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Mysterious worlds, aliens from distant galaxies, unknown flying objects. All these are some of the most amazing and mysterious topics that have ever worried mankind. Since the first man raised his eyes to the sky and wondered about the existence of life outside our planet, myths and legends about alien visits to Earth have become a real part of our cultural heritage.
So, many books have been written on this topic. The topic is actively developing in the cinema. Starting with classic films of the 50s and 60s, such as "The War of the Worlds" (1953) and "The Day the Earth Stopped" (1951), and ending with modern blockbusters such as "Arrival" (2016) and "The Martian" (2015), aliens and alien civilizations occupy an important place in the plots movies. Television is also not far behind, providing viewers with many series on this topic, for example, "Doctor Who" or "Stargate".
In addition, the theme of aliens is reflected in the literature. Books such as The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury or Solaris by Stanislav Lem have become classics of science fiction and inspired many authors to create their works.
It is impossible not to mention the influence of aliens on popular culture in general. In addition to cinema and literature, they have become symbols of many subcultures and youth movements, and their images are used in music, painting, fashion and even in political movements.
In recent years, interest in the topic of UFOs and aliens has reached unprecedented heights, largely due to the development of technology and the expansion of our knowledge about space. At the same time, in the wake of this new wave of popularity, a lot of anti-scientific theories and speculations have arisen, which only increase the intrigue and attract attention to this topic.
Of course, these days this topic is becoming more of an object of inspiration. But we should not forget about those who really believe in the existence of alien invaders and see flying saucers in the sky. And it is the existence of such people that sometimes makes us wonder: where did all the myths about UFOs come from? When exactly did people begin to believe in the existence of other beings in our universe? Is there a scientific explanation for all the "inexplicable" things happening to witnesses of an alien visit?
In this article, we will not consider all the cases of UFOs captured in world history. In order to understand, it is enough to look at only some of them. The ones that provoked the greatest resonance in society.
Washington Carousel
In 1952, something inexplicable was discovered over the Capitol building in the United States. Shocking articles were written in American newspapers about the UFO cluster, which was available for observation for two whole weeks. This phenomenon has been called the "Washington Carousel". It was reported that there are photos and videos confirming the reality of what happened.
However, in reality, everything turned out to be not so simple. To begin with, there was only one photo of what happened. And this single photo was cropped so that only the lights in the sky were visible, which were passed off as UFOs.
Yes, in all the newspapers the picture was cropped — and for good reason. In the full version of the photo, lampposts are visible, which, at a certain shooting angle, create glare in the camera lens in the opposite direction from the lights. This is how the lens in the camera works. When the inverted lights from the lanterns are superimposed on objects in the sky, we will see that their position coincides.
Another fun fact: if you go back to the cover and look closely at the time of its release, we will see "summer of 1973". Although the events took place in 1952. After digging through the archives, you can find that the photo itself was taken in 1965 — 13 years after the news appeared.In fact, no one has visual evidence of a specific story that happened.
Accordingly, initially there was no confirmation of the truthfulness of the situation in the media, and all articles written in newspapers and magazines were based only on eyewitness accounts. But it's not so simple with them either.
In fact, the story did not begin at all with reports from Washington residents about suspicious flying objects flying over the city. It all started with reports from aviation services, pilots and the military, who saw a cluster of unidentified objects in the sky on radars.
A few days later, the information appeared in the media — on the front pages of newspapers. And immediately after that, a huge number of messages began to arrive from people saying that they, too, had seen UFOs. After another week, the media again publish these news. And this again causes a wave of UFO reports from the residents of the city. The third peak of messages falls on the period after the conference, at which the military expressed their version of what happened. We see a direct pattern between publications in the media and UFO reports from people.
The Great Panic
There have been similar cases in history before this event. So, in 1896, people also actively reported cases of UFO sightings. "Big, glowing, with propellers; people were talking and laughing on board..." — in a similar way, eyewitnesses described ships with aliens. However, their descriptions coincided with the descriptions of existing aircraft — airships. And the aliens according to the descriptions were similar, oddly enough, to the most ordinary people.
At that time, there was an active development of airships, engineers published their sketches and ideas in newspapers, conducted tests of new models. People probably watched the airships: they took them for aliens.
People also often repeated what they had heard from others and seen in newspapers. Did one part of the country report aliens from Mars? A week later, reports of "mysterious people from Mars" were pouring in from all over the country. The wave of mass reports called the "Great Panic of 1986" lasted exactly a year, and then people practically stopped reporting UFOs.
Flying saucers
Surely many people have at least once in their lives wondered why aliens are closely related to "flying saucers". Earlier we found out that all the flying machines that people took for spaceships were similar to airships.
The appearance of flying saucers occurred in 1947. Up to this point, there had never been any talk of such a form of spaceships. The story was connected with an American businessman Kenneth Arnold, who saw "flying saucers".
Here, by the way, the situation that we observed earlier is happening again. In 1947, there were 853 reports from all parts of America about flying saucers. This number exceeds the norm by 10 times. Funny coincidences: every time someone writes a sensational newspaper article about something inexplicable, other people start to see it too.
What's even funnier: as it turned out, the businessman did not see flying saucers. And the journalists greatly distorted his words, thereby giving rise to a new myth.
Arnold reported that the objects "behaved as if they took a saucer and threw it into the water, like throwing flat pebbles." But he didn't call them flying saucers or plates at all. And in fact, the man saw the following:
And such a design reminds us more, for example, of an experimental American bomber, which was tested during these years.
But from that very moment, people began to see only flying saucers, and in no way crescent moons jumping across the sky.
"Radar Angels"
Let's return to the Washington carousel and remember that it was the military bases and dispatchers who reported the incident. Experts saw unidentified objects on the radar, sent planes to intercept, but found nothing at that place.
Many people thought: well, could not experienced, specially trained people make a mistake and understand everything wrong? In fact, they could. And in reality, similar situations occur. This is due to the very scheme of the radar. Radio waves travel in the air quickly and over long distances. If an object meets on their way, then part of the waves will be reflected from the surface. The reflected signal is recorded by the equipment, and its characteristics determine the size, speed and position of the target.
And sometimes objects on the radar are just interference that can be caused by migrating birds, insect clusters and even temperature changes — temperature inversion. It occurs when the air at the surface of the earth cools down, and the layers lying above are warmer. Usually the temperature drops with increasing altitude, but as we see, it happens the other way around.
Ornithologists and other scientists have conducted research on this topic. And they found out that this is possible. This version was expressed by the military at a conference in 1952, but no one believed them. It was easier for people to think that the things they saw (or didn't see) defied logical and scientific explanation.
Human self-deception
Yes, aliens and UFOs continue to be the subject of interest, despite the lack of convincing evidence of their existence. Moreover, many people continue to believe in the possibility of visiting our planet by aliens, despite the existence of a scientific explanation for many things. They rely on various theories and "evidence".
We found out that most of the witnesses are only engaged in deceiving themselves and others, cite only words as evidence of what they saw. And, as we have noticed, people tend to see things that are not really there, focusing on the words of other people. But it is never possible to know the real motives of those who share such mysterious stories. Did they really see something? Did you take what happened the wrong way? Did you want to attract public attention, earn money?
Nowadays, even some ufo scientists believe that life on other planets may be possible, and are actively looking for signs of its existence. And, of course, at the moment there is no reliable evidence of aliens visiting Earth. There are only people who desperately want to believe in the existence of other living beings, and those who also desperately want to make money on it.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the theme of aliens remains popular in popular culture, especially in films, books and video games. It attracts the attention of people interested in paranormal phenomena and conspiracy theories. And as long as there are those who want to believe, the topic will continue to live, develop and be filled with more and more new details and details.
Глава раздела “Общество”, корреспондент, автор и публицист издания “Слово – за нами!”
