomenon at different times, adding elements of the local culture. Early British films were low-budget productions such as Devil Girl from Mars (1954) and Stranger from Venus (1954).{{Cite web |title=Devil Girl from Mars |url=https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150016673 |access-date=16 December 2023 |website=British Film Institute Collections Search}}{{Cite web |last=Lenera |first=Dr |date=7 January 2024 |title=Devil Girl From Mars [1954] |url=https://horrorcultfilms.co.uk/2024/01/devil-girl-from-mars-1954/ |access-date=13 September 2024 |website=Horror Cult Films}} Japanese filmmakers incorporated flying discs and alien invaders into the tokusatsu tradition in mid-50s films such as Fearful Attack of the Flying Saucers and Warning from Space.{{multiref2

|{{cite book |last1=Galbraith |first1=Stuart |title=Japanese science fiction, fantasy, and horror films : a critical analysis of 103 features released in the United States, 1950-1992 |date=1994 |publisher=McFarland |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |isbn=978-0-89950-853-5 |pages=21–23 |url=https://archive.org/details/japanesesciencef00unse}}

|{{Cite web |last=Erickson |first=Glenn |date=29 September 2020 |title=Warning from Space |url=https://trailersfromhell.com/warning-from-space/ |access-date=13 September 2024 |website=Trailers From Hell}}

|{{cite web |last1=Lenera |title=Warning From Space [1956]: On Blu-ray Now |url=https://horrorcultfilms.co.uk/2020/10/warning-from-space-1956-on-blu-ray-now/ |website=Horror Cult Films |access-date=13 September 2024 |date=29 October 2020}}

|{{Cite book |last=Galbraith |first=Stuart |url=https://archive.org/details/japanesefilmogra0000galb |title=The Japanese filmography : a complete reference to 209 filmmakers and the over 1250 films released in the United States, 1900 through 1994 |date=1996 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-0032-4 |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |page=63}}

}} Indian cinema began to incorporate alien invaders in the 1960s, starting with the Tamil-language Kalai Arasi.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wg_RCwAAQBAJ&q=kalaiarasi+queen+of+arts&pg=PA56 |title=The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-78138-038-3 |editor-last=Fritzsche |editor-first=Sonja |pages=56 |access-date=18 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210607141822/https://books.google.com/books?id=Wg_RCwAAQBAJ&q=kalaiarasi+queen+of+arts&pg=PA56 |archive-date=7 June 2021 |url-status=live}} An adaptation of Bankubabur Bandhu by Satyajit Ray was never completed but may have influenced other works of science fiction.{{Cite news |last=Khan |first=Murtaza Ali |date=16 June 2018 |title=Did Steven Spielberg Plagiarise Satyajit Ray's The Alien? |url=https://www.newslaundry.com/2018/06/16/did-steven-spielberg-plagiarise-satyajit-rays-the-alien |access-date=13 September 2024 |work=Newslaundry |language=en}} In Spain, alien-themed television shows became popular in the 1960s.{{rp|174}}

Flying saucers quickly spread to other genres. In Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's big-budget Forbidden Planet, a futuristic 1956 adaptation of William Shakespeare's play The Tempest, humans travel through space in the United Planets Cruiser C-57D, a ship resembling a flying saucer.{{Cite book |last=Wilson |first=Robert F. |url=https://archive.org/details/shakespeareinhol0000will |title=Shakespeare in Hollywood, 1929-1956 |date=2000 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |isbn=0838638325 |pages=71, 101–109}} The Twilight Zone episodes "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", "Third from the Sun", "Death Ship", "To Serve Man", "The Invaders", and "On Thursday We Leave for Home", all make use of the iconic saucer from Forbidden Planet.

{{Cite web |last1=Braukman |first1=Stacy |last2=Maderer |first2=Jason |date=August 28, 2018 |title=Out of This World |url=https://news.gatech.edu/archive/features/out-world.shtml}} The C-57D was followed by other disc-shaped spacecraft in broader science fiction, such as the Jupiter 2 from the television series Lost in Space (1965–1968).{{Cite web |last=Seibold |first=Witney |date=7 March 2018 |title=How Netflix's Lost in Space Compares to the Other Lost in Spaces |url=https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/03/07/how-netflixs-lost-in-space-compares-to-the-other-lost-in-spaces |website=IGN}} Saucers appeared in the television series Babylon 5 (1994–1998) as starships used by a race called the Vree.{{cite web |last1=Nizalowski |first1=Ursula |title=Babylon 5: The 10 Fastest Ships In The Universe, Ranked |url=https://screenrant.com/babylon-5-fastest-ships-ranked/ |website=ScreenRant |access-date=28 September 2024 |language=en |date=12 July 2019}} Aliens in the film Independence Day (1996) attacked humanity in giant city-sized saucer-shaped spaceships.{{cite web |title=8 Things We'll Never Forget From Alien Invasion Blockbuster 'Independence Day' |url=https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/8-things-independence-day/ |website=New York Film Academy |date=28 June 2019}}

File:Plan9SaucerShadow.jpg (1957)]]

Flying saucers were supplanted by other concepts and fell out of favor with Hollywood filmmakers.{{rp|106}} After 1956, American saucer films were mainly B movies. Plan 9 from Outer Space is infamous for its "pie-pan" saucers dangled from visible piano wire.{{cite news |last1=Newman |first1=Bruce |title=Computers Now, Apocalypse Coming Right Up |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/movies/computers-now-apocalypse-coming-right-up.html |work=The New York Times |date=30 June 1996}}{{rp|62, 93}} Television shows and British films continued to depict flying discs and alien invaders into the 1960s.{{rp|106}} Various saucer designs have appeared in Doctor Who, such as those used by the Daleks in Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. or the Cybermen in "The Tenth Planet".{{cite web |last1=Mount |first1=Paul |title=Daleks – Invasion Earth – 2150 AD (1966) |url=https://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/blu-ray-review-daleks-invasion-earth-2150-ad-1966/ |website=Starburst |access-date=28 September 2024}}{{cite web |last1=Blair |first1=Andrew |title=Doctor Who: The 60 Best Episodes |url=https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who-the-60-best-episodes/ |website=Den of Geek |access-date=28 September 2024 |date=20 November 2023}} Italy produced a wave of low-budget films, often space operas or comedies, including Omicron (1963) and Il disco volante (1964).{{rp|pp=107–122}} By the end of the 1960s, Japan, Italy, and Britain largely ceased producing saucer films.{{cite book |last1=Meehan |first1=Paul |title=Saucer Movies: A UFOlogical History of the Cinema |date=1998 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |location=Lanham, Md. |isbn=978-0-8108-3573-3 |pages=105–145 |url=https://archive.org/details/saucermoviesufol0000meeh}}{{rp|143}} Disc-shaped spacecraft fell out of favor in straight science fiction but continued to be used ironically in comedies.{{cite web |last1=Anders |first1=Charlie Jane |title=Alien Trespass: The Ultimate 1950s Nostalgia Trip |url=https://gizmodo.com/alien-trespass-the-ultimate-1950s-nostalgia-trip-5162486 |website=Gizmodo |access-date=7 October 2024 |date=3 March 2009}} The image is often invoked retrofuturistically to produce a nostalgic feel in period works. For example, Mars Attacks! (1996) draws on the flying saucer as part of the larger satire of 1950s B movie tropes.{{Cite magazine |last=Busack |first=Richard von |date=December 18, 1996 |title=Alien Notions |url=http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/12.12.96/mars-attacks-9650.html |access-date=23 March 2013 |magazine=Metro}}

File:LAX Theme Building and moon from northwest 2016-07-21.jpg in Los Angeles, California, is an example of Googie architecture.]]

The sleek, silver flying saucer is widely regarded as a symbol of 1950s culture. The motif is common in Googie architecture and Atomic Age décor.{{Cite web |last=Suaya |first=Stacy |date=October 27, 2022 |title=9 UFO-Inspired Homes Around the World |url=https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/ufo-inspired-homes-around-the-world}} Notable flying saucer structures include Seattle's Space Needle and Los Angeles International Airport's Theme Building.{{Cite web |title=Astronomers and the Space Needle |url=http://astroprofspage.com/archives/593 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070228142944/http://astroprofspage.com/archives/593 |archive-date=February 28, 2007 |access-date=23 March 2013 |website=Astroprof's}}{{cite book |last1=Winter |first1=Robert |title=An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles |date=September 2009 |publisher=Gibbs Smith |isbn=978-1-4236-0893-6 |page=77 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WWl29hn0C9gC |language=en}} Googie architecture in California, such as the Chemosphere home, influenced the futuristic structures in the 1960s cartoon The Jetsons. The cartoon popularized the style to such an extent, that it is often referred to as the "Jetsons look".{{Cite magazine |last=Novak |first=Matt |title=Mid-21st Century Modern: That Jetsons Architecture |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/mid-21st-century-modern-that-jetsons-architecture-2494820/ |access-date=12 September 2024 |magazine=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}} Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who collaborated on the design of the flying saucer in The Day The Earth Stood Still, went on to use the flying saucer as an architectural motif.{{Cite book |last=Walla |first=Douglas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iErAEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA77 |title=The Essential Paul Laffoley: Works from the Boston Visionary Cell |date=9 May 2016 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-31541-6}}{{Cite web |last=Hamilton |first=Tierney |date=19 July 2019 |title=Imagining the Future Through Frank Lloyd Wright's Work |url=https://franklloydwright.org/imagining-the-future-through-frank-lloyd-wrights-work/ |publisher=Marin Cultural Association}} Wright's circular Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, United States, is capped by a flattened dome over a hundred feet across.{{Cite web |date=1 January 2012 |title=9400 W Congress St |url=https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Property/HI8918 |access-date=12 September 2024 |website=Architecture and History Inventory |publisher=Wisconsin Historical Society |language=en}}

File:Spaceship osciron 02.jpg

Spaceships are one of the subjects of novelty architecture. Also known as mimetic architecture, novelty architecture is the practice of creating structures shaped like other existing objects.{{Cite web |last=Campbell |first=Tori |title=The Art of Imitation: Novelty Architecture |date=29 January 2021 |url=https://magazine.artland.com/the-art-of-imitation-novelty-architecture/}} The Communist-era Kielce Bus Station in Kielce, Poland, was designed by architect {{ill|Edward Modrzejewski|pl}} to resemble a UFO.{{multiref2

|{{cite news |last1=M.D. |title=Love Them or Hate Them |url=https://www.economist.com/eastern-/2013/12/19/love-them-or-hate-them |access-date=13 September 2024 |work=Economist |date=19 December 2013}}

|{{Cite web |year=2020 |title=Kielce Bus Station |url=https://www.sageglass.com/en-gb/case-studies/kielce-bus-station |website=SageGlass}}

|{{cite web |title=Kielce Bus Station in Kielce, Poland |url=https://www.kathmanduandbeyond.com/kielce-bus-station-poland/ |website=Kathmandu & Beyond |access-date=13 September 2024 |date=20 December 2018}}

}} The historic landmark arena in Katowice, Poland, is called Spodek (Polish for "saucer") based on its resemblance to the saucers of 1960s science fiction.{{cite book |last1=Bulsa |first1=Michał |last2=Grzegorek |first2=Grzegorz |last3=Tabaczyński |first3=Piotr |last4=Waniek |first4=Henryk |last5=Witaszczyk |first5=Beata |title=Domy i gmachy Katowic |date=2013 |publisher=Wydawnictwo Prasa i Książka Grzegorz Grzegorek |location=Katowice |isbn=978-83-63780-00-5 |page=208}} Other modernist and brutalist UFO structures include the Ukrainian Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information,{{Cite web |date=7 January 2019 |title=Institute of Scientific & Technological Research & Development, Kyiv |url=https://www.kathmanduandbeyond.com/ukrainian-institute-scientific-technological-research-development-kiev/ |access-date=13 September 2024 |website=Kathmandu & Beyond}} Bulgaria's concrete Buzludzha monument,{{Cite news |last=Salem |first=Jarryd |date=18 January 2017 |title=Inside Bulgaria's Crumbling Communist UFO |url=https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/bulgaria-buzludzha-monument/index.html |access-date=13 September 2024 |work=CNN |language=en}} the Most SNP in Bratislava, Slovakia,{{cite news |last1=Majumdar |first1=Debashree |title=Rough Edges of Bratislava |url=https://openthemagazine.com/travel-issue-2019/rough-edges-of-bratislava/ |access-date=2 October 2024 |work=Open The Magazine |date=28 June 2019}} and The Flying Saucer in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.{{Cite news |last=Ravenscroft |first=Tom |date=28 September 2020 |title=Sharjah's Brutalist Flying Saucer Turned into Arts Centre |url=https://www.dezeen.com/2020/09/28/brutalist-flying-saucer-sharjah-art-foundation-spacecontinuum-design-studio/ |access-date=13 September 2024 |work=Dezeen |language=en}} The Westall UFO was commemorated with the Grange Reserve UFO Park, featuring a UFO with red slides modeled after the reported sighting.{{Cite web |title=The Grange Reserve (UFO Park) |url=https://www.kingston.vic.gov.au/Outdoors/Parks-Playgrounds/Playgrounds/The-Grange-Reserve-UFO-Park |archive-url=https://archive.today/20210621110501/https://www.kingston.vic.gov.au/Outdoors/Parks-Playgrounds/Playgrounds/The-Grange-Reserve-UFO-Park |archive-date=21 June 2021 |access-date=24 March 2021 |website=kingston.vic.gov.au |publisher=Kingston City Council}} Roswell, New Mexico, is a UFO tourist destination in the Southwestern United States. Many structures in Roswell, including the streetlights and the McDonald's, are designed around alien themes.{{Cite news |last1=Siegler |first1=Kirk |last2=Baker |first2=Liz |date=June 5, 2021 |title=The Truth Is (Still) Out There In 'UFO Capital' Roswell, New Mexico |url=https://www.npr.org/2021/06/05/1003267794/the-truth-is-still-out-there-in-ufo-capital-roswell-new-mexico |access-date=13 September 2024 |work=NPR}} Moonbeam, Ontario, Canada, has an alien for its mascot and a prominent roadside flying saucer at its welcome center.{{Cite web |last=Dunne |first=Nick |title=Roadside-Attraction Showdown: Moonbeam's Flying Saucer |url=https://www.tvo.org/article/roadside-attraction-showdown-moonbeams-flying-saucer |access-date=13 September 2024 |website=TVO Today}} UFO-shaped homes include the Futuro pods designed by Matti Suuronen,{{Cite news |last=Terzon |first=Emilia |date=3 September 2015 |title=Australia's Lost Futuro: The Tropical UFO Shaped Ski Chalet |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-03/futuro-home-flying-saucer-shaped-ski-chalet-became-darwin-icon/6730594 |access-date=13 September 2024 |work=ABC News |language=en-AU}} the former Sanzhi UFO houses from the Sanzhi District, New Taipei, Taiwan,{{Cite news |last=Morrison |first=Geoffrey |date=September 23, 2018 |title=The Sci-Fi Future Stands Derelict: Taiwan's Abandoned UFO Houses |url=https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/the-sci-fi-future-stands-derelict-taiwans-abandoned-ufo-houses/ |access-date=13 September 2024 |work=CNET |language=en}} and artist Harry Visser's iconic home in Roodepoort, Johannesburg, South Africa.{{Cite news |last=Patrick |first=Alex |date=15 February 2019 |title=If You've Got a UFO Obsession & R50k for Rent, We've Got a Jozi House for You |url=https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/home-and-gardening/2019-02-15-if-youve-got-a-ufo-obsession--r50k-for-rent-weve-got-a-jozi-house-for-you/ |access-date=13 September 2024 |work=Sunday Times}}

File:Masudaya – Battery Operated – Tin UFO – Galaxy Flying Saucer X-7 (銀河円盤 X-7) – Close Up.jpg

Flying saucers were a ubiquitous part of pop culture from 1947 into the mid-1970s. Flying disc motifs were used in toys and other novelties soon after the earliest reports. The frisbee was released in 1948 and initially branded the "flying saucer".{{Cite web |date=12 September 2024 |title=On This Day (Jan. 23) in History – 1957 – Toy Company Wham-O Produces First Frisbees |url=https://www.heraldchronicle.com/news/history/on-this-day-jan-23-in-history-1957-toy-company-wham-o-produces-first-frisbees/article_4108a409-4341-5ab1-bd1d-7f79c415c409.html |access-date=13 September 2024 |website=Herald Chronicle |language=en}} Flying saucer candy was introduced in the 1950s when a Belgian producer of communion wafers had a dip in sales.{{Cite web |last=Banim |first=Julia |date=10 April 2023 |title=People Astounded over History Behind Flying Saucer Sweets from Their Childhood |url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/people-astounded-after-learning-history-29670333 |access-date=12 September 2024 |website=The Mirror |language=en}} Along with other vintage candies, they have since seen renewed interest from customers as "retro".{{Cite news |last=Salter |first=Katy |date=6 August 2014 |title=Sherbet Dips, Flying Saucers and the British Retro Sweet Revival |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/06/sweets-british-retro-revival-made-simple-bbc-hope-greenwood |access-date=12 September 2024 |work=The Guardian}} In the 1950s and early 1960s, Japan was a major manufacturer of tin toys often with space themes such as robots, rockets, and flying discs.{{multiref2

|{{Cite journal |last=Elsass |first=Bruce |date=2023-09-20 |title=The Journal of Antiques and Collectibles |url=https://journalofantiques.com/features/japanese-tin-toys-a-craze-that-rebuilt-post-war-japan/ |journal=Journal of Antiques and Collectibles |language=en-US}}

|{{Cite web |last=Bunte |first=Jim |date=1999 |title=My Spacetoy History |url=https://vintagespacetoys.com/about/ |access-date=2024-09-13 |website=Vintage Spacetoys}}

|{{Cite book |last=Teruhisa |first=Kitahara |url=https://archive.org/details/robotsspaceships0000unse |title=Robots : spaceships & other tin toys |date=2006 |publisher=Koln |isbn=978-3-8228-5062-6}}

}} Throughout the 1950s, musicians such as Billy Lee Riley, Jesse Lee Turner, and Betty Johnson released novelty songs about flying discs and alien invaders. Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman released the first break-in record, "The Flying Saucer", which took the form of a mock news broadcast covering an alien invasion.{{cite web |last1=Blevins |first1=Joe |title=Let's Celebrate Alien Day with Crazy Late 1950s Novelty Songs |url=https://www.avclub.com/let-s-celebrate-alien-day-with-crazy-late-1950s-novelty-1798246619 |website=AV Club |access-date=7 October 2024 |date=April 26, 2016}} Disneyland opened Flying Saucers, an attraction where guests could pilot a hovering disc by tilting their own body.{{cite news |last1=Gnerre |first1=Sam |title=South Bay History: Flying Saucers Land with a Vengeance in 1950s Pop Culture |url=https://www.dailybreeze.com/2019/04/01/south-bay-history-flying-saucers-land-with-a-vengeance-in-1950s-pop-culture/ |access-date=4 October 2024 |work=Daily Breeze |date=1 April 2019}}

Video games have a long history of depicting flying saucers, typically as antagonists.{{Cite web |last=Winchester |first=Jonah |date=14 August 2022 |title=8 Iconic Flying Saucers In Gaming |url=https://www.thegamer.com/most-iconic-flying-saucers-in-gaming/ |access-date=12 September 2024 |website=TheGamer |language=en}} In the arcades, the popular early shooting games Asteroids (1979) and Space Invaders (1978) featured flying saucers as "bonus" enemies that only emerged briefly.{{Cite web |last=Jozefowicz |first=Gabriela |date=30 December 2023 |title=The Rise of the Arcade |url=https://theboar.org/2023/12/the-rise-of-the-arcade-by-gabriela-jozefowicz/ |access-date=12 September 2024 |website=theboar.org}} Super Mario Land, one of Nintendo's launch titles for the original Game Boy, contained spaceships modeled after photographs by George Adamski and set among various monuments falsely attributed to ancient astronauts, such as the Egyptian pyramids and the monolithic Moai of Easter Island.{{Cite web |last=Lambie |first=Ryan |date=22 April 2019 |title=Super Mario Land: The Brilliance of an Underrated Classic |url=https://www.denofgeek.com/games/super-mario-land-underrated-classic/ |access-date=12 September 2024 |website=Den of Geek}} The XCOM series tasks players with countering an invasion of aliens landing on Earth in flying discs. Saucers have appeared as a craft that players can control in Fortnite, Destroy All Humans, and Spore.

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{{UFOs}}

Category:1940s neologisms

Category:Fictional spacecraft by type

Category:UFOs by type

Category:Articles containing video clips