While the provided list is more of an example than anything, I have the impression there is countless historical records of possible sightings - From ancient descriptions of legendary flying fire chariots to paintings containing objects surprisingly similar to modern descriptions of UFO’s.
We know people describe unknown events with the best words they have. Modern examples can be when firescene investigations get testimonies that “The fire jumped from seat to seat”. Does fire even have legs to jump with? I would not be surprised if ancient stories about “wheels within wheels” or “Flying chariots of fire” could be describing events they simply didn’t have words for.
With all of the stories that could be interpreted as ancient stories of UFO’s, even if just a small percentage of the are real - It would mean the UFO phenomenon have interacted with earth for at least thousands of years.
What is your thoughts on this, anything to it? Do you have different estimates? Do you think the phenomena started in 1947? Is it all just a pop-cultural mediaindustrial hoax complex?
My personal favorite.
Difficult to explain, and the writer shows some fear that seems appropriate for the time period. The writer doesn’t speculate as to what they saw out of fear of reprisal from God, and otherwise seems terrified in general. Also written accounts are rare.
I think we should remember, however, that humanity can be pretty creative from our own perspective. Look at Hollywood for the things we’re capable of dreaming up, and then bear in mind that humanity has had that creative spark for its entire lifespan. There’s a surprisingly good chance that the whole aliens thing is a phantom in the human gestalt, something that enough of us have wished to be real and enough others have hoaxed into life that it now has a life of its own.
That’s a personal favorite of mine as well.
I was going to bring up the same. I feel like a lot of art particularly from Renaissance on took some artistic liberties and we may be applying our views and perspectives to mold what we’re seeing. There’s still intriguing art there that makes you wonder why the choice was made for certain objects to be included, so we shouldn’t dismiss it.
However, the incident in the art you cited of Nuremberg was supposedly witnessed by many people. What it was is still up for speculation. But, this event and art are what come to my mind first when thinking of pre-Roswell potential sightings.
That’s a great example. I’ve seen it before but forgot how detailed it was and how many saw it.
Absolutely. And it doesn’t even have to be a social phenomenon, I’m not dismissive of social engineering as cover ups for i.e. hyperadvanced but very human military technology.
There’s a long line of explanations based mostly in the knowledge or superstition of the time, revised with every new bit of knowledge or commonly accepted superstition. My conclusions might very well be a product of this.
I’d still argue there’s a difference in the approach of “modern” historians, investigators and the likes. Where we used to have a belief, confirmed by observable phenomenons, we (or at least more than before) now have a lack of belief with our worldview built upon observable phenomenons and verification through reproducibility.
Yet we’re in the intersection between the differing worldviews; I think those who hold the possibility of extraterrestrial, intelligent origins for unknown phenomenons are closer to the truth than those who know it’s aliens.
There’s still a lot of superstition in modern Ufology.