On June 24th, 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold was
flying in the vicinity of Mount Rainier in
Washington when he suddenly spotted something
shiny in the sky with him.
Turning his aircraft to get a better look,
Arnold claims to have seen a string of eight
bright, saucer-shaped objects being led by
a larger crescent-shaped object.
After about two minutes, all of the objects
accelerated and disappeared, leaving Arnold's
small plane behind.
Today we’ll take a look at one the world's
greatest mysteries, in this special episode
of The Infographics Show’s Greatest Mysteries:
UFOs.
Kenneth Arnold's Mount Rainier sighting kicked
off the modern UFO craze, and established
the term flying saucer in all our minds.
Since then, humanity has been obsessed with
the question: Are we alone, or are we being
visited by beings from another world?
We'll explore these questions with the top
4 most mysterious UFO events ever reported.
Number 4 is an American classic: the UFO crash
at Roswell, New Mexico.
Just a few weeks after the Kenneth Arnold
sighting, the Air Force recovered debris from
an allegedly crashed flying saucer in Roswell,
New Mexico.
Roswell Army Air Field public information
officer Walter Haut initially released a press
release stating that military personnel had
recovered a flying disc.
However, this was quickly retracted by the
Air Force, which then claimed that the object
was just a weather balloon.
Fifty years later, in 1997, the U.S. government
declassified documents showing that it had
indeed been operating a secret high-altitude
program in the New Mexico skies, sending up
balloons made of high-tech lightweight and
flame retardant materials that carried sensitive
microphones into the Earth's troposphere where
they could eavesdrop on Soviet nuclear tests.
With no satellites in orbit, and given the
secrecy of the Soviet nuclear program, it
would have been important to keep any such
attempts to eavesdrop on the Soviets out of
public knowledge - and a captured flying saucer
made for a great cover until nationwide UFO
hysteria threatened to create a panic.
While many still refuse to accept the official
explanation, the evidence is staggering.
The 297-page declassified report has been
substantiated by many members of the then-secret
program, but perhaps more telling is the mundane
nature of the objects recovered in the crash,
as described by those on the scene: objects
such as rubber, tinfoil, paper, and tape.
With any possible visiting aliens being greatly
technologically superior to us, we'd like
to think they'd make their spaceships out
of things more advanced than tin foil and
tape.
At number three is the first possible conflict
between man and alien - the Battle of Los
Angeles.
After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor,
many Americans expected Japanese raids against
the West Coast to be imminent.
The U.S. Army dispatched batteries of anti-aircraft
guns to major coastal cities in response,
including Los Angeles.
On the evening of February 23rd, 1942, military
spotters reported blinking lights in the sky
above LA, sending the anti-aircraft crews
into high alert.
A few hours later, however, the lights were
gone.
The next night, a radar contact was reported
180 miles west of Los Angeles over the Pacific
Ocean.
What happened next is a bit murky.
Some military personnel and civilians claim
to have heard and even seen up to a dozen
aircraft in the sky, while others claim that
a large, glowing shape hovered above the city,
partially obscured by the cloud cover.
Immediately, the alarm was raised, and a citywide
blackout was ordered as dozens of anti-aircraft
batteries and .50 caliber machine guns began
to fire into the pitch-black sky.
Powerful spotlights scanned the sky looking
for targets, and an hour later, over 1400
rounds of anti-aircraft shells had been fired
into the night sky.
The people in the city believed they were
under all-out enemy attack, but dawn broke
shortly after only to reveal a bunch of confused
air defense crews and no enemies in sight.
With no official explanation, Japan was asked
about the incident at the end of the war.
They confirmed that they had never launched
aircraft over Los Angeles.
Yet shortly after the end of the war, the
United States War Department revealed that
1 to 5 radar contacts had definitely been
recorded that night, and no U.S. planes were
in the area.
Did the United States fire the first shot
in a war against an alien species?
Or were wartime jittery nerves and primitive
radar technology to blame?
Sadly, we may never know.
They say everything is bigger in Texas - including
their UFO encounters.
At number two is a famous and unsettling account
of motorist harassment by something possibly
otherworldly.
On the night of November 2nd, 1957, immigrant
farmers Pedro Saucedo and Joe Salaz were driving
down a lonely Texas road near the small town
of Levelland when they suddenly spotted a
flash of blue light ahead of them.
Their truck immediately died as it lost all
electric power, and as it rolled to a stop,
they witnessed a strange object rising up
off the road ahead of them and move in their
direction.
Pedro jumped out of the truck and hid in a
nearby bush, while Joe, paralyzed with fear,
remained in the truck.
An object later described as “rocket-shaped”
flew directly over the vehicle, rocking it
violently and giving off intense heat and
powerful wind gusts.
Terrified, the two men immediately found a
pay phone and called the local police department.
Officer A.J.
Fowler answered their call, and, initially
believing the call to be a joke, immediately
dismissed it.
However, an hour later his phone rang again.
Another motorist driving down the same road
reported coming across a brilliantly lit egg-shaped
object that also shut down the power to his
car before flying over it and disappearing.
Still skeptical, Officer Fowler made a note
of the report, but didn't pay it much mind,
until another call came in at 10:55 PM.
This time the call was made by a married couple
driving northeast of Levelland.
This couple also reported a bright flash moving
across the sky, which killed their car's headlights
and radio for a few seconds, as it passed
overhead.
Just five minutes after taking the couple's
statement, his phone rang once more with yet
another motorist claiming that a strange object
sitting on the road had caused his vehicle
to lose power as well, only turning back on
when the object rose up from the road and
flew away.
In total, 15 calls came in to Officer Fowler,
who dispatched three police officers to look
for the object.
Of the three, Sheriff Weir Clem also encountered
the object at around 1:30 AM with the same
results: his car experienced electrical malfunctions
and died, only to restart once the object
disappeared.
An official investigation by the U.S. Air
Force claimed that the objects spotted by
Sheriff Clem and 15 other motorists were nothing
more than ball lightning and that the electrical
failures were due to faulty wiring.
Yet those present on that November night have
never bought the official explanation, and
with so many eyewitnesses having such close
encounters, it's a little hard to believe
they would all confuse lightning for an alien
spacecraft.
At number one is something much more recent,
and substantiated with modern military technology.
In 2004, Commander David Fravor and another
pilot were flying a training mission with
their F/A-18F Super Hornets about 100 miles
off the coast of San Diego.
Midway through their training mission, the
Navy cruiser USS Princeton contacted them
and requested they investigate several mysterious
objects the ship was tracking on radar.
The pilots were briefed that the Princeton
had established radar tracks on a number of
whitish, 40-foot long,
Tic Tac-shaped objects that would suddenly
appear at an altitude of 80,000 feet, descend
towards the ocean, and hover at 20,000 feet
before dropping out of radar range or blasting
back up into the night sky.
Working together, the Super Hornets and the
Princeton tracked one object via radar, and
Commander Fravor managed to get close enough
to make visual contact with the object.
For a few seconds, Commander Fravor said that
he could clearly see a whitish, pulsating
object that seemed to rotate as it flew.
However, as if sensing the Super Hornets had
drawn near, the object immediately accelerated
and blasted out of sight.
Perhaps the best part about this encounter
is the fact that the close contact by Commander
Fravor was all recorded via his gun camera.
In the video, you can clearly see the object
being pursued by the fighter jets, and you
can hear Commander Fravor and his wingman
excitedly describe the object rotating, and
at one point exclaim in surprise that “there's
a whole fleet of them.”
The incident was classified for many years
until the gun camera footage showed up online
in 2017.
Despite numerous requests for comment, the
Department of Defense has maintained its silence
on the matter.
So, do aliens exist?
Probability alone tells us the universe is
too big for them not to, but the real question
is are they visiting Earth?
What do you think?
Have you ever seen a UFO?
Let us know in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video
called Worst Punishments In The History of
Mankind!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t
forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!
