By James L. (JimiJam)

64 years ago this week, Foster homestead foreman William Ware “Mac” Brazel stumbled upon a pile of debris that has since become both infamous and legendary:  the alleged wreckage of an alien craft, believed by some to have crashed to Earth weeks earlier.  The story of the events at Roswell, New Mexico caused quite a stir – for a little while, anyway.  It wasn’t until nearly 30 years later, thanks to physicist and ufologist Stanton T. Friedman’s interviews with USAF Major Jesse Marcel, that interest in the incident was renewed, and genuine Roswell Fever was born.

Purported UFO Source: NASA

It’s impossible these days to escape the theme of extraterrestrial visitors, swooping down on our planet from far away star systems or galaxies.  Accounts bearing witness to advanced spacecraft and unidentified flying objects go back as far as the earliest written records of humankind.  Only recently, however, has the phenomenon been elevated to such a celebrated status as it enjoys today.

July 2^nd is World UFO Day, as of 2001, celebrating the date on which most believe Mac Brazel made his now famous discovery in Roswell.  Since that time, the governments of the world have been quietly investigating (and at times instigating) sightings of unexplained phenomena witnessed in the evening sky.  Groups of lights hovering in the air, glowing orbs moving erratically across the heavens, silhouettes maneuvering at

Source: NASA

breakneck speeds and angles; all have been reported, with increased frequency, in the years since the idea of flying saucers from outer space crashed upon the pop cultural consciousness of the modern world those long years ago.  Of course, most are revealed to be simply remarkable meteorological phenomena, typical earth-based craft, or hoaxes.  Still, nearly 20% of sightings remain unexplained to this day.

Since those early days, Western civilization has become moderately obsessed with the image of strange life forms descending on our world.  Books, movies, and music all have had their hand in celebrating and analyzing the potential implications of visitors from the beyond.

Not A Flying Saucer. Not Courtesy of NASA

Some have argued that literary reference to alien encounters began as far back as the ancient texts and artworks of some of the world’s most well-known early civilizations.  Believers who subscribe to these hypotheses refer to such visitors as Ancient Astronauts, and find all manner of alleged evidence in scriptures, hieroglyphs, and primitive paintings from across the globe.  Carvings and statues have been said to depict spacesuits or rocket ships, and passages in texts and scriptures are said to have described airborne transport much like the planes and spacecraft of today.  Beginning with H. G. Wells War of the Worlds, the realm of overt fiction began a relationship that has now become an industry all its own, playing a significant role in increasing the popularity of the Science Fiction genre, and fostering the careers of well-renowned authors such as E. E. “Doc” Smith, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke.

In movies and television, too, alien species and extrasolar worlds have proven to be a near-limitless source of provocative and fascinating material.  While films such as Star Wars, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Independence Day have risen to iconic status in the eyes of American culture, they owe their very existence to earlier, classic cinematic works such as Flash Gordon, The Day the Earth Stood Still, This Island Earth, and Forbidden Planet.  Television series on the subject, like Star Trek, Doctor Who, or the X-Files, have turned out to be some of the most popular and beloved shows of all time.

Courtesy of NASA

Fiction alone cannot contain such a popular idea, as is evidenced by the number of serious scientific inquiries and experiments conducted, lectures by noted astrophysicists given, and earnest conspiracy theories espoused over the years.  Some of the most famously intelligent minds in recent history have, at some point, turned their focus toward the heavens, and weighed in on this controversial and popular subject.  They have never had much difficulty finding an audience for such conjecture, and that audience is growing larger every year.  Recent polls suggest that more than 60% of Americans believe that alien visitors have made contact with human beings, and about 50% believe abductions have taken place.

Source: NASA

The possibility of extraterrestrial contact is just too intriguing to ignore, the fanciful notions too attractive to resist.  Whether it’s a gripping space opera, an action-packed war between planets, the existential questions of humankind’s place in the Cosmos, the scientific ramifications, or the dark and mysterious conspiratorial flavor, people are just naturally drawn the mystery of the Unidentified Flying Object.  It is with this sense of curiosity and awe that I will find myself looking skyward over the course of the next few evenings, and wonder, are they really out there, looking back down at us?  Only time will tell; until then, the thought alone is more than enough to keep our eyes on the skies and dreaming.

Communion by Whitley Strieber

Chronicles of the Lensmen by E.E. “Doc” Smith

The Roswell UFO Crash by Kal K Korff

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

The Boy from the UFO by Margaret Goff Clark

The UFO Files

The Puppet Masters by Robert A Heinlein

How to Make the Most of a Flying Saucer Experience by Professor Solomon

Tags: Book Recommendations, Book Suggestions, Members

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 2nd, 2011 at 10:36 am and is filed under Holidays and Special Dates, Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.