It was only recently when I was posting the pics for Project Spaceman - Metal Men and I included the picture of Rotons Flying Saucer that it occured to me that there were loads of toys made in the shape of flying suacers, or UFOs. Im very keen on the history and background of ufos and came across this very informative 'UFO Timeline' - http://xenophilius.wordpress.com/xenos-ufo-timeline/ on the strange science website.The term 'flying saucer' came about when Kenneth Arnold witnessed several objects from an airliner window - which looked like "saucers skipping across a pond" (sic). Popular culture seized this image and it was further embellished by the infamous Roswell incident.
In actual fact, what Arnold (lower pic) saw was a crescent shaped aircraft:
Jun 24, 1947: In daylight, Kenneth Arnold sees nine unusual objects flying in a chain near Mount Rainier Washington. Sighting by Kenneth Arnold which popularized the term, “Flying Saucer” resembled the Horten wing. Arnold believed he witnessed experimental aircraft and said he saw glass cockpits.
The german aerodynamic engineers, the Horten Bros had experimented with parabolic wing (top pic) aircraft around the end of the second world war and a lot of secret files and experimental prototypes were both seized and 'imported' into the US during the allied relief of Nazi Germany and with Operation Paperclip, which brought german scientists over to the US government and recruited Werner Von Braun, the father of the US Space Programme.
However, the popular image of a saucer remains !
Is that a T in a Circle logo on that Flying Saucer!?£"!?
ReplyDeleteActually, Arnold viewed the objects while piloting his personal aircraft. Interesting that the term flying saucer was derived from the flight characteristics of the objects rather than their shape. Great stuff!
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