1. Amanda D.
January 20, 2010
UFO
UFO sightings, have been being claimed for many centuries. They even begin to relate back to
Mesopotamian times, where people claimed to see weird lights in the sky. However in the 1940’s and from there
on, UFO claims began to come in through the roof. A particular incident that started the wave was in 1947 when
Kenneth Arnold claimed a sighting of UFO’s that eventually reached national media.
One night Mr. Arnold was in his plane looking for a friend who had gone missing, when all of a sudden a
strange series of lights began to occur. He said "The first thing I noticed was a series of flashes in my eyes as if a
mirror was reflecting sunlight at me... " After that strange occurrence he realized that there were some silver
things flying at approximately 1,200 mph, and at about 10,000 altitude. As he looked and strained his eyes even
more he said that the flying object looked like a pie plate. When he landed and began to tell his story people came
to the term of a flying saucer and chalked up what he saw to UFO’s. When the government got word through the
media of this story, they began to try and cover it up. Form that day on Mr. Arnold and his UFO sighting was kept
quiet and put into the governments Project Blue Book.
Many other strange incidents have occurred with different sighting and such. It is said that in this book
the government has over 800 sightings recorded. One of the very famous stories of UFO’s come from New
Hampshire where Betty and Barney Hill claimed that they were abducted by aliens on September 19, 1961 at
about 10:15 P.M. The story goes that they were on their way driving home, when all of a sudden they see a gray
thing with lots of windows and a person in it floating above them. It is then said that somehow they landed 35
miles away from where they had been. When hypnosis specialist began to analyze this they called the two victims
in and set out on a course to find out what really happened. Through many sessions this is the story that was
developed.
“He began by hypnotizing Barney, then Betty. Over the next six months, the story of the two hours of
missing time began to emerge. Betty and Barney Hill told of being stopped at a roadblock and being taken onto the
UFO, where they were given medical examinations before being returned to their car. Betty reported being shown a
"star map" that was later interpreted to mean that the aliens came from Zeta Reticuli.” Some skeptics think that
this story just emerged from movies that were being released at the time about aliens and UFO’s, but others
didn’t. Once again the government stepped in a tried to cover it up, but the problem was so many people had
heard about this occurrence that the government tried to make Betty and Barney seem crazy, but of course not
everyone believed that.
Stories such as these two have been going on for many years. With all of the conflicting evidence and the
work of the government, it is truly hard for me to choose whether to believe this or not. My feelings on these
issues are very mixed, in one way I think that the humans telling these stories could just really be making it up for
publicity. Also, the other side of me is saying why would the government go to great lengths to conceal their
evidence, if it really wasn’t real? Our universe is very massive, and the arrogance that us human beings must have
to think that we are the only living things is very pathetic. So who is to say that other “humans” don’t exist and
these UFO’s are not real?
Bibliography
Booth, Billy. "1947-The Kenneth Arnold Sighting." UFOs and Aliens. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2010.
<http://ufos.about.com/od/bestufocasefiles/p/arnold.htm>.
Flume, the time they reached the. "The Hill Abduction - UFO Evidence." UFO Evidence. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan.
2010. <http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents
History of UFO's." Official NICAP Web Site. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2010.
<http://www.nicap.org/ufoscience/history/history-home.html>.