In the weeks following the historic UFO sighting by Kenneth Arnold, many explanations surfaced for the reports of flying saucers. This was spoofed in a cartoon in the July 7, 1947 edition of The Times Record from Troy, New York:
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| The Times Record, Troy NY, July 7, 1947 |
The explanations offered ranged from the serious to the silly. STTF's Claude Falkstrom has collected some of the most notable ones from the summer of 1947.
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| The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 28, 1947 |
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| The Tennessean Sun, June 29, 1947 |
The Vought XF5U-1 "Flying Flapjack?"
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| Daily News, July 5, 1947 |
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| The Montana Standard, July 5, 1947 |
Atomic Experiments?
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| The Independent Record, July 6, 1947 |
Mass Hysteria?
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| Dr. Steckel v. Dr. Overholser |
Two psychiatrists gave their conflicting opinions on saucers, Dr. Harry A. Steckel v. Dr. Winfred Overholser on flying saucers as mass hysteria:
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| The News-Press, (Fort Myers, FL) July 7, 1947 |
Remotely-piloted Missiles, Corpuscles?
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| The Mexico Ledger, July 7, 1947, The Evening Sun, July 7, 1947 |
Optical Illusions and the Power of Suggestion?
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| The Milwaukee Sentinel, July 7, 1947 |
Meteors, Birds or Reflections?
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| The Ottawa Journal, July 7, 1947, Tampa Bay Times and The Evening Sun, July 9, 1947 |
Airborne Radioactive Waste?
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| The Daily Courier, July 10, 1947 |
Grain Silo Reflections?
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| The Sentinel, Carlisle PA, July 9, 1947 |
Several Silly Suggestions:
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| The Weekly Acadian, July 10, 1947 |
Entoptic Phenomena?
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| Tampa Bay Times, July 13, 1947 |
Fear-Inspired Folklore?
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| Messenger-Inquirer, July 20, 1947 |
Associated Press Science Editor, Howard W. Blakeslee wrote a long article on how the flying saucers might be a "new folklore in the making":
The flying disks are probably the first of a series of aerial puzzles, with others to come, in the opinion of Dr. J.L. Moreno, New York... Men have been seeing things like flying disks for centuries. Now these apparitions have a new meaning and some of them a new dreadfulness.
Industrial Waste?
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| The News Palladium, July 30, 1947 |
The Saucers That 1947 Forgot
By August of 1947, the flying saucer sensation was over, and the topic was spoken of in the past tense. The Gallup Poll asked "What do you think the saucers are?" After months of conflicting explanations, no one could be sure, but of the respondents who thought saucers were real, the top answer was military "secret weapon."
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| Aug. 15, 1947 |
When saucers were discussed, the idea lingered that the UFOs could be a secret military weapon, but there was no consensus on who was flying them.
The Soviets thought they were ours.
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| St. Clair Chronicle, Aug. 23, 1947 |
Oregon Representative Harris Ellsworth got word that behind the saucers story we might find a rocket from Russia.
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| The Freeport Journal-Standard, Dec. 22, 1947 |
Stories of saucer sightings, and various explanations from the credible to the crackpot variety, continued to make good copy. The newspapers continued to provide stories about flying saucers for their curious readers. It didn't much matter to the newspaper editors what was being seen, or whether it was real; saucers were news, and they sold news.
