"unidentified flying object" (UNCLASSIFIED)

Thu Oct 20 16:32:39 UTC 2011

Ah, if only the name of this thread had been "...(CLASSIFIED)."

But that's neither here nor there. Somehow Bill's invaluable 2005
sightings eluded me, even though I didn't bother to check for them.

Keyhoe quotes another USAF document, "dated April 27,1949," with an
early, not-yet-popularized use of the full phrase:

1949 in Donald E. Keyhoe _Flying Saucers from Outer Space_ (1953; rpt.
London: Tandem, 1970) 34: The mere existence of some yet unidentified
flying objects necessitates a constant vigilance on the part of
Project personnel and on the part of the civilian population.

Microsemanticists will note that a "yet unidentified flying object" is
not quite the same as an "unidentified flying object," but others may
be tempted to inquire, "So what?"

The point is that the phrase (if not the acronym) appears to have been
current in the Air Force for some time before it hit the newspapers in
any noticeable way.

One might logically wonder why it would take three years for someone
to shorten the unwieldy phrase into a handy acronym - unless the
everyday spoken term in intelligence circles was "flying disks" - or
just "saucers" - or even "flying objects" - all of which are short
enough for government use.

Life and other magazines ran stories about the saucers well into the
mid '50s without feeling the need for either "UFO" or "unidentified
flying object."  Try doing that today!

JL

On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 11:57 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
<Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: "unidentified flying object" (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> In 2005,
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0506B&L=ADS-L&P=R13666
> &I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches
>
> I pushed "UFO" back to 3 Nov 1952, "Unidentified Flying Object" back to
> Feb 1949, and "flying saucer" back to 6/28/1947.
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of
>> Jonathan Lighter
>> Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 9:07 AM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: "unidentified flying object"
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> ----------------------
>> -
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "unidentified flying object"
>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
>> -
>>
>> The OED's primary "UFO" quote is from a magazine excerpt from Maj.
>> Donald E. Keyhoe's   _Flying Saucers from Outer Space_ (N.Y.: Holt),
>> published Oct. 5, 1953.
>>
>> Further information from the farthest reaches of my library:
>>
>> P. 10 (rpt. London: Tandem,. 1970): "The [aircraft] had been hit by an
>> unidentified flying body. (In the United States, the official term for
>> a flying saucer is an 'unidentified flying object.'"
>>
>> P. 11: "Did the UFO (unidentified flying object) seem to be piloted or
>> under remote control? ...On and on went the probing questions, worked
>> out by the Air Technical Intelligence Center [at Wright-Patterson AFB]
>> to identify UFO types."
>>
>> Keyhoe uses "UFO" throughout, in what was the first book-length
>> journalistic attempt to show that "saucers" were actually from space.
>> Keyhoe thus publicized the acronym "UFO."
>>
>> It seems most likely that "UFO" was coined (as the 1956 OED cite
>> suggests) at Project Blue Book, the tiny office of ATIC dedicated to
>> investigating such reports, very possibly during the summer of 1952:
>> this was a period which saw many news reports of "flying saucers," as
>> well as the first known relevant use of the phrase "unidentified
>> flying object." Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, chief of Blue Book from early
>> 1952, offhandedly claimed credit for the acronym (as in the OED cite).
>>
>> Before the appearance of Keyhoe's book (or the excerpt from it, which
>> seems to have appeared a little earlier), "UFO" was a term quite
>> unknown to the public.
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Jonathan Lighter
>> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> --------------------
>> ---
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> > Subject:      "unidentified flying object"
>> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
>> ---
>> >
>> > 1952 _Wisconsin State Journal_ (Madison) (Aug. 2) I 2 [NewspArch]:
>> > Several persons have shown snapshots purporting to show saucers or
>> > some sort of unidentified flying object, but this is the first photo
>> > with any kind of official attachment.
>> >
>> > A slightly earlier ex., from July, 1952, cannot be loaded.
>> >
>> > The phrase became a common synonym for "flying saucer" over the next
>> > two or three years. OED's primary "UFO" quote is from fall, 1953.
>> >
>> > JL
>> > --
>> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
>> >
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>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
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