  By THoTH
It is often said by those who wish to discredit the reality of the UFO, that it’s a modern phenomenon, and was nothing more than a public craze that began with Kenneth Arnolds sighting in 1947 and has escalated in the public eye since then.
Nothing could be further from the truth, even the most casual research into the history of the UFO, will show that there were a great many sightings during the second world war, predating Arnolds sighting.
UFOs are explained away frequently as misidentifications of aircraft and satellites, surely before the times of these technological wonders no UFOs were reported, right? Wrong! Very wrong.
The debate over descriptions of what sound like UFOs in ancient historical texts still rages on. Some claim that these historical texts describe nothing more than astronomical events that weren’t understood by the people of yesteryear, or misunderstood strange meteorological happenings. Perhaps this is the case for some of those accounts, but clearly not all.
So what about relatively recent history, where there were astronomers and scientists, none were reported then either right? Wrong again. What follows are merely a handful of reports made from the 19th and the early 20th Century. No aircraft, or orbiting satellites to explain these sightings away.
Most of these accounts are taken from a book “Mysteries of the Skies” published in 1968 by Gordon Lore and Harold Deneault, as part of The Scientific Book Clubs collection.
Huge Green Disc - 1882
A prominent astronomer, E. Walter Maunder of the Greenwich Royal Observatory in England, was watching the skies two hours after sunset on November 17, 1882. He had been observing a particularly beautiful auroral display after a violent storm.
As the display appeared to lessen, he saw a huge green disc low on the horizon in the east-northeast. It moved very quickly across the sky at a steady pace. As it passed above the moon, the object's circular shape appeared to change to that of a cigar.
It was brighter - and more spectacular than the Great Comet of 1882, then visible during early morning and had a shiny, plain surface. The object disappeared in the southwest in less than two minutes.
"Nothing could well be more unlike the rush of a great meteor or fireball with its intense radiance and fiery train", Maunder said, "than the steady-though fairly swift-advance of the 'torpedo' ".
“A strange celestial visitor” – Observatory Magazine 1916.
One would assume that these accounts by astronomers, are less likely to be misinterpretations of celestial phenomena. Astronomers aren’t infallible, but their reports, as can be seen, are precise and even now raise a large question mark over what exactly was seen.
Missiles from Mars 1873
On June 17th, 1873, two astronomers, a Dr. Galle in Austria, and a Dr. Sage at Rybnik, Poland, were watching the planet Mars through their telescopes when they reported having seen a glowing, missile like object “emerge and separate itself from the disc of the planet Mars” travel at a fantastic speed and seemingly explode upon reaching the earths atmosphere.
Fort, Op. CIT., P.399, From “Report of the British Association for the advancement of science” , 1874-272
Impossible ‘Meteors’ 1833
An astronomer and a number of others at Adrianopole, in European Turkey, and Scutari, in Asiatic Turkey, made sightings of strange aerial objects on two successive days in 1886. The sightings were reported in the 1886 edition of “l’Astronomie”
An oval shaped object that spread a huge light was observed to the west of Adrianopole at 9:30pm on November 1st
A shower of meteors in the eastern United States on November 12th and 13th, 1833, was accompanied by some strange phenomena. A number of witnesses at Poland, Ohio, south of Youngstown, saw a luminous object in the north-east for more than an hour early on the morning of November 13th. The honourable Calvin Pease said he first noticed the object in Ursa Major and saw it as a very brilliant “pruning hook” about 20 feet long and 18 inches wide. It gradually moved toward the horizon and disappeared.
“I myself first saw it at 5 o clock,” said Dennison Olmsted, “when it resembled a new moon, two or three hours high, shining through a cloud. About 15 minutes afterwards, no vestige could be seen.”
Dennison Olmsted, “the meteors of November 13th, 1833,” From American Journal of Science, Vol 25, Series 1, 1833, pp 363-411.
Meteor Jelly at West Point?
At Niagara Falls, New York, the meteors were first seen around 2am on November 13th. A short time later, a huge luminous object, shaped like a “square table,” was observed in the sky. It remained stationary for a while and emitted large rays of light. This, obviously, was not a meteor.
A woman milking her cow at sunrise at West Point, New York, saw an object descend “with a sposh.” Investigating, she discovered a flattened, jelly like mass that was so transparent she could see the ground through it. At 10am, when she returned to the spot with some friends, nothing remained. A boy nearby had seen some very small white particles at that spot, but, as he reached down to pick them up, they turned to powder and disappeared. Residents of Rahway and Newark, New Jersey, saw the same jelly like substance on the ground.
UFOs in Formation 1881
‘The Saints’ Herald’ Of Lamoni Iowa, described on December 1st, 1881, a most unusual and “wonderful formation of the stars” that occurred at 10:30pm sometime in November at St Joseph, Missouri. The newspaper said its story was reprinted from The Saint Joseph Evening News.
The weird astronomical display was first observed when “a star was noticed to shoot in the direction, a little North of East, almost directly toward the moon, and when apparently . . . within two score feet of luna, it stopped; this was followed by four other stars, which took positions a few inches distant, and in a direct line behind the first.” Then, directly behind an inverted triangle, with the five original “stars” protruding in a straight line from the tip of the triangle. They remained stationary in this formation for half an hour.
“At the end of the half hour, they began to ‘break ranks’ “ the paper reported, “or ‘take their departure’ and the move was made as systematically as it was formed, and about as coolly and deliberately as a company of well disciplined soldiers would disband or obey an order.”
The objects proceeded in the same order they had formed, speeding off toward the moon, according to the paper. The UFOs “marched into place as gracefully as the Saxton Rifles, and broke ranks with as much grace as precision.”
“The space between the several stars appeared like a few inches,” the paper said, “and between the first or tail star, and the moon like or forty or fifty feet when it was doubtless countless thousands of miles. What does it mean? Is the question the News would like to ask some able bodied astronomer or scientific individual?”
Speeding Cigar shaped object 1873 Texas
During the Summer of 1873, residents of Bonham, Texas, saw a fast moving object flying over the south-west section of town in broad daylight. The huge, cigar shaped object flew so rapidly that it’s shape was blurred. It swooped low over the town twice as citizens rushed into their homes, dove under wagons, and sought whatever shelter they could find. The object disappeared quickly to the east.
Major Donald E Keyhoe, U.S.M.C. (Ret) , The flying saucers are real (New York:Fawcett Publications, inc. 1950) p.57
Twenty Four hours after the sighting at Bonham, soldiers on the parade field at Fort Scott, Kansas, about 350 miles to the North East, were thrown into a panic as a similar object flashed over the grounds of the military post. It took only a few seconds to disappear to the North.
Ibid
Glowing Orange Spheres 1904
Tony Darby, who lived on a farm five miles North of Rolling Prairie, recalls that about 10pm one night in June, 1904, he went out to the water well. Approximately seven hundred feet from the house, near the barn, he saw two orange coloured, round objects hovering five to six feet off the ground. He said they were about the size of “wagon wheels” and were luminous and clearly outlined. Although they were considerably brighter than the sky, they did not illuminate the surrounding area. The object nearest Darby was trailed by a second one exactly like it stationed two feet behind and to the left of it. They maintained an echelon formation.
Darby dashed for the house, stumbled and scrambled to his feet again. He shouted for his mother and his brother, Joe. Outside, the three of them walked warily toward the spheres. They had gone 200ft when the objects began to move away. When the Darbys stopped, the “lights” did likewise. The UFOs maneuver did not seem accidental. The witnesses inched forward once more, and the objects started to move again, matching the trios advance with a comparable retreat. They stood immobile for a second time, and for a while the glowing spheres remained suspended, soundless and motionless as they were when Darby first discovered them.
A few seconds later, the objects retreated from the farmers at a slow, steady pace, “about as fast as a man walking” Darby said. The spheres did not break their formation but flew parallel to the ground, about five or six feet above it, and “proceeded away and slightly downhill to a small hollow and stopped for a short time” Darby said. “They then continued their course away and up a slight grade and over a small hill” he said, “and continued down the other side of the hill until they were out of sight.”
Lessons learned
These are just a small percentage of incidents reported in relatively recent history, and when put into context of UFO like incidents reported , only form a tiny fraction of what has been described by our ancestors.
It’s perfectly feasible that their knowledge caused them to mistake some natural phenomena, but the debunkers of this world would have you believe that they mistook all. But then again, they often claim that astronomers don’t see UFOs at all which is absurd given some cases mentioned here and the hundreds of other cases that exist documented by astronomers.
Clyde Tombaugh for example, the astronomer who discovered the planet Pluto reported a UFO incident himself. Dr J Allan Hynek was the astronomer for the US Air Force official study of UFOs called Blue Book; he began as a debunker and after several years completely revised his position and went on to become the director of the Center for UFO studies.
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