Post by hi224 on Dec 12, 2019 7:09:43 GMT
In 1946, just after the end of the second world war, heretofore unknown things were seen in the sky, most notably over Sweden (but to a lesser extent over Norway, Belgium, Portugal, and Greece.) The most common description was of streaking rocket-like objects, some with wings and some without. They appeared singly or in formations; some moved fast and some more slowly. On several occasions they were seen to crash (often in lakes, most famously in Kölmjärv) but investigation of the crash sites was invariably inconclusive,with evidence that something had impacted, but no clearly identifiable debris. Local military officials denied any knowledge of what the objects were, and governments were concerned over the potential airspace violations.
Speculation at the time centered around the possibility of captured Nazi weaponry being tested by the Soviet Union, but this theory has been debunked. Some of the sightings have been suggested to have been meteors, and there were brief spikes in sighting frequency around the time of the Perseid meteor shower; but many of the sightings do not seem to fit this explanation. A military communique from the time contains some amusingly bizarre speculation, with perhaps one of the first occurrences of the phrase "flying saucer" ever to appear in print. Brian Dunning has suggested that some of the sightings were of high-altitude contrails from ordinary aircraft (something new at the time and not so familiar as today.) But the objects reported crashing into lakes, maneuvering in low-altitude formation, or hovering do not seem to fit this description, either. The sightings largely ceased after the end of 1946, although there is an odd story about a single incident in 1980 which seems curiously reminiscent of the earlier tales. To this day, at least some of these sightings remain unexplained.
Further reading:
Wikipedia article
Speculation at the time centered around the possibility of captured Nazi weaponry being tested by the Soviet Union, but this theory has been debunked. Some of the sightings have been suggested to have been meteors, and there were brief spikes in sighting frequency around the time of the Perseid meteor shower; but many of the sightings do not seem to fit this explanation. A military communique from the time contains some amusingly bizarre speculation, with perhaps one of the first occurrences of the phrase "flying saucer" ever to appear in print. Brian Dunning has suggested that some of the sightings were of high-altitude contrails from ordinary aircraft (something new at the time and not so familiar as today.) But the objects reported crashing into lakes, maneuvering in low-altitude formation, or hovering do not seem to fit this description, either. The sightings largely ceased after the end of 1946, although there is an odd story about a single incident in 1980 which seems curiously reminiscent of the earlier tales. To this day, at least some of these sightings remain unexplained.
Further reading:
Wikipedia article