Why do we think of flying saucers and little grey men when we think of aliens?
Inspired by too many late nights skywatching (and X-Files watching), special agents Cian and Chris get spooky once again as they tackle the topic of Unidentified Flying Objects. And as the age of fake news and conspiracy thinking is upon us, it's more important than ever to know why people continue to believe weird things!
Chris has been doing some field research and brings several sightings from the Cork area to our attention. Then Cian brings us down the rabbithole to discover the details of the very first true 'flying saucer' sighting as well as the first 'alien abduction' report to find out what we can learn from studying these cases. In between, we learn that the Victorian age had its own UFO-style 'phantom airship' hysteria. We round things off with a discussion about looking for alien civilisations and Dyson spheres.
Listen to the podcast here.
SHOWNOTES:
The Jan 2017 Dublin UFO.
The Flying Saucers Are Real by Donald Keyhoe. Early in the 'cast I mistakenly refer to him as 'Allen Keyhoe,' probably because I'm confusing him with J Allen Heynek, also a UFO researcher.
UFOs in 1556 seen in Basel, Switzerland
1929 cover by Frank R. Paul
Here's a video of the American white pelican. I've never been too impressed with the pelican theory as an explanation for Kenneth Arnold's sighting - I'd like to think that an experienced pilot would recognise a flock of birds when he sees one - but upon looking closely at the way he described the shape and movements of the objects he saw, I've got to wonder.
Kenneth Arnold with the objects he saw.
Our incidental music is by Purple Planet music. Other music: X-Files Theme by Mark Snow, Mulder & Scully by Catatonia.
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