Article by David MacQuarrie November 10, 2020 (dronedj.com)
• In 1938, actor/ director Orson Welles frightened listeners with his Halloween prank radio broadcast of a Martian invasion in War of the Worlds. For years after that, the skies remained more or less clear of extraterrestrial menace. Then in 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold says he spotted flying objects skipping like saucers over the Cascade Mountain Range near Seattle. This time there was no Orson Welles to blame it on. UFOs became part of the cultural landscape. When we see lights in the sky, they’re usually blamed on the planet Venus, aircraft, oddball reflections or swamp gas (uh, swamp gas?) Still, there is a minority of reports that defy easy explanation.
• Drones have become the go-to explanation for any mysterious lights in the sky. This month, people were startled to see mysterious lights in the skies over Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But they turned out to be drones practicing for a Christmas Pageant light show over a festival park. People in New Jersey reporting a UFO were told it was a police drone. Factories in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, China have filled the skies with hundreds of thousands drones.
• “A significant amount of UFOs that we investigate are hobby drones,” said Ken Jordan, Texas’ chief of investigations for the international Mutual UFO Network. A high-flying aircraft moving at impossible speeds can be mistaken for a low-flying drone puttering along at 20 k/h. Acrobatics that seem to defy the laws of physics are now on routine display at drone airshows, no extraterrestrial technology needed.
• Even when the New York Times published US Navy videos of strange objects flying off the East Coast of the US, the Navy pilots assumed they were drones. They didn’t especially look like drones, but really what else could they be? Perhaps the mothership is parked ominously just behind the Moon and is sending its vile horde of drone-shaped legions toward our unsuspecting planet. Perhaps we should be vigilant like the character Ned Scott in The Thing from Another World: “Keep watching the skies”. But if you do see something up there, it’s probably just a drone.
This month, mysterious lights startled some people looking to the skies in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Readers of this
website will already know there is no mystery; the UFO lights at Maier Festival Park were just drones practicing for a Christmas Pageant light show.
But there’s a long history of alarming lights in the sky and earthlings assuming it just can’t be good.
Actor/ Director Orson Welles frightened many listeners in 1938 with his Halloween prank radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. It’s controversial just how many people actually feared Martian invasion. But a lot of listeners felt silly once the hoax was revealed, and CBS fought at least one lawsuit. For years after that, the skies remained more or less clear of extraterrestrial menace.
Until 1947. That’s when pilot Kenneth Arnold says he spotted flying objects skipping like saucers over the Cascade Range near Seattle. This time there was no Orson Welles to ‘fess up. UFOs were with us and became part of the cultural landscape.
Most turn out to be sightings of the planet Venus, aircraft, oddball reflections or swamp gas. (Really? Who’s fooled by swamp gas?)
Still, there was always a tiny minority of reports that defied easy explanation.
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