51°26′37″N 5°26′49″E / 51.44361°N 5.44694°E / 51.44361; 5.44694 The Evoluon is a UFO-shaped building located in Eindhoven , the Netherlands . It was built in 1966 as a science museum by the electronics and electrical company Philips . It quickly became a landmark in Eindhoven, where Philips was headquartered at the time. The museum closed in 1989 and the building reopened as a conference centre and exhibition venue in 1998.
76-416: The building is unique due to its very futuristic design, resembling a landed flying saucer . It was designed by architects Leo de Bever and Louis Christiaan Kalff , while the exhibition it housed was conceived by James Gardner . De Bever and Kalff only got two demands for the design of the building, it had to be "spectacular" and it had to be possible to hold exhibitions in the building. Its concrete dome
152-505: A wave of sightings followed. The 1952 sightings spurred Leonard H. Stringfield to form an early UFO investigation group called the "Civilian Investigating Group for Aerial Phenomena" and to publish research on UFOs. Albert K. Bender started his own "International Flying Saucer Bureau" in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1952. Influenced by these works, James W. Moseley began to tour the country interviewing witnesses and distributing
228-399: A June 26 radio interview, Arnold described them as "something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear". Headline writers coined the terms "flying saucer" and "flying disk" (or "disc") for the story. Arnold later told CBS news that the early coverage "did not quote me properly [...] when I described how they flew, I said that they flew like they take
304-636: A conference centre which opened in 1998. In the UK the Evoluon is chiefly remembered from Bert Haanstra 's wordless short film entitled simply Evoluon , commissioned by Philips to publicise the museum, and shown as a trade test colour film on BBC television from 1968 to 1972. In October 2013 the Evoluon was used to stage four 3D-concerts by the German electronic band Kraftwerk , each before an audience of 1,200 spectators. Key band member Ralf Hütter handpicked
380-416: A dome or knob-shaped protrusion on the top side. Size estimates ranged from 20 feet to thousands of feet in diameter. Menzel found saucers reported in nearly every color, often glowing or flashing. The sightings had little consistency in reported movement or sounds. Some witnesses reported silent objects; others reported a roar or thunderclap. Sightings were most often during the night. If the saucer's crew
456-504: A flying disc. Throughout 1947, the saucers became increasingly associated with the idea of extraterrestrial life. The stories spread to other countries, where they were influenced by local political and social concerns. In Europe, which was still recovering from the Second World War , saucers were often reported with rocket-like features. German newspapers reported flying saucers that exploded or had tails of fire. The names for
532-546: A genre emerged that treated fantastical stories as either true or plausibly true. The debut issues of Mystic magazine asked readers, "When you read this story, you will tell yourself that it is fiction; the editors assure you that it is. But what if—it isn't?" The Fortec Conspiracy , a science fiction novel, both drew from and fed into the UFO rumors surrounding the Roswell incident debris. Aliens and flying discs were common in
608-421: A hovering disc by tilting their own body. Video games have a long history of depicting flying saucers, typically as antagonists. In the arcades, the popular early shooting games Asteroids (1979) and Space Invaders (1978) featured flying saucers as "bonus" enemies that only emerged briefly. Super Mario Land , one of Nintendo 's launch titles for the original Game Boy , contained spaceships modeled on
684-678: A month of the first flying saucer reports, Crisman sent Palmer metal fragments and an account from his employee Harold Dahl about a malfunctioning flying saucer. Palmer recruited Kenneth Arnold to investigate Crisman and Dahl's Maury Island incident . The metal turned out to be slag from a local smelter, but the men in black that Crisman and Dahl claimed were following them would become a common element of later UFO accounts. Gray Barker popularized "men in black" who intimidate or silence UFO witnesses in his book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers . Palmer launched Fate (magazine) in 1948, claiming to offer "the truth about flying saucers". It
760-581: A newsletter for the growing saucer subculture. Within a decade of the first saucer sightings, reports had spread to many countries where local groups and ufologists emerged. Antonio Ribera started Centro de Estudios Interplanetarios in Spain, and Edgar Jarrold founded the Australia Flying Saucer Bureau . In France, UFO groups overlapped with occult groups and the anti-nuclear movement . Reports have been more often made in
836-636: A parallel social movement. Well-known Variety columnist Frank Scully published Behind the Flying Saucers in 1950. The book presents the Aztec, New Mexico crashed saucer hoax as the true account of an alien craft that "gently pancaked to earth like Sonja Henie imitating a dying swan" and was recovered by the United States government. It describes one of the hoaxers—who were convicted of fraud for selling nonfunctional dowsing equipment to
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#1732802162071912-633: A popular explanation in France. Flying saucers in popular media underwent a similar change in movement. Early films like The Flying Saucer (1950) and film serials like Bruce Gentry – Daredevil of the Skies (1949) show saucers streaking past at high speeds. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) mentions high speeds tracked by radar but also includes a slow landing scene. The 1960s television series The Invaders prominently features
988-613: A prominent roadside flying saucer at its welcome center. UFO-shaped homes include the Futuro pods designed by Matti Suuronen , the former Sanzhi UFO houses from the Sanzhi District , New Taipei , Taiwan , and artist Harry Visser's iconic home in Roodepoort, Johannesburg. Flying saucers were a ubiquitous part of pop culture from 1947 into the mid 1970s. Flying disc motifs were used in toys and other novelties soon after
1064-434: A saucer and throw it across the water. Most of the newspapers misunderstood and misquoted that, too. They said that I said that they were saucer-like; I said that they flew in a saucer-like fashion." The circular shape of typical flying saucers may be due to reporters mistaking Arnold's "saucer-like" description of motion. Arnold's story incited a wave of hundreds of flying saucer reports . The next widely publicized report
1140-560: A slow landing scene in every episode. Many later iconic flying saucer films, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Fire in the Sky (1993), depict hovering and slow movements. Since the late 1940s, flying discs have increasingly become associated with a cultural conception of aliens that reflects the social and political anxieties of the 20th century. Fictional flying saucers reflect concerns around atomic warfare ,
1216-742: A subgenre of documentary photography , showing often blurry or abstract discs framed by otherwise everyday settings. Notable examples include the McMinnville photographs , the Passaic UFO photographs , and the photographs of contactee George Adamski. Some of the alleged flying saucer photographs of the era were hoaxes , done with everyday objects like hubcaps . German rocket scientist Walther Johannes Riedel analyzed George Adamski's UFO photos and found them to be faked. The UFO's "landing struts" were General Electric light bulbs with logos printed on them. UFO researcher Joel Carpenter identified
1292-404: Is 77 metres (253 ft) in diameter and is held in place by 169 kilometres (105 mi) of reinforcing steel bars . In the 1960s and 1970s the Evoluon attracted large numbers of visitors due to its innovative interactive exhibitions. When competing science museums opened in other cities, the number of visitors declined and the original museum closed down in 1989. The building was converted into
1368-632: Is a city in Grayson County, Texas , United States, 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the Texas–Oklahoma border. Its population was 24,479 at the 2020 census , up from 22,682 at the 2010 census . Denison is part of the Texoma region and is one of two principal cities in the Sherman–Denison metropolitan statistical area . Denison is the birthplace of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower . Denison
1444-625: Is a purported disc-shaped UFO . The term was coined in 1947 by the news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed flew alongside his airplane above Washington State . Newspapers reported Arnold's story with speed estimates implausible for airplanes of the period. The story spurred a wave of hundreds of sightings across the United States, including the Roswell incident and Flight 105 UFO sighting . The concept quickly spread to other countries. Early reports speculated about secret military technology, but flying saucers became synonymous with aliens by 1950. The term has gradually been supplanted by
1520-536: Is located in Denison. The school's T.V. Munson Viticulture and Enology Program preserves Denison's viticultural heritage. Denison is served by two U.S. Highways — U.S. 69 and U.S. 75 (Katy Memorial Expressway) and two State Highways — State Highway 91 and Spur 503 (Eisenhower Parkway). State Highway 91, known as Texoma Parkway, is one of the main commercial strips that connects Sherman and Denison. It also extends north to Lake Texoma. General aviation service
1596-467: Is often referred to as the "Jetsons look". Architect Frank Lloyd Wright , who collaborated on the design of the flying saucer in "The Day The Earth Stood Still", went on to use the flying saucer as an architectural motif. Wright's circular Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin , United States, is capped by a flattened dome over a hundred feet across. Spaceships are also one of
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#17328021620711672-595: Is provided by North Texas Regional Airport . TAPS, a regional public transportation system, offers limited service for disabled passengers. Denison is served by Texoma Medical Center . In 2013, Lake Texoma and the Hampton Inn and Suites Denison were featured on a travel show entitled The Official Best of Texas , which aired on CBS and the Discovery Channel. Denison is referenced in the book Dan Gutman 's From Texas with Love (Genius Files #4) as
1748-605: Is seen as a symbol of 1950s culture. The motif is common in Googie architecture and Atomic Age décor. Notable flying saucer structures include Seattle's Space Needle and Los Angeles International Airport's Theme Building . Googie architecture in California, like the Chemosphere home, influenced the futuristic structures in the 1960s cartoon The Jetsons . The cartoon popularized the style to such an extent, that it
1824-490: Is that the idea of space vehicles shaped like flying saucers was imprinted in the national psyche for many years prior to 1947, when the Roswell incident took place. It didn't take much stretching for the first observers of UFOs to assume that the unknown objects hovering in the sky had the same disk shape as the science fictional vehicles. The modern flying saucer concept, including the association with aliens, can be traced to
1900-507: The Denison Daily News printed an article in which John Martin, a local farmer, reported an object resembling a balloon flying "at wonderful speed". The newspaper said it appeared to be about the size of a saucer from his perspective, one of the first uses of the word "saucer" in association with a UFO. During the 1940s, allied pilots reported encountering foo fighters they believed were advanced axis aircraft. Many aspects of
1976-512: The tokusatsu tradition in mid-50s films like Fearful Attack of the Flying Saucers and Warning from Space . Indian cinema began to incorporate alien invaders in the 1960s, starting with the Tamil-language Kalai Arasi . An adaptation of Bankubabur Bandhu by Satyajit Ray was never completed but may have influenced other works of science fiction. In Spain, alien-themed television shows became popular in
2052-552: The Cold War , loss of bodily integrity , xenophobia , government secrecy, and whether humanity is alone in the universe. No correlation has been found between the release of major UFO films and spikes in sightings. A disc, often domed or shining down a ray of light, has become visual shorthand for aliens. It has been used in modern times to signify pop culture aliens. The aerial disc motif has been misinterpreted in much older art, created when it had different connotations. In 2017,
2128-582: The Daleks in Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. or the Cybermen in " The Tenth Planet ". Aliens in the film Independence Day (1996) attacked humanity in giant city-sized saucer-shaped spaceships. As the flying saucer was surpassed by other designs and concepts, it fell out of favor with straight science-fiction moviemakers, but continued to be used ironically in comedy movies, especially in reference to
2204-469: The Mantell UFO incident , a pilot died while pursuing an unknown round object that was later identified as a Skyhook balloon. Beginning in the mid 1950s, psychologists began to study why people believed in flying saucers if the evidence was so limited. French psychiatrist Georges Heuyer considered the movement to be a kind of global folie à deux , or shared delusion, used to navigate anxieties. In
2280-863: The Most SNP in Bratislava , and The Flying Saucer in Sharjah , United Arab Emirates . The Westall UFO was commemorated with the Grange Reserve UFO Park, featuring a UFO with red slides modeled after the reported sighting. Roswell, New Mexico , is a UFO tourist destination in the Southwestern United States. Many structures in the town, including the streetlights and the McDonald's, are designed around alien themes. Moonbeam, Ontario has an alien for its mascot and
2356-597: The phylloxera epidemic of the mid-19th century, which destroyed the vast majority of wine grapes in Europe, Denison horticulturalist T.V. Munson pioneered methods in creating phylloxera-resistant vines, and earned induction into the French Legion of Honor , as well as sister city status for Denison and Cognac, France . In 1901, the first electric " Interurban " railway in Texas, the Denison and Sherman Railway,
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2432-460: The "flying saucers" concept in the fantasy artwork of the 1930s pulp science fiction magazines, by artists like Frank R. Paul . One of the first depictions of a "flying saucer", by illustrator Frank R. Paul appeared on the cover of the November 1929 issue of Hugo Gernsback 's pulp science fiction magazine Science Wonder Stories . Science fiction illustrator Frank Wu wrote: The point
2508-627: The 1800s included details like metal hulls, propellers, searchlights, and large wings. The 1947 sightings—occurring months before Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier —emphasized the "incredible speed" of flying saucers. The majority of 1947 reports emphasized speed. This fell to 41 percent in 1971, and 22 percent in 1986. In the 1950s, hovering flying saucers were associated with contactees and hoaxes; by 1986 almost half of reported UFOs were claimed to hover slowly or motionlessly. The majority of flying saucer and broader UFO reports have been identified with known phenomena . Investigations by
2584-498: The 1947 Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting . On June 24, 1947, businessman and amateur pilot Kenneth Arnold landed at the Yakima, Washington airstrip. He told staff and friends that he'd seen nine unusual airborne objects. Arnold estimated their speed at 1,700 miles per hour, beyond the capabilities of known aircraft. Newspapers soon contacted Arnold for interviews. The East Oregonian reported his supposed aircraft as "saucer-like". In
2660-490: The 1950s science fiction comics that flourished after the Golden Age of Comic Books . The comic book anthology UFO Flying Saucers , launched in the 1960s, published illustrations of supposedly real sightings. The opening to its first issue declared, "Our scientists have seen them! Our airmen have fought them!" Advertisements in the 1950s and 1960s referenced flying saucers as purported alien spacecraft and reflected
2736-401: The 1950s, musicians like Billy Lee Riley , Jesse Lee Turner , and Betty Johnson released novelty songs about flying discs and alien invaders. Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman released the first break-in record , " The Flying Saucer ", which took the form of a mock news broadcast covering an alien invasion. Disneyland introduced Flying Saucers , an attraction where guests could pilot
2812-548: The 1960s, they waned in popularity. Discs ceased to be viewed as the standard shape for alien spacecraft but are still often depicted, sometimes for their retro value to evoke the early Cold War era. Reports of fantastical aircraft predate the first flying saucers. In antiquity, mysterious lights in the sky were interpreted as spiritual phenomena. In the 1800s, many newspapers reported massive airships with glowing lights and humming engines. These are often seen as precursors to "flying saucer" and "UFO" sightings. On January 25, 1878,
2888-639: The 1960s. Flying saucers quickly spread to other genres. In Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 's big-budget Forbidden Planet , a futuristic 1956 adaptation of William Shakespeare's play The Tempest , humans travel through space in the United Planets Cruiser C-57D , a ship resembling a 1950s flying saucer. The Twilight Zone episodes "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", "Third from the Sun", " Death Ship ", " To Serve Man ", " The Invaders " and " On Thursday We Leave for Home " all make use of
2964-488: The 1970s, French UFO researcher Michel Monnerie examined reports that were later identified and reports that remained unidentified. Monnerie found no difference in the frequency of paranormal phenomena reported alongside the sightings identified later as mundane known objects. This led him to develop the thesis that the saucer-specific experiences were a "psychosocial" process of myth-making triggered by but not caused by aerial phenomena. This Psychosocial UFO hypothesis became
3040-746: The 1984 Texas Class 4A State Championship by beating Tomball 27–13, completing a perfect 16–0 record. They also made appearances in the 1995, 1996, and 1997 Class 4A Division II State Championship games, losing each time to La Marque . They are home to the longest high school football rivalry in Texas: the Battle of the Ax, against Sherman High School . Denison is served by the Denison Independent School District . The current Denison High School campus opened in 2014. Grayson College
3116-507: The British government in th 1950s found the vast majority of reports to be misidentifications or hoaxes. Some causes of saucer sightings include Venus, ice crystals, balloons, and airborne trash. The US Government and General Mills launched thousands of top-secret Skyhook spy balloon during the 1950s. These massive balloons floated at high altitudes, making it difficult to judge their speed, and were widely reported as flying saucers. During
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3192-506: The Cold War. The 1949 film serial Bruce Gentry – Daredevil of the Skies featured a man-made flying saucer, and the 1950 film The Flying Saucer focused on Cold War espionage. The first novel to explicitly use the term "flying saucer" was Bernard Newman 's The Flying Saucer , released in 1950. The novel's craft was a hoaxed alien ship intended to end military tension by giving humanity a common enemy. Two early 1950s films, The Day
3268-470: The Earth Stood Still and The Thing from Another World , were financial successes that established the market for an "alien visitor" subgenre of science fiction that merged flying saucers into existing space opera tropes. Slowly hovering discs, like the one from the landing scene in The Day the Earth Stood Still , appeared throughout science fiction including It Came from Outer Space (1953), Earth vs.
3344-545: The Flying Saucers (1956), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), and the television series The Invaders . While contactees described aliens as benevolent messengers, Hollywood films often depicted them as monstrous antagonists. Other localities adapted the largely American phenomenon at different times, adding elements of the local culture. Early British films were low-budget productions like Devil Girl from Mars (1954) and Stranger from Venus (1954). Japanese filmmakers incorporated flying discs and alien invaders into
3420-571: The Red River, is 5 miles (8 km) north of Denison. The lake is in the center of the Texoma region, encompassing parts of Texas and Oklahoma. Denison has a humid subtropical climate ( Cfa in the Köppen climate classification ). As of the 2020 United States census , 24,479 people, 9,361 households, and 6,038 families were residing in the city. Major employers in Denison include: The Grayson County Frontier Village in Denison contains 11 of
3496-541: The body of Adamski's "flying saucer" as the lampshade from a 1930s pressure lantern. Flying saucers are now considered retro and emblematic of the 1950s and of B movies in particular. The term "flying saucer" was gradually supplanted by "UFO" and later "UAP". Discs ceased to be the standard shape in UFO reports, and a broader variety of objects were reported. Recent reports more often describe spherical and triangular UFOs . Flying saucer sightings differ in their descriptions of appearance, movement, and purpose of
3572-563: The city limits extending north to the Red River, which forms the Oklahoma state line. It is bordered to the south by the city of Sherman ; the city centers are 11 miles (18 km) apart. According to the United States Census Bureau , Denison has a total area of 23.4 square miles (60.7 km ), of which 0.46 square miles (1.2 km ), or 1.94%, are covered by water. Denison Dam , which forms Lake Texoma on
3648-517: The countries where UFO groups are in operation, such as the United States, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. By the end of the decade, The Case for the UFO author Morris K. Jessup reflected on his field, "This embryonic science is as full of cults, feuds, and dogmas as a dog is of fleas. There are probably more opinions about the nature and purpose of UFO's as there are Ufologers." UFO photography emerged as
3724-507: The direct instruction of an extraterrestrial. Some existing religions began to incorporate flying saucers. The Nation of Islam taught that the end of the world would be brought about by the "Mother Wheel" or "Mother Plane", a flying saucer half a mile wide. During the same time that Margaret Murray 's "Old Religion" or witch-cult hypothesis was being discredited in academic circles, its core idea—a lost civilization remembered in myth—was being embraced in pulp fiction, occult groups, and
3800-521: The discs were largely derived from the English "flying saucer" including the French soucoupe volante , Spanish platillo volante , Portuguese disco voador , Swedish flygande tefat , German fliegende Untertasse , and Italian disco volante . Flying saucer reporting declined by the end of summer. Newspapers had reported hoaxes by those looking to profit from the saucers and the Roswell incident , which
3876-401: The diversity of attitudes towards their plausibility. The major attitudes towards UFOs invoked in print advertisements were the potential for advanced technology, awe towards their potential pilots, and skepticism about hoaxes. Much of the former pulp reader base shifted their attention to the growing medium of television during the 1950s. Many early portrayals of flying saucers linked them to
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#17328021620713952-469: The earliest reports. The frisbee was introduced in 1948 and initially branded the "flying saucer". Flying saucer candy was introduced in the 1950s when a Belgian producer of communion wafers had a dip in sales. Along with other vintage candies, they have since seen renewed interest from customers as "retro". In the 1950s and early 1960s, Japan was a major manufacturer of tin toys often with space themes like robots, rockets, and flying discs. Throughout
4028-614: The first in a series of UFO investigations by the US Government . In the following years, other national governments would follow suit. Canada began Project Magnet and the United Kingdom launched the Flying Saucer Working Party in 1950, which attributed saucer reports to meteorological phenomena, astronomical phenomena, misidentification, optical illusions, misconceptions, or hoaxes. By 1950,
4104-476: The flying saucer emoji was added to Unicode . There were several precursors to the modern flying saucers in science fiction literature, like The Shaver Mystery . Richard Sharpe Shaver's stories about a secret technologically advanced civilization of "detrimental robots" inside the earth were published as a true account of his life. Backlash from the science fiction community carried over to UFO literature. Saucers did appear in conventional science fiction, but
4180-615: The growing UFO movement. Several authors speculated that ancient astronauts piloting UFOs were the cause of myths and religions. Schoolteacher Robert Dione wrote God Drives a Flying Saucer to reframe biblical miracles and the Miracle of the Sun as the work of humanoid aliens piloting flying saucers. Later, Erich von Däniken released Chariots of the Gods? , a work of pseudoscience that attributed ancient artifacts and monuments to its purported ancient astronauts. Ufology developed as
4256-564: The iconic saucer from Forbidden Planet . The C-57D was followed by other disc-shaped spaceships in broader science fiction, like the Jupiter 2 from the television series Lost in Space (1965-1968). Saucers appeared in the television series Babylon 5 (1994-1998) as starships used by a race called the Vree . Doctor Who has featured different designs of flying saucers, like those used by
4332-460: The low-budget B movies , which often featured saucer-shaped alien craft. The 1964 Italian comedy Il disco volante centered around a flying saucer. The image is often invoked retrofuturistically to produce a nostalgic feel in period works, especially in comic science fiction. For example, Mars Attacks! (1996) draws on the flying saucer as part of the larger satire of 1950s B movie tropes. The sleek, silver flying saucer in particular
4408-401: The more general military terms unidentified flying object (UFO) and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). In science fiction , reported UFO sightings , UFO conspiracy theories , and broader popular culture, saucers are typically piloted by nonhuman beings. Descriptions in reported sightings vary considerably. Early reports emphasized speed but the descriptions shifted over the decades to
4484-759: The objects mostly hovering. They are generally said to be round, sometimes with a protrusion on top, but details of the shape vary between reports. Flying saucers have been described as silent or deafening, with lights of every color, flying alone or in formation, and twenty to thousands of feet in diameter. Sightings are most frequent at night. The majority of reported saucers have been identified with known phenomena including astronomical objects like Venus , airborne objects like balloons, and optical phenomena like sun dogs . 1950s pop culture embraced flying saucers. These discs appeared in film, television, literature, music, and other minor aspects like toys and advertising. The shape became visual shorthand for alien invaders. During
4560-436: The oil industry based on the claim that it was derived from alien technology—as a doctor with "more degrees than a thermometer". Donald Keyhoe took a more serious "nuts and bolts" approach to the idea of the government covering up alien life in his 1950 book The Flying Saucers Are Real . When the popular and respected Life magazine ran " Have We Visitors From Space? " in 1952, taking seriously ideas of alien visitors,
4636-558: The oldest homes in Grayson County that were moved here for preservation. Former minor league baseball teams include the Denison Katydids , Denison Blue Sox , Denison Champions , Denison Railroaders , and Sherman–Denison Twins . Munson Stadium seats 5,262 people and is used primarily for football . It is the home field of Denison High School 's football and soccer teams. The Denison High School football team won
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#17328021620714712-551: The photographs of George Adamski and set among various monuments falsely attributed to ancient astronauts , like the Egyptian pyramids and the monolithic Moai of Easter Island. The XCOM series tasks players with countering an invasion of aliens landing on Earth in flying discs. Saucers have appeared as a craft that players can control in Fortnite , Destroy All Humans , and Spore . Denison, Texas Denison
4788-409: The saucer. In a 1963 overview of flying saucers, astronomer Donald Howard Menzel found some broad traits across sightings, but noted that "no two reports describe exactly the same kind of UFO." Menzel found saucers were usually reported as round, but included objects shaped like dining saucers, teardrops, cigars, kidney beans, the planet Saturn , and yarn spindles . Saucers often were reported with
4864-551: The saucers and brought back messages for humanity. New religions and institutions arose around the contactees. Van Tassel's Aetherius Society built the Integratron , a domed structure near Landers, California , intended to facilitate further contact with aliens, physical rejuvenation, and time travel . According to George King , he founded the Ashtar Command —a new religious movement influenced by theosophy —at
4940-414: The stories were presented as a true account of Shaver's life. Until the magazine ceased printing Shaver's stories, Amazing Stories' s letter column was regularly full of readers sharing their own purportedly true sightings of the robots. Before the term "flying saucer" was coined, fantasy artwork in pulp magazines depicted flying discs. Commentators like Milton Rothman have noted the appearance of
5016-596: The subjects of novelty architecture . Novelty architecture, also known as mimetic architecture, is the practice of creating structures shaped like other existing objects. The Communist-era Kielce Bus Station in Kielce, Poland, was designed by architect Edward Modrzejewski to resemble a UFO. Other modernist and brutalist UFO structures include the Ukrainian Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information, Bulgaria's concrete Buzludzha monument ,
5092-632: The term flying saucer was widely associated with extraterrestrial life. In a 1950 interview on flying saucers, Kenneth Arnold said, "if it's not made by our science or our Army Air Forces, I am inclined to believe it's of an extra-terrestrial origin". This extraterrestrial hypothesis was accompanied by a range of other unusual theories. Meade Layne speculated that they came from an alternate dimension. Under editor Ray Palmer, Amazing Stories had run Richard Sharpe Shaver 's purportedly true stories. Fred Crisman had written to Palmer about fighting Shaver's purported evil beings in an underground cavern. Within
5168-584: The typical flying saucer first appeared in science fiction. French sociologist Bertrand Méheust noted, for example, Jean de La Hire 's 1908 novel La Roue fulgurante [ fr ] ( The Lightning Wheel ). In the novel, a flying disc-shaped machine abducts the protagonists via a beam of light. Science fiction magazine Amazing Stories began publishing "The Shaver Mystery" in 1945. Written by Richard Sharpe Shaver and edited by Raymond A. Palmer , they were science fiction tales about technologically-advanced "detrimental robots" that abducted humans, but
5244-472: The venue for its retro-futuristic look. Bespoke 3D-visuals of the saucer section of the building descending from space were used in the live rendition of their track Spacelab . On September 24, 2022, the Evoluon reopened to the public with the RetroFuture exhibition. [REDACTED] Media related to Evoluon at Wikimedia Commons Flying saucer A flying saucer , or flying disc ,
5320-540: Was completed between Denison and Sherman . In 1915, Kentucky -based evangelist Mordecai Ham held a revival meeting in Denison, which resulted in 1,100 professions of faith in Jesus Christ . Denison played host to 20th-century notables such as the Marx Brothers and President Dwight D. Eisenhower , who was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison. Denison is located in northeastern Grayson County, with
5396-420: Was described by the witness, they were usually extraterrestrial . Flying saucers have been consistently described and depicted as ahead of contemporary technology. When comparing the 1947 saucer reports to the mystery airships of the 1800s, sociologist Robert Bartholomew found that the claimed observations "reflected popular social and cultural expectations of each period". The mystery airship sightings of
5472-420: Was divided on the potential origin of the saucers. Newspapers initially reported that Arnold suspected them to be experimental Soviet aircraft. A Gallup Poll found that 90% of Americans were aware of the saucer stories, 16 percent believed they were secret military weapons, and less than one percent believed they were alien craft. One report from Seattle, Washington, described a hammer and sickle painted onto
5548-631: Was founded in 1872 in conjunction with the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad (MKT) or "Katy" depot . It was named after wealthy Katy vice president George Denison . Because the town was established close to where the MKT crossed the Red River (both important conduits of transportation in the industrial era), it came to be an important commercial center in the 19th-century American West . In 1875, Doc Holliday had offices in Denison. During
5624-537: Was quickly retracted as balloon debris. In the July 7 1947 Twin Falls saucer hoax , a widely reported crashed disc from Twin Falls, Idaho, was found to have been created by four teenagers using parts from a jukebox . The Air Force's Air Materiel Command collected over a hundred reports at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base , Ohio . Air Force General Nathan Twining established Project SAUCER, later renamed Project Sign ,
5700-490: Was the sighting by a United Airlines crew on July 4 of nine more disc-like objects pacing their plane over Idaho . On July 8, the Army Air Force base at Roswell, New Mexico issued a press release saying that they had recovered a "flying disc" from a nearby ranch, the so-called Roswell UFO incident , which was front-page news until the military issued a retraction saying that it was a weather balloon. The public
5776-588: Was the first in a wave of non-fiction paranormal magazines that would thrive in the 1950s. A flying saucer movement developed during the 1950s. It was influenced by scientific research, occult practices, pop culture, existing religions, and earlier myths. In reports and in popular media like the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still , saucers and their pilots were characterized as messengers. The first wave of so-called contactees, George Hunt Williamson , George Van Tassel , Truman Bethurum , George Adamski , and Orfeo Angelucci claimed to have ridden aboard
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