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SODA POP UFOLOGY

Ron Patton | July 5, 2011

SODA POP UFOLOGY

During my Friday night broadcast of July 1st, 2011 I was speaking about troop movements that were reported all over the south and towards the nation’s capital. It was a show where I needed feedback on what could be happening and trying to test the waters top see if anyone was feeling that during the 4th of July weekend or after there would be action taking place between our nation and a nation that wants to spread terrorism again.
We should always be vigilant and as I had said to a caller that questioned my motives, a surge of military activity could mean that soldiers are heading to 4th of July celebrations to fire cannons or even participate in parades.

What I didn’t plan on was a panicked call from a listener who said that there were 12 -15 bright red lights swooping passed her window. I encouraged them to take out their cell phone and record the event. They obliged and then loaded the video on to You Tube. While I could see in the video that there were a few lights to the distance in formation, others wanted to downplay the event as nothing interesting as if they were hoping for something over the top.
Let’s face it , I have tried to take pictures on my cell phones of UFO’s and have got nothing, even in broad daylight, so receiving a video of any kind in my opinion was amazing! I was impressed by the formation and how you could see landmarks and how the lights were moving across the horizon and at least two disappeared quickly in the brush.
While the documented video looked like two lights, or perhaps planes, there were several other calls to the show saying that there were some strange lights in the sky that did not look like fireworks.
There was a report of at least one or two red lights in the sky and a light that looked silvery and red blue. Not like a plane but as if it was revolving or churning out brilliant light. I asked if they could mistake the lights for fireworks and they all said that it was a clear night and that no large fireworks were seen in the sky.
A truck driver who called himself Joseph said that he was on the Washington side of the Columbia when se saw the lights. He grabbed his I-phone and got at least three good pictures of what appears to be a red light and the silvery weird light with a bit of red in it.


Many people saw the lights and while no one claimed any alien or extraterrestrial contact, they did say that the lights were eerie and they looked nothing like conventional aircraft or fireworks,
However one thing that troubled me is how a few people became uncomfortable with the report. Not that they were frightened, they seem pretty much annoyed at the fact that I am giving the report any attention at all.
I was told that not every light that is seen in the sky should be talked about.
Well I beg to differ, when my radio show is immediately hijacked with matters of a UFO sighting over the Northwest. Especially when the Northwest is the very area where the first UFOI’s of the Modern era were first called flying saucers by the press.
It seems that 1947 was the year the UFO pre history in the United States was centered in the Areas of Washington and Oregon.
On June 21, 1947 Harold A. Dahl was cruising in a boat that he operated with his partner Fred L. Crisman. During the afternoon Dahl and his 15-year-old son were in the Puget Sound area near Maury Island Washington when they spotted six round objects that looked like flying doughnuts.
The doughnuts were circling one that looked like it was in trouble. It started sinking towards the boat. As the unknown aircraft was spinning it began to emit hot metal. The metal hit the boat and some of the slag burned his son. Other white hot metal ejecta landed and killed a dog that was on board. Dahl pulled towards Maury Island and began taking pictures of the event with a camera.
Dahl tried to radio for help, but it seemed that while the objects were overhead, the radio had too much interference and so the radio was of no use to the panicked harbor patrolman and his boy. Dahl took his son to Tacoma to treat his burns. He then told his partner Fred Crisman that the metal that damaged the boat was caused by some unidentified craft.
Later Dahl was visited by what could only be described as a stereotypical Man in Black. That man wore the black suit and also drove a brand-new 1947 Buick sedan. The MIB treated Dahl to Breakfast at a waterfront cafe and then after their meeting threatened Dahl. The MIB was also a witness to the UFO sighting and told Dahl that if he loved his family he would keep his mouth shut about the whole event.
Dahl Told Crisman again and Crisman demanded the photographic evidence. The film was useless. All of the exposures were fogged. Crisman then went to Maury Island and claimed that there was metal slag strewn all over the Island. While he was surveying the area a similar Doughnut shaped craft came roaring out of the clouds. Needless to say Crisman finally became a firm believer in Dahl’s story.
On June 24, 1947 Roy Timm a 12 year old boy and his 18 year old brother were working on their Pendleton Oregon Ranch. His mother was on the porch observing he and his brother raising the telephone lines in front of the house in order to make room for hay trucks that pass through. Suddenly, three saucer shaped objects appeared in the sky above their ranch. The Objects whizzed by at a low altitude. Roy recalls that they were so low that he and his family could see windows along the side. They claim the saucers came from the southeast.
The next day the papers reported that a pilot saw nine objects in the sky above Mount Rainier. The Associated press released this article on June 25th, 1947.
PENDELTON, Ore., June 25 (AP) — Nine bright saucer-like objects flying at “incredible speed” at 10,000 feet altitude were reported here today by Kenneth Arnold, a Boise, Idaho, pilot who said he could not hazard a guess as to what they were.
Arnold, a United States Forest Service employee engaged in searching for a missing plane, said he sighted the mysterious objects yesterday at 3 P.M. They were flying between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, in Washington State, he said, and appeared to weave in and out of formation. Arnold said he clocked and estimated their speed at 1,200 miles an hour.
This was the story that gave birth to the term “flying saucer.” A rash of UFO’s seen in the Northwest in 1947 long before anything ended up in the Roswell Record. However contrary to popular belief the objects seen by Arnold were not saucers at all. In 1977 a memoir of the incident was given by Arnold for the First International UFO Congress. In a statement Arnold revealed that the flying saucer label came about because of a mistake. The reporter for the press, Bill Bequette asked him how the objects flew and Arnold answered that, “Well, they flew erratic, like a saucer if you skip it across the water.” He used a metaphor to describe the objects and so the term was a misunderstanding. Arnold stated countless times that the objects “were not circular.”
A few quotes from Arnold show that there was a great deal of UFO activity in the skies of the Northwest on that day in 1947:
“There was a DC-4 to the left and to the rear of me approximately fifteen miles distance, and I should judge, at 14,000 foot elevation. The sky and air was clear as crystal. I hadn’t flown more than two or three minutes on my course when a bright flash reflected on my airplane. It startled me as I thought I was too close to some other aircraft.
I looked every place in the sky and couldn’t find where the reflection had come from until I looked to the left and the north of Mt. Rainier where I observed a chain of nine peculiar looking aircraft flying from north to south at approximately 9,500 foot elevation and going, seemingly, in a definite direction of about 170 degrees.
They were approaching Mt. Rainier very rapidly, and I merely assumed they were jet planes. Anyhow, I discovered that this was where the reflection had come from, as two or three of them every few seconds would dip or change their course slightly, just enough for the sun to strike them at an angle that reflected brightly on my plane. These objects being quite far away, I was unable for a few seconds to make out their shape or their formation.
Very shortly they approached Mt. Rainier, and I observed their outline against the snow quite plainly. I thought it was very peculiar that I couldn’t find their tails but assumed they were some type of jet plane. I was determined to clock their speed, as I had two definite points I could clock them by; the air was so clear that it was very easy to see objects and determine their approximate shape and size at almost fifty miles that day.”-Kenneth Arnold
A few weeks later a crash of a “flying disc” was later reported in New Mexico near Roswell. However after later research this so called saucer was definitely not a saucer but a craft that looked more like a flying chevron aircraft. The focus on the Roswell case and the strange craft that crashed there was an eager interest into the origins of where these craft had come from. Were they from another world? Or were they secret experimental craft that would eventually be revealed at a later date, or during a later military conflict
After listening to the odd reports from 1947 on through to 1957 I can assure everyone that the saucers were taken very seriously. They were prevalent in the pop culture through movies, television and there were many songs heard on the radio about satellites, rockets and even flying saucers.
People were seeing them everywhere and the Air-force and the media was responsible for the mass hysteria to some degree. The whole UFO phenomenon today has become well settled in the collective consciousness. The only problem is that the mainstream narrative has never been quite clear on the definition of UFO and the public perception now has been that whenever a UFO is seen it is assumed that upon the first observation people have resolved that it is a craft from outer-space, or piloted by space aliens.
This is unfortunate because there aren’t that many definitions to hand out regarding the aircraft and the media tends to create a “soda pop Ufology” that tends to cheapen or otherwise sensationalize the entire study without realizing that many people are only questioning what they saw and most of the time have already concluded that what they saw may have been a plane, firework , or something else easily explained.
It seems to be a sick ritual. The UFO is caught on film or recorded, it is posted on the Internet or it is picked up by the media. Witnesses say that they had no idea what it was. Then the media calls in a paid skeptic to write it off or armchair skeptics have to put in their 2 cents by being overly critical about a few blips in the air. It is the most predictable action that continues now, However in the infancy of the modern UFO era, during the cold war many people were not laughing. While some held on to their alien explanations, others saw the UFOs as a thrat to national security, and a threat to their lives.
The debate continues over exactly what the truth is behind the sightings of anomalous objects that are above the earth. The U.S. Air force has explained on many occasions that a lot of what is seen can be explained. However with the obsession of extraterrestrial mythology and reality, every bright light, shooting star, experimental plane, and weather anomaly can end up on the front pages of tabloid newspapers and on special fringe news programs labeled as bonafide extra terrestrial craft with the acronym UFO attached to it.
Special effects wizards can create on a computer grid, creatures that once occupied our darkest nightmares from dinosaurs to slimy tentacled aliens with acidic blood and gnashing teeth.
They are fun to watch with a fist full of popcorn at a matinee but when they are made to deliberately fool you then we start to see the devaluing of the subject matter.
I enjoy Science fiction myself and I embrace the enduring wonder and the introduction of aliens in the pop culture, however not everyone is enchanted by Star Wars or the geekiness of Star Trek. People complain that every where they look there is a buggy-eyed alien looking back at them.
The end result is future shock, a term that is applicable when we begin to have media bombard us with one particular way of thinking. This creates a tune out factor and prejudice that blocks out any information that may be valuable.
This is unfortunate. The UFO has lost its charm in some circles and many people are distancing themselves from the cartoonish alien Greys that have now made their way into beer commercials and ads for fast food.
This may be tainting serious research and creating a bit of noise that detours the researcher from taking baby steps in gathering sound research in order to form a detailed hypothesis about such matters.
It is now harder to make a wise decision about Ufology when there are so many people out there willing to fake data and distract from the embracing of the illusive mystery of the whole phenomenon.

Written by Ron Patton




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