Editing 1947 flying disc craze (section)

==Contemporary interpretations==

===Technological===
[[File:Vought V-173.jpg|thumb|right|The US Navy had [[Vought XF5U|experimented with disc-shaped aircraft]] during World War II. Members of the public speculated the craft were responsible for disc reports, though Navy officials later debunked the theory.]]

Initial speculation held that the disc might be technology developed by the Americans or the Soviets.

Army rocket expert Lt. Col. Harold R. Turner publicly speculated the "discs" were jet airplanes, arguing that "the jet planes' circular exhaust glows brightly when heated and might easily appear to be discs at a distance.<ref name="auto56"/><ref name="auto63"/>

By June 29, public speculation suggested that the reports might be attributed to [[Vought XF5U|"Flying Flapjack"]], an experimental Navy fighter aircraft with a somewhat disc-shaped body that had been profiled in the May 1947 issue of ''Mechanix Illustrated''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/768897089/|title=29 Jun 1947, 1 - The Bellingham Herald at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>  The Navy dismissed that suggestion, noting that only one such prototype existed, and it had never flown outside of Connecticut.<ref name="auto11"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/536439114/|title=2 Jul 1947, 1 - The Daily Advertiser at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

On July 3, Army Lt. Gen [[Nathan F. Twining|Nathan Twining]], head of Air Material Command and commander of Wright Field, announced an investigation into the discs and informed the public that the Army Air Forces "have nothing that would compare to the descriptions of the object"
<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/564362275/|title=3 Jul 1947, 11 - Spokane Chronicle at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

On July 6, the International News Services interviewed racecar builder Leo Bentz who speculated the discs were the work of an inventor named George De Bay.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/524008121/|title=6 Jul 1947, 3 - Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>  On July 9, the El Paso Times published an editorial calling on the Army to admit the discs were new US technology.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/429447097/|title=9 Jul 1947, 4 - El Paso Times at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

Others suggested the discs were Russian weapons, akin to the [[Fu-Go balloon bomb|incendiary balloons released by the Japanese]] to cross the Pacific and explode in the US.<ref name="feof6"/><ref name="auto9"/><ref name="auto61">{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/2393039/|title=22 Dec 1947, Page 32 - The Kokomo Tribune at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>  The ''Los Angeles Examiner'' received and publicized a letter claiming the discs were atomic-powered Russian planes.<ref name="auto89"/>
[[File:Weather-balloon 0.jpg|thumb|right|Balloons, radar reflectors, tinfoil, insulation, and numerous other objects were thought to contribute to the reports.]]
Retired general [[Hap Arnold]] (no relation) publicly speculated the discs had either been developed by United States scientists or were foreign technology "operating out of control".<ref name="auto89"/>

===Conventional===
Army rocket expert Lt. Col. Harold R. Turner revised his estimate on June 29 and suggested that meteors, not jets, were responsible.<ref name="auto4"/><ref name="auto40"/>  One ironworks operator speculated that the " flying discs" were caused by the melting of bottlecaps".<ref name="auto54"/><ref name="auto44"/> Oklahoma sightings were revealed as handbills released from an airplane.<ref name="auto55"/><ref name="auto53"/>  Numerous recovered objects were revealed to hoaxes, pranks, or mistaken identifications.

On July 4, press nationwide quoted an unnamed Chicago scientist who speculated that people were seeing "spots in front of their eyes."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/616084642/|title=4 Jul 1947, 4 - The Times Dispatch at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref> In the prior decades, reports of [[Martian canals|canals on Mars]] had been revealed to stem from [[optical illusions]].<ref name="auto15">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CmFVEAAAQBAJ|title=Flying Saucers Over America: The UFO Craze of 1947|first=Gordon|last=Arnold|date=December 3, 2021|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9781476687667 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

===Behavioral===
{{see also|Mass psychogenic illness|Psychosocial hypothesis}}
[[File:Dance at Molenbeek.jpg|thumb|right| [[Dancing mania|Dancing plagues]] of the [[Middle Ages]] are thought to have been caused by mass hysteria.]]
During the 1947 craze, experts in human behavior argued the reports were best explained as a [[psychology|psychological]] or [[anthropological|social]] phenomenon.  The flying disc craze was compared to Scotland's [[Loch Ness monster]], the panic caused by the Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds, and a [[May 1947 Tokyo Sea Monster broadcast|sea monster panic]] caused by a US Armed Forces Radio hoax in Japan.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2000/05/22164854/p20.pdf|title=Mass Delusions and Hysterias : Highlights from the Past Millennium|quotation=Over the past millennium, mass delusions and hysterical outbreaks have taken many forms. Sociologists Robert Bartholomew and Erich Goode survey some of the more colorful cases.|author1=Robert E. Bartholomew and Erich Goode|website=Cdn.centerforinquiry.org|access-date=June 24, 2022}}</ref>

On July 3, the International News Service suggested a sociological component, arguing that Arnold had "broken the ice" and induced "trained observers to tell stories they had hesitated to relate before in the fear nobody would believe them".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/723487772/|title=4 Jul 1947, 2 - The Idaho Statesman at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref> As early as July 5, press featured speculation that the disc craze was the result of [[mass psychogenic illness|mass hysteria]].<ref name="auto18"/>

On July 9, psychiatrist [[Edward Adam Strecker|Edward Strecker]] described discs as the result of "pathological receptiveness".  Strecker argued that initial witnesses "may have seen something, such as the glint of an airplane" while subsequent sightings were likely illusions brought on by hysteria.  Strecker argued that 'the emotional state of many person had been over-active since the first atomic bomb exploded'.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/773565938/|title=9 Jul 1947, 18 - The Seattle Star at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>  [[Winfred Overholser]], nationally renown psychiatrist, described the reports as a "national hysteria".<ref name="auto79"/>

On July 9, it was reported that an Indianapolis woman was sent to a mental ward after she was discovered "hacking holes in the sidewalk with a hatchet" in an effort to 'drive the saucers away'.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/540797971/|title=9 Jul 1947, 5 - The Herald at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>  The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph ran a headline telling readers "If you're seeing those saucers -- call the psychiatrist, and quick!" after a Harvard professor proclaimed that flying disc mystery was "not a problem for meteorologists or astronomers, but one for psychiatrists."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/523992561/|title=9 Jul 1947, 1 - Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

===Interplanetary===
{{see also|Extraterrestrial hypothesis}}
[[File:Amazing Stories 1927 08.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Interplanetary invaders, as depicted on the August 1927 cover of ''[[Amazing Stories]]'']]

On June 27, unnamed experts argued that supersonic saucer-shaped aircraft would be "out of this planet".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/143491805/|title=27 Jun 1947, Page 1 - The Tennessean at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>  On June 28, headlines joked "No, They're Not Men from Mars".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/401278240/|title=29 Jun 1947, 2 - Dayton Daily News at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>  By June 29, one source reported that "These discs, some people suggest, may presage an invasion from Mars."<ref name="feof6"/>

On July 7, 1947, two stories came out where Arnold raised the topic of possible extraterrestrial origins, both as his opinion and those who had written to him.<ref>Associated Press story, July 7, 1947, e.g., Salt Lake City ''Deseret News'', p. 3, "Author of 'Discs' Story To Seek Proof" [https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=Aul-kAQHnToC&dat=19470707&printsec=frontpage]</ref>  Per the Chicago Times:

:"...Kenneth Luis Arnold...is not so certain that the strange contraptions are made on this planet.  Arnold...said he hoped the devices were really the work of the U.S. Army.  But he told the TIMES in a phone conversation: 'If our government knows anything about these devices, the people should be told at once.  A lot of people out here are very much disturbed.  Some think these things may be from another planet.  But they aren't harming anyone and I think it would be the wrong thing to shoot one of them down—even if can be done.  Their high speed would completely wreck them...'

:"Arnold, in pointing to the possibility of these discs being from another world, said, regardless of their origin, they apparently were traveling to some reachable destination.  Whoever controlled them, he said, obviously wasn't trying to hurt anyone...He said discs were making turns so abruptly in rounding peaks that it would have been impossible for human pilots inside to have survived the pressure.  So, he too thinks they are controlled from elsewhere, regardless of whether it's from Mars, Venus, or our own planet."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.roswellproof.com/Chicago_D_Times_1947-07-07-3s_Arnold_interplanetary_statement-Cpt_Smith.jpg|title=Chicago 'Times'|date=July 7, 1947|page=3|website=Roswellproof.com|access-date=24 June 2022}}</ref>

On July 9, US Senator from Idaho [[Glen H. Taylor]] said he 'almost hoped' that the discs would turn out to be space ships from another planet.  Taylor explained that "'the mere possibility' that the spinning circles might be hostile would unify the peoples of earth as nothing else could."<ref name="auto7">{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/334400011/|title=9 Jul 1947, 7 - The Journal Times at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
In an Associated Press story from July 19, Arnold reiterated his belief that if they weren't Army, then they were extraterrestrial.<ref>Walla Walla (Wash) ''Union-Bulletin'', July 20, 1947, "Man Who Reported 'Flying Saucers' Feels That He Has Been Vindicated"[http://www.saturdaynightuforia.com/html/articles/articlehtml/positivelytruestoryofkennetharnold5.html]</ref>

===Biological===
{{see also|Space animal hypothesis}}
Another line of thought argued that the reports might be caused not by technological alien spacecraft or mass hysteria, but rather by animal lifeforms that are indigenous to Earth's atmosphere or interplanetary space.

In 1923, paranormal author [[Charles Fort]] had mused "It seems no more incredible that up in the seemingly unoccupied sky there should be hosts of living things than that the seeming blank of the ocean should swarm with life".<ref>''New Lands, 1923, ch 17''</ref><ref name="WhoDiscovered">[https://web.archive.org/web/20210214054202/http://www.cufos.org/CSI_NY/CSI_NY_%2322.pdf "Who 'Discovered Space Animals'?"], Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York Newsletter, (December 15, 1957)</ref> On July 7, 1947,  a fan of Fort's writings named [[John Philip Bessor]] became the first modern proponent of the hypothesis when he authored a letter to the Air Force suggesting that discs might be "animals bearing very little likeness to human beings".   In 1949, he wrote to the Saturday Evening Post to suggest that the discs might be "more like octopuses, in mentality, than humans".<ref>Saturday Evening Post, July 2, 1949 "He Believes in Saucers"</ref><ref name="WhoDiscovered"/>   In April 1949, the Air Force's Project Sign released an essay which considered the hypothesis, writing "the possible existence of some sort of strange extraterrestrial animals has been remotely considered, as many of the objects described acted more like animals than anything else".<ref name="WhoDiscovered"/>

In October 1954, [[Alfred Loedding]] was publicly quoted on his suspicion that the disks "may be a kind of space animal".<ref>Times-Advertiser, Oct 10 1954</ref>  By 1955, original saucer witness [[Kenneth Arnold]] began to promote the theory, suggesting that the UFOs are "sort of like sky jellyfish."  Arnold added: "My theory might sound funny, but just remember that there are a lot of things in nature that we don’t know yet."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/la-grande-observer-kenneth-arnolds-cryp/12450519/|title=Eerie Blue Light Said Live 'Thing' |date=January 29, 1955|pages=1|via=newspapers.com}}</ref>

===Eschatological===
[[File:John Hamilton Mortimer - Death on a Pale Horse - Google Art Project (cropped).jpg|thumb|275px|right|"Death on a Pale Horse", an apocalyptic image from the [[Book of Revelation]], as depicted by 18th-century artist [[John Hamilton Mortimer]]]]
Some members of the public interpreted the reports as signifying [[Eschatology|the end of the world]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5emvDwAAQBAJ|title=Six Concepts for the End of the World|first=Steve|last=Beard|date=October 8, 2019|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9781912685332 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zgUTDAAAQBAJ|title=The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism|first=Catherine|last=Wessinger|date=July 19, 2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-061194-1 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

On June 27, Kenneth Arnold told press that he had been contacted by a preacher who insisted saucers were harbingers of Doomsday.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/564374587/|title=27 Jun 1947, 5 - Spokane Chronicle at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>  On June 30, one Oregon preacher suggested that the discs were "the 'advance guard' of universal disaster, heralding the end of the world".<ref name="auto3"/>  On July 9, deputies in Everett, Idaho took a woman into custody who was marching around a lake, Bible in hand, speaking only of discs and the end of the world.  The woman had never been known to be irrational, a deputy told press.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/79808250/|title=9 Jul 1947, Page 9 - The Post-Register at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>  In [[Oshkosh, Wisconsin|Oshkosh]], a housewife directed press to the [[Book of Job]], explaining "when man becomes too vain and smart, some divine being will send things of various sizes and shapes through the air to confound and confuse man".<ref name="auto7"/>  On July 5, press reported on a 67-year-old gardener who claimed to have watched saucers for about 30 minutes before going to bed, saying: "I thought about waking up some of my neighbors but decided if it meant the end of the world they would be just about as happy sleeping when the world ended."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/30943002/|title=6 Jul 1947, Page 12 - The Sunday News and Tribune at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref><ref name="UnivIowa"/>

In Louisiana, Governor [[Jimmie Davis]] relayed an explanation attributed to an 'elderly negro': "Saucers are part of the prophecy, something man is supposed to see and not understand.  Next the world will know no seasons; Winter will come in the Summer; In Winter men will walk before they crawl; cotton will open before it blooms; the watermelon will come before the vine; in fact, I look for it to be kind of spooky from now on."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/325780504/|title=9 Jul 1947, 3 - The Tampa Times at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref><ref name="UnivIowa"/>

===Occult===
{{see also|Interdimensional hypothesis}}
[[File:Olcott Besant Leadbeater.jpg|thumb|200px|Theosophists [[Annie Besant]],  [[Henry Olcott]] (left) and [[Charles Webster Leadbeater|Charles Leadbeater]] (right) popularized the mythical "[[etheric plane]]".]]
As early as July 4, occultists like [[Meade Layne]] claimed that the discs were occult or "etheric".<ref name="auto34"/><ref name="auto43">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_r4nAAAAYAAJ|title=UFO Religion: Inside Flying Saucer Cults and Culture|first=Gregory L.|last=Reece|date=August 15, 2007|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|isbn=9781845114510 |via=Google Books}}</ref>  Layne claimed to be in telepathic communication with "people in the saucers", arguing "it is possible for objects to pass from an etheric to a dense level of matter and will then appear to materialize. They then will return to [...] etheric conditions".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/788881393/|title=5 Jul 1947, 1 - The Herald-Sun at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref><ref name="auto43"/>  Layne claimed that "These visitors are not excarnate humans but are human beings living in their own world.  They come with good intent.  They have some idea of experimenting with earth life."<ref name="auto65">{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/788881408/|title=5 Jul 1947, 2 - The Herald-Sun at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>  The prior year, it had been reported that Layne consulted a medium who relayed communications from a "space ship named Careeta" that came to Earth from 'an unidentified planet'.<ref name="auto65"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/563072982/|title=15 Oct 1946, 1 - Hanford Morning Journal at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref><ref name="auto43"/>

===Esoteric===
{{main|Shaver Mystery}}
[[File:Amazing Stories August 1946 back cover.png|thumb|Nearly a year before the flying disc craze, ''Amazing Stories'' featured disc-shaped spacecraft.]]
During the mid-1940s, an obscure sub-culture developed around the science-fiction magazine [[Amazing Stories]] and its tales of [[Richard Sharpe Shaver]], claimed to be non-fictional.<ref name="auto8">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-mMtqtZMoNYC|title=War over Lemuria: Richard Shaver, Ray Palmer and the Strangest Chapter of 1940s Science Fiction|first=Richard|last=Toronto|date=April 25, 2013|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9780786473076 |via=Google Books}}</ref>  Since 1945, the magazine had published Shaver's claims to be in communication with subterranean beings concerned about atomic pollution who piloted disc-shaped craft.<ref name="auto10"/><ref name="auto8"/>

In the October 1947 issue of Amazing Stories, editor [[Raymond A. Palmer|Raymond Palmer]] argued the flying disc flap was proof of Richard Sharpe Shaver's claims.  That same issue carried a letter from Shaver in which he argued the truth behind the discs would remain a secret.<ref name="auto5">{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/Amazing_Stories_v21n10_1947-10_cape1736|title=Amazing Stories v21n10 (1947 10) (cape1736)|date=October 1947 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref><ref name="auto10"/>

Wrote Shaver: "The discs can be a space invasion, a secret new army plane — or a scouting trip by an enemy country...OR, they can be Shaver's space ships, taking off and landing regularly on earth for centuries past, and seen today as they have always been — as a mystery.  They could be leaving earth with cargos of wonder-mech that to us would mean emancipation from a great many of our worst troubles— and we'll never see those cargos...I predict that nothing more will be seen, and the truth of what the strange disc ships really are will never be disclosed to the common people. We just don't count to the people who do know about such things. It isn't necessary to tell us anything."<ref name="auto5"/><ref name="auto10"/><ref name="auto8"/>