Are UFOs real? Maybe, says historian

August 30, 2010 – KINDERHOOK — We may not be able to identify unidentified flying objects, but that doesn’t mean they’re not real. That was the gist of a talk by historian John Horner Saturday at Kinderhook Memorial Library.

“I believe they’re real,” he said. “There’s a strong body of evidence. I don’t buy the extraterrestrial hypothesis. I believe they are as yet unknown phenomena.”

Horner led an overflowing audience through the history of sightings in the U.S., beginning with the first major sighting in 1896 in San Francisco. Since there were no airplanes at that time, the Sacramento Bee used nautical or railroad terms to describe it, like “air brakes,” “boat-shaped hull” or “steam-powered,” referring to the most technologically sophisticated vehicles of the day.

Reports of early sightings often described the occupant of the vessel as a “lone inventor,” a description that reflects figures like Eli Whitney, Robert Fulton and Thomas Edison. “It was believable to the people at the time,” Horner said. “We have a strong belief in technology and industry. The fact that it occurred in the U.S. made it more believable.”

Soon the Wright Brothers came along, and then World War I “changed everything in our perception of technology,” he said. “Death from the sky was now a reality.”

Orson Welles’ 1938 radio broadcast “The War of the Worlds,” although it included a disclaimer at the beginning of the show, pretended to be a news account of the invasion of Earth from outer space. The panicked reaction to the show is evidence to Horner of how much currency the idea of UFOs had. “For the panic to reach this extent, it had to be believable,” he said.