 |
|
A
purported 1952 photo of
a UFO over Passaic, New
Jersey, from an FBI document
|
"UFO"
redirects here. For other uses,
see UFO
(disambiguation).
A UFO or Unidentified Flying Object
is any real or apparent flying
object which cannot be identified
by the observer and which remains
unidentified after investigation.
Sightings
of unusual aerial phenomena
date back to ancient times,
but reports of UFO sightings
started becoming more common
after the first widely publicized
U.S. sighting in 1947. Many
tens of thousands of such claimed
observations have since been
reported worldwide, and it is
very likely many more go unreported
due to fear of public ridicule
because of the social stigma
created around the UFO topic.
In
popular culture throughout the
world, UFO is commonly used
to refer to any hypothetical
alien spacecraft but the term
flying saucer is also regularly
used. Once a UFO is identified
as a known object (for example
an aircraft or weather balloon),
it ceases to be a UFO and becomes
an identified object. In such
cases it is inaccurate to continue
to use the acronym UFO to describe
the object.
UFOs
in popular culture
Beginning in the 1950s, UFO-related
spiritual sects, sometimes referred
to as contactee cults, began
to appear. Most often the members
of these sects rallied around
a central individual, who claimed
to either have made personal
contact with space-beings, or
claimed to be in telepathic
contact with them. Prominent
among such individuals was George
Adamski, who claimed to have
met a tall, blond-haired Venusian
named Orthon, who came to
warn us about the dangers of
nuclear proliferation. Adamski
was widely dismissed, but an
Adamski Foundation still exists,
publishing and selling Adamskis
writings. At least two of these
sects developed a substantial
number of adherents, most notably
The Aetherius Society, founded
by British mystic George King
in 1956, and the Unarius Foundation,
established by Ernest L. and
Ruth Norman in 1954. A standard
theme of the alleged messages
from outer-space beings to these
cults was a warning about the
dangers of nuclear proliferation.
More recent groups organized
around an extraterrestrial theme
include Ummo, Heavens Gate,
Ra?l, and the Ashtar Galactic
Command. Many of the early UFO
sects, as well as later ones,
share a tendency to incorporate
ideas from both Christianity
and various eastern religions,
hybridizing these with ideas
pertaining to extraterrestrials
and their benevolent concern
with the people of Earth.