After The Flying Saucers Came

After the Flying Saucers Came is a comprehensive account of the stories, the people, and the strange events that went into making the fascination with UFOs and aliens a worldwide phenomenon among believers, skeptics, and the simply curious. It traces how an odd sighting of "flying saucers" by an American pilot in 1947 inspired governments, the media, scientists, writers, and the general public to consider the possibility that extraterrestrials were visiting earth.

Flying saucers were born in the early summer of 1947, because of the report from a salesman flying onboard his private plane not far from Mount Rainier, Washington. They became nearly instantaneously a mass phenomenon, going deep into the pop culture and remaining in it until today. Sightings of unusual contraptions flying in skies were reported in the USA by the thousands and many abroad too. For a couple of weeks, flying saucers became the topic of the day, or nearly, quickly impacting the common custom, including the advertisement, sports, gags, and much more. Flying saucers have been usually believed to have shown up from out of the blue and to have been taken for wonder secret weapons or delusions, with no contemporary idea about a possible exogenous origin. The very first sighting by Kenneth Arnold happened in the right place (the USA) at the right time (a post-war summer) and involving the right witness (a pilot). An unusual local story coming from a quite remote area of the country got the immediate interest of the likely news-hungry press. It triggered a snowball effect generating a deluge of sightings, following a "me too" path like that you can find in other similar social phenomena. Flying saucers grew, developed steadily, and then remained encapsulated into the pop culture also because of a 70-year process of preparation to the idea that Mars was inhabited by a race far more advanced than us, capable of sending us signals or even visit us.This book shows how the idea that the flying saucers could come from Mars (or elsewhere) was immediately present in the 1947 press, although usually as a way to ridicule the stories or just to emphasize their seemingly "out-of-this-world" features. A small minority of occultists and fans of fringe topics (including many science fiction readers) were ready or open to accept the extraterrestrial origin of those flying discs. The author has surveyed hundreds of 1947 newspapers, collecting over 23,000 news clippings related to the flying saucer, throughout a 13-year research work.The book is enriched by nearly 300 illustrations and nearly 700 footnotes.

This is the sequel to the other volume, "Agharta." This volume contains a condensation of the rare books "A Journey to the Earth's Interior" by M. B. Gardner and "The Smoky God" by G. Emerson.

The Flying Saucers Are Real by Donald Keyhoe, printed in 1950, is one of the first books investigating numerous encounters between the United States Air Force fighters, personnel, and other aircraft and UFOs between 1947 and 1950. The author contended that the Air Force was investigating these cases of close encounters, with a policy of concealing. Keyhoe also said that Earth had been visited by extraterrestrials for two centuries, with the frequency of these visits increasing sharply after the first atomic weapon test in 1945.

On June 24th, 1947, a private pilot reported numerous dazzling objects rushing through the sky above Mount Rainier in Washington state. It was the start of the current UFO phenomena, one of the country's most perplexing and persistent mysteries. Within a few weeks, hundreds of sightings of flying saucers were reported to news media. Surprising reports of a UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico further added to the mystery that July. Since then, UFOs have sparked a slew of incredible claims and speculations. This is a sober and honest history of America's first major saucer craze, based on many sources including previously classified government records. The book cuts through decades of mystique and confusion, beginning with the 1947 UFO wave and ending with the launch of Project Blue Book in 1952. Balanced and comprehensive, this history provides background, social context and other tools for reframing perceptions of a controversial subject.

Written in the late 1950s at the height of popular fascination with UFO's, Flying Saucers is the great psychologist's brilliantly prescient meditation on the phenomenon that gripped the world. A self-confessed sceptic in such matters, Jung was nevertheless intrigued, not so much by their reality or unreality, but by their psychic aspect. He saw flying saucers as a modern myth in the making, to be passed down the generations just as we have received such myths from our ancestors. In this wonderful and enlightening book Jung sees UFO's as 'visionary rumours', the centre of a quasi-religious cult and carriers of our technological and salvationist fantasies. 40 years later, with entire religions based on the writings of science fiction authors, it is remarkable to see just how right he has proved to be.