r/HighStrangeness • u/MKULTRA_Escapee • Jun 24 '23
"UFO shapes changed over time" seems to be a myth Discussion
You'll often see people claim things, often in the form of a question, such as "why did UFO shapes change since the 60s," or "why do UFOs follow our technological progression," but I don't think the main premise in these questions is true.
(To be clear, I'm not claiming that this "changing UFO" phenomenon isn't true in any fashion. Presumably, some percentage of UFO photos and descriptions would be hoaxes, and hoaxers are likely to get their ideas from movies and the like, so you probably should see at least some change here and there, but overall, provided that the obvious hoaxes can be ignored, this narrative isn't accurate.)
There isn't any difference at all if we're talking general shapes (disc, triangle, cigar/tic tac, sphere, balls of light, etc). What people will often claim is that "triangles replaced the discs" or some variation like that. However, this doesn't seem to be true. At best, the percentage of total reports of triangles and discs changed, not the presence of the discs or triangles themselves. This holds true for pretty much every major kind of UFO.
According to Nasa's Richard Stothers (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies), "the UFO phenomenon, whatever it may be due to, has not changed much over two millennia" (click PDF). https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/st02710y.html He cites some choice examples, but you can find a lot more out there.
For example, the standard, and now more common triangle with a light on each tip, often with an orange/red one in the center, was first spotted in 1960. Links on that: https://np.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/onj9m3/a_brief_history_of_triangular_uaps/h5s3wfw/ An additional triangle without any lights from 1950 also provided, but you can find plenty of others.
This same triangular object described above caused the 1989 Belgian UFO wave, and was also allegedly photographed by a military pilot a few years ago (minus the red central light). In fact, both the 1960 triangle and the 1989 triangle even shares the same curious characteristic of the triangle strangely "pointing up" on occasion for some reason. The Belgian Wave.
And discs are still seen recently. For examples, you can find a bunch on NUFORC extending up to this year and last year. For imagery, a disc was videoed in 2007: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obVsLOiqeC4 and another one photographed in 2007: https://web.archive.org/web/20130408231506/http://www.ufoevidence.org/photographs/section/recent/Photo416.htm Another one was videoed in 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhCiRwyJLI8
[NOTE: with imagery, especially for the examples provided above, it must be mentioned that the majority of debunks are false. Not only are most of them mutually exclusive if there is more than one for a case, they are almost always based on a coincidence argument. Here is a detailed explanation for how and why these kinds of coincidence arguments appear to be convincing, but often don't hold any water. For examples, here are 8 debunks for the Calvine photo. Here are 13 debunks for the Turkey UFO incident. Notice almost every single one of these is both based on a coincidence and they are mutually exclusive. This obviously demonstrates that coincidences are extremely easy to find in a UFO case, and they typically have nothing whatsoever to do with the authenticity of the imagery.]
Even UFO crashes allegedly from extraterrestrials complete with strange writing resembling hieroglyphics extends back over 80 years at least before Roswell. Here is a UFO crash from 1864 hypothesized at the time to originate from extraterrestrials (labeled 1865 possibly erroneously): https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84027008/1865-11-05/ed-1/?sp=3&st=text&clip=31%2C24%2C1009%2C5069&ciw=1009&rot=0 (here is an archived link if that doesn't work, and it was discussed here on Patrick Gross's website)
What about aliens that exit a spacecraft and walk around? 1896: "THREE STRANGE VISITORS Who Possibly Came From the Planet Mars Seen on a Country Road by Colonel H.G. Shaw and a Companion" https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/airship/25nov1896-lodi-california.htm
Is the tic tac a new UFO? No. This thread has some examples of cigar/tic tac/egg shaped UFOs dating from 1873 to modern times: https://np.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/nh4l36/reminder_the_only_thing_new_about_the_tictac/
Balls of light that zip around in the sky recorded by Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor in the 1600s. https://np.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/10c0z1g/ufo_sightings_recorded_by_massachusetts_bay/
1561 Celestial Phenomenon over Nuremberg, spheres, cigars, and an "arrowhead-shaped" black flying object: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over_Nuremberg
Here's a very interesting luminous UFO that had a "door" that opened up from the 11th century China, then it took off "at a tremendous speed," recorded by polymathic scientist Shen Kuo, who gathered reports of it: https://np.reddit.com/r/aliens/comments/cjd2pk/11th_century_ufo_sighting_reported_by_chinese/
Another similar myth out there argues that such objects are not actually disc-shaped because the disc was an erroneous description promulgated by the media after misinterpreting what Kenneth Arnold described.
Arnold claimed he saw 9 objects, 8 essentially discs and one possibly crescent shaped, but it could have been due to the angle it was viewed at. When he described the disks, he used the description "convex triangle at the rear," but I believe a lot of people mistook that to mean "concave," as if crescent shaped. You can find mainstream media articles and the like that contributed to this myth that Arnold claimed he saw crescent objects, plural, but it's nonsense.
However, earlier stories did in fact credit Arnold with using terms such as "saucer", "disk", and "pie-pan" in describing the shape. (see quotations further below) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold_UFO_sighting#Publicity_and_origins_of_term_%22flying_saucer%22
See here for more information: https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2015/07/flying-saucers-and-kenneth-arnold.html
At best, what happened is Arnold got spooked by the "saucer hysteria" that developed over the years and decided he needed to distance himself from it because it was embarrassing, so he decided to focus on one object that he later claimed may have been crescent-shaped. As everyone knows, when a guy catches a fish, the first time he tells the story, it's a decent sized fish, but as the years go on, that fish just keeps getting bigger and bigger after he keeps recalling it. After a period of time, Arnold eventually posed in front of a drawing someone made of a crescent-shaped object, which was the drawing that was boosted in the media.
So what did he actually see? Because he needed a way of understanding why it was in the air, his brain may have added a tiny bit of "wing" and something of a minute "tail" to it to comprehend it (my personal speculation).
As he says, he saw no tail (a vertical tail I believe he was referring to here), but at the time he thought there could be a tail there that blended in with the mountains because it theoretically could have been painted the same color as the mountains, so it's already established that he was making assumptions about the object that he wasn't himself witnessing to understand why it was flying.
Referring back to his original drawing to the Army, you'll notice it's like 95 percent of a flying disc. So the three available options are: 1) those objects looked exactly as he described and many other subsequent reports were drawn and described about 5 percent inaccurately. 2) Arnold did see virtually perfect disks, but since the idea was not in his head, his brain changed the appearance of the objects by 5 percent in his memory to understand them as described above. Or 3) something in between and both are wrong by maybe 2.5 percent. Either way, the prevailing narratives supporting the "crescent" myth are so far removed from what happened, I'm surprised they've kept it going this long when his original drawing is available in numerous places online. Everyone should agree that the closer in time a report and drawing is made to an event, the more accurate it likely is.
Aside from that, you can find flying disc reports going much further back before Kenneth Arnold, so the entire point is moot anyhow. Even if you somehow disagree and still believe that Arnold saw 9 crescent-shaped objects that he himself didn't even claim, it would simply be a coincidence that the media got it right after misinterpreting his description.
Thanks for reading.
Edit: removed a bad link.
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u/ryanscott6 Jun 25 '23
Am in the middle of reading Dimensions by Jacques Vallee and it's very relevant to the topic. He talks about written account of flying "earthenware potty" way back in the 1100s in Japan.
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u/MKULTRA_Escapee Jun 25 '23
That book was awesome. The similarities throughout history goes far beyond simple objects in the sky. You might like Charles Fort's books as well. I think it was in Fort's Lo! where I read about a few "jetpack man" sightings from the late 1800s, early 1900s. Look around and you can find a bunch of old flying humanoid cases, witches, etc. Half the time you can't tell if it's just another tale or what.
Another type I've been trying to look into is the MIB phenomenon. I'll share one.
Charles Fort, in Lo! (1931):
The most circumstantial of the stories appears in the Journal S. P. R., November, 1893. Miss M. Scott writes that, upon the afternoon of the 7th of May, 1893, between five and six o'clock, she was walking upon a road, near St. Boswells (Roxburghshire) when she saw ahead of her a tall man, who, dressed in black, looked like a clergyman. There is no assertion that this "figure" looked ghostly, and there is a little circumstance that indicates that the "figure," or the living being, was looked at more than casually. Having considerable distance to go, Miss Scott started to run: but it occurred to her that it would not be dignified to run past this stranger: so she stood still, to let the distance increase. She saw the clerical-looking man turn a corner of the road, the upper part of his body visible above a low hedge—"he was gone in an instant." Not far beyond this vanishing point, Miss Scott met her sister, who was standing in the road, looking about her in bewilderment, exclaiming that she had seen a man disappear, while she was looking at him.
Another book has this as occurring in 1892. I'm not sure which is correct because I couldn't find the original source that was cited. You can read the passage here: https://imgur.com/a/geFzhAm An excerpt:
Miss Scott encountered the strange clergyman again on Sunday June 12th, and this time decided to pursue the man in order to get a closer look at him, only to find that "though he was apparently walking slowly, I never could get any closer than within a few yards for in a moment he seemed to float or skim away."
This description is very reminiscent of modern MIB encounters from the appearance and outdated/strange outfit, and the description of the movement is similar to some alien sightings. They are often described as floating slightly to move around, or moving quickly, but in "slow motion," etc.
Here is the book (Scroll up a few pages to find it)
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u/uzi_loogies_ Nov 21 '23
Half the time you can't tell if it's just another tale or what.
Humans repeat what they see.
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u/Vincefinney1909 Jul 07 '23
My favorite r/ufo poster will always be mk ultraescape thanks for all your contributions
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u/Theagenes1 Jun 27 '23
This is an excellent analysis, especially the breakdown of Arnold's account and his story as it slightly changes over the years. Some of this may be due to the fact that Ray Palmer, the editor of Fate magazine, was the one primarily publishing Arnold's written accounts from 1948 to 1952. The Shaver Mystery shows that Palmer was not shy with his editorial hand.
On the shape of the objects that he saw, I tend to think at least the eight similar objects were the truncated disc or shoe heel shape that he described, primarily because of the Rhodes photos from Arizona a couple of weeks later:
You could suggest that Rhodes was hoaxing based Arnold's description, except that the description most people were hearing about in the papers was saucer or pie pan. I don't believe his drawing that he made for the investigators that you show here had been made public yet.
The famous cover of the first issue of Fate magazine in 1948, which published the first full length article by Arnold, is based on his description:
Also, just an observation, looking at the Rhodes photos, I think it's possible that if it were turned at the right angle I could see how it might be mistaken for the crescent or batwing shaped object that he saw as well. In other words they may have all had the same shape but one of them was turned at a different angle. Alternatively, it could be as he said and one of them really was a different shape. That's not uncommon with sightings over the ages as well.
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u/FamiliarSomeone Jun 24 '23
This is useful, thank you. Is it possible that it is a language issue? Geometrical shapes, colours and lights are a common feature throughout history, but the analogy of what the phenomena is compared to changes as technology advances. What interests me more is the appearance of beings who accompany such phenomena who do seem to have adapted their appearance at times to the historical and cultural period. I do not know if this is framing by the people who experience them or if they actually transform to suit expectations. There does seem to be evidence of an interplay of expectation and reality in my view, but I will consider your evidence and the links you posted.
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u/MKULTRA_Escapee Jun 24 '23
Yes, this is an excellent point. I do agree, as I stated, that you can find some kinds of "change over time" throughout the reports, but this doesn't apply to the shapes of the objects, at least if we're talking about the 6 or so main shapes.
The language issue is a perfect explanation for that if we assume that such examples are actually true. For example, in the 1800s, perhaps somebody describes an object as having propellers, but in reality, perhaps it was just some circular thing on the object that appeared to be propellers. In those days, propellers were a propulsion concept in both air and water that people were aware of, so to them, propellers on the object would make sense. They may not have actually seen propellers, but they interpreted what they saw as such.
To make things a little more complicated, there is the additional possibility of humans themselves creating airships that the population didn't know about, or that were lost to history. Human-created objects will obviously "change over time" as our technology changes. Those two issues, along with the fact that in some of the reports, it's difficult to decide whether it was made up or not, makes reading these reports tedious, but nobody told me it was going to be simple.
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u/hipeakservices Jun 24 '23
the representation of humans and animals varies widely depending on the time. take a look at all the representations of the native people of Hawaii: you'll see illustrations that aren't realistic or that match pictures of white people. these can't be relied on as accurate.
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u/FamiliarSomeone Jun 25 '23
I guess there are two things going on here. One is the style of illustration of the period, the quality of the artist, artists on expeditions were not always that great, and ideology of the time. When we look at some illustrations of animals first encountered such as giraffes and crocodiles, the animal is recognisable but it is not exactly accurate. I am not sure accuracy was important to them as much as now though.
https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/1224460/view/giraffe-17th-century-illustration
The other is that even today in encounters witnesses of the same event actually experience the sighting in different ways. Take the Ariel School sighting where there were multiple witnesses, most saw something similar but a few had a different experience. This has often been ignored by researchers as conflicting stories would seem to invalidate the event. However, when you look more closely experience often varies. Of course, memory is not reliable and in such situations is open to confabulation, but it is an area worthy of further investigation if we are to pin down what the phenomena is, rather than what we think it is.
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u/hipeakservices Jun 25 '23
there is a great essay by W.S. Merwin on the ephemerality of the plants drawn by Sydney Parkinson, the young artist on the Endeavor: how there was a race against time to capture the attributes of the plants before they withered.
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u/sirlanceolate Jun 25 '23
This same triangular object described above caused the 1989 Belgian UFO wave
this is not honest and accurate reporting
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u/MKULTRA_Escapee Jun 25 '23
Where is the difference? The position of the lights are the same, the color of the inside light is the same, the color of the outside lights almost the same (blue and white aren’t much different light descriptions), the behavior is the same (take off at high speed, hover, occasionally nose pointing up, silent), and both had military witnesses (people who are familiar with regular aircraft), so I don’t see why you wouldn’t assume one is probably the same as the other. There are far too many things consistent between them.
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u/sirlanceolate Jun 26 '23 edited Jun 26 '23
is every ford mustang in the world the same car?
it would be best to say "Objects with apparently similar features were featured in the 1989 Belgian UFO Wave reports".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave
This same triangular object described above caused the 1989 Belgian UFO wave
Edit: To explain a little further - the use of "same" implies it is the same individual craft/object, which then "caused" the UFO wave like it was alien James Bond or something
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u/MKULTRA_Escapee Jun 26 '23
Right. I see your point, but because that 1960 case is almost dead on accurate for some of the descriptions for the Belgian Wave, factoring in very minute perception differences, such as the fact that a single light, if it’s the right color, could be interpreted as either blue or white, we actually don’t know if it’s the same exact object or not. Hell, it could be, and even if the lights really were a different color, you just assume it was a US aircraft and they used different colored lights after changing them out.
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u/Revolutionary-Box404 Jun 25 '23
If helps at all, I've seen the bottom part of a classical looking flying disk last April.
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Jun 24 '23
This just came up definitely an attempt at misinformation. Inconsistency means either sightings are fabricated or changing covert government technology. In fact over centuries the same various shapes are described: disc, bell, cigar/tictac, etc.
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u/Constant-Signal-2058 Jun 24 '23
The pics sure do look different over time. I thinks that’s mostly what the average person, like myself, is looking at. Idk one way or the other. Again though, the pics from the 70s just look different. I understand the claim.
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u/MKULTRA_Escapee Jun 24 '23 edited Jun 24 '23
I'll have to respectfully disagree. The biggest issue is trying to figure out what was a hoax or not, but even if we ignore that, there are plenty of different UFOs that are represented in multiple decades.
From the information in my post: 1) The specific triangle with three lights, one on each tip has been around for at least 61 years. 2) Spheres have been around for many hundreds of years. 3) Balls of light that zip around have been around for many hundreds of years. Cigar-shaped UFOs have been around for at least 150 years.
Here are like 500 photos: UFOevidence archive. Keep clicking 'next' to scroll through the archive, or mess around with the menu on the side to sort them. UFO casebook (2011 is broken, so use this link for that year), Patrick Gross archive, BlackVault daytime archive, BlackVault night time archive, Wendlle Stevens archive.
Examples of the disc with a flat bottom and a "ping pong ball on top" specifically (24 year span):
1954 - Sicily, Italy, December 10. https://www.ufocasebook.com/sicilyitaly1954large.jpg
1964- witnessed in California, described by Professor Robert Jacobs and Major F.J. Mansmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4wL4lbwwNU&t=22s
1971 - Costa Rica, September 4 - photo taken by an official mapping aircraft of the Costa Rican government https://www.unilad.com/news/new-version-of-best-picture-of-a-ufo-ever-has-been-released-20220507
Striking similarity between drawing of UFO from Westall 1966 and John Lennon's sketch from his 1974 sighting: https://np.reddit.com/r/aliens/comments/b06lxp/striking_similarity_between_john_lennons_nyc_ufo/
1978 - Colfax, Wisconsin. On April 19, 1978 https://www.openminds.tv/ufo-photographs-from-colfax-wisconsin/11015
The thick disc with large dome (86 year span):
1932- Paris, Ohio: https://www.ufocasebook.com/ohio32large.jpg
1965 - Warminster, England https://www.ufocasebook.com/scotland1965.jpg
1967 - Woonsocket, Rhode Island https://www.ufocasebook.com/woonsocket1967large.jpg
Turkey 1998: https://www.ufocasebook.com/turkey1998.jpg
2018 - Narragansett, Rhode Island https://www.ufocasebook.com/2018/rhode-island.jpeg
Standard disc, medium sized dome (57 year span):
1952 - Passaic, New Jersey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R85S2xBWohs
1993, Meridian, Ohio: https://preview.redd.it/of1xsdcsziz31.jpg?width=604&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=89cddfd5e0b723aadbde21b7ed255e63edbc586e
2009 Prijedor - Bosnia https://vimeo.com/4951898
Look through all of those archives I provided for anyone who wants to find more. I'll bet if you drew each one and asked somebody to assign a decade to each one, they'd have a tough time doing it.
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u/magicfingers73 Jun 24 '23
I read an article years ago suggesting they may be "designed" with current understanding/trends in mind. For example, there are some OLD reports that kind of look almost victorian in appearance. Food for thought
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u/Less-Cap6996 Jun 24 '23
Look at cars, phones, anything tech from the 1940's through today. Things change.
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Jun 25 '23
One explanation I've heard without evidence but is interesting nonetheless, is the claim that each UAP/UFO is 3-D printed to spec before flight and disassembled afterwards. All by this supposed giant under water factory of the Atlantic. Supposedly, one reason for changes is that ships with different shapes serve different purposes and that being shot down enough times by us over the last 70 years has necessitated the use of more pilotless drones. I have no idea if there's any validity to the claims, but it's the first time I've ever heard an explanation that ties together all these different sightings.
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u/TheFirsttimmyboy Jun 25 '23
Tl;dr
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u/MKULTRA_Escapee Jun 25 '23
I'll give it a shot.
Whenever someone says "UFO shapes have changed over time," referring to discs, triangles, cigars, etc, they are just spreading another myth because you can find all of the main shapes both recently and throughout history. The only debatable variation of the argument is that details on the UFOs may or may not have changed over time. It's subjective and possibly influenced by technical knowledge the witnesses had in the time period. Human-made aircraft erroneously labeled as UFOs and hoaxes specifically should change over time, but not UFOs in general. Also Kenneth Arnold really did see flying discs as his original drawing to the Army clearly shows, not 9 crescents.
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u/iSWINE Jun 25 '23
I've always took that the "changing" of UFO descriptions came from our further understanding of technology at the current peak, not from the UFOs matching our current technological understanding to "stay hidden etc"
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u/ZakTSK Jun 25 '23
Obviously the aliens are capitalists and get new ships over time.
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u/awesomepossum40 Nov 22 '23
That chestburster down the ring got a new ship. Maybe I should get a new ship to?
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u/Powerful-Row-558 Jun 25 '23
Watch “Only Real UFOs” on YouTube. I’ve seen one on there that changes shape in real time
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u/MKULTRA_Escapee Jun 25 '23
I have a couple of shape changing UFO videos. They're pretty strange. I initially tried to interpret them as balloons, possibly rotating or something, but if you follow it closely, the explanation doesn't work.
OVNI enviando Senñales Gudalajara Mex 04/07/2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCR8MfLumoc
UFO Sighting over Yokosuka Japan, uploaded 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_95QBOLeCpA
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u/simon8383 Jul 26 '23
Here is a Tableau visualization I have created which shows all the historical data of global UFO sightings, including the shapes, time of day, day of week, month of year etc. Cheers
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u/MKULTRA_Escapee Jul 26 '23
What are your data sources? I tried to find it on there, but I might be just missing it.
The last person to do this used NUFORC only, and made it seem like UFOs are concentrated in the United States, which I believe I overwhelmingly proved false here: https://np.reddit.com/r/aliens/comments/13v9fkh/ufo_information_from_other_countries_and/
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