[Ads-l] UAP - unidentified aerial phenomena (or phenomenon)

Sun Oct 23 05:53:18 UTC 2022

Great work, LH. Here are some details for the key 1958 citation.

The Internet Archive has the April 1958 issue of "The Magazine of
Fantasy & Science Fiction" which contains a short story titled "The
Grantha Sighting" by Avram Davidson. U.A.P. is not used for
"Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”; instead, it is used for the following
closely related expression:

U.A.P - Unexplained Aerial Phenomena

The story also uses the following acronym:
U.A.P.C.C. - Unexplained Aerial Phenomena Coordinating Corps

The excerpt from page 49 indicates that Avram Davidson decided to have
his characters deliberately use "Unexplained Aerial Phenomena
Coordinating Corps" as a euphemism for "Flying Saucer Club". Arguably,
"Unexplained Aerial Phenomena" is also more accurate than "flying
saucer". But the overarching goal of the characters is probably to
reduce the stigma.

[ref] 1958 April, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume
14, Number 4, The Grantha Sighting by Avram Davidson, Start Page 48,
Mercury Press, New York. (Internet Archive; Verified with scans)
[/ref]

https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v014n04_1958-04_PDF

Double check these excerpts for OCR errors.

[Begin excerpt from page 48]
"This is Si Haffner, this is Miss Anderson, this is Lou DelBello—all
members of the Unexplained Aerial Phenomena Coordinators, too.
[End excerpt from page 48]

[Begin excerpt from page 49]
". . .Si Haffner, and Joe Trobridge—as well as myself. Long Tom—all
members of that interesting organization you've heard of before on our
five-hour conversations over Station WRO, sometimes called familiarly
the Flying Saucer Club, but known officially as the Unexplained Aerial
Phenomena Coordinating Corps. Well. Quite a mouthful.
[End excerpt from page 49]

[Begin excerpt from page 50]
"Yes, Lou," Joe leaped into the breach, "the same people who didn't
believe Columbus and are now so scornful of all the various and
innumerable U.A.P. sightings, well, the same type people, I mean —some
certain individuals . . ."
[End excerpt from page 50]

[Begin excerpt from page 54]
At first they all talked at once, then all fell silent. Finally, one
man said, "I'm Joe Trobridge of the U.A.P.C.C. — the Unexplained
Aerial — listen, a sighting was reported in this vicinity!"
[End excerpt from page 54]

I checked the OED for "U.A.P", "Aerial Phenomena", and "Aerial
Phenomena". The only match was the irrelevant entry: U.A.P. n. United
Australia Party.

Garson

On Sat, Oct 22, 2022 at 8:42 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [1950 _Air Force_ (Feb.) 17: A probable explanation for many reports of
> unidentified aerial phenomena is that the object is really something quite
> familiar, such as an aircraft, a light, or a bird .]
>
> [1952_U.S. Coast Guard Bulletin_  (Sept.) 53:  A photograph which was
> officially described as "unidentified aerial phenomena" was taken by a
> 21-year-old Coast Guard photographer, and was released from Headquarters.]
>
> 1958 _The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction_ [Google Books, month not
> given, hard copy not checked]: The same people who didn't believe Columbus.
> ..are now...scornful of all the various and innumerable U.A.P. sightings.
>
> [1960  _Air Force and Space Digest_ ( Oct.) 20:  "No unidentified aerial
> phenomena," USAF said, "gave any indication of a threat to the United
> States."]
>
> 1966 Roger A. MacGowan & Frederick Ira Ordway _Intelligence in the
> Universe_   (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall) 290: These are
> variously called unidentified flying objects (UFO) [or] unidentified aerial
> phenomena (UAP). Ibid. 308: Stellar mirages are sometimes a source for an
> [sic] UAP report.
>
> 1968 George W. Earley _Encounters with Aliens_ (Los Angeles: Sherbourne
> Press) 13: The terms "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" (UAP) and
> "Unidentified Aerial Object" (UAO) have also been used, but UFO is the
> generally accepted term.
>
> 1970 Ivan T. Sanderson _Invisible Residents_  (New York: World) 8: The USAF
> some time back divided "UFOs" into two distinct categories: UAPs, or
> Unexplained Aerial Phenomena; and UAOs, or unidentified aerial objects.
>
> 1976 Paris Flammonde _UFO Exist!_   (N.Y.: Putnam) 41: the primary
> arguments for the existence of “flying saucers" - meaning an intelligently
> controlled craft  generally assumed to be extraterrestrial - are the early
> sources of many accounts of UAO, UAP, UFO, and like curiosities.
>
> 1978 Norman J. Briazack & Simon Mennick _UFO Guidebook_  (Secaucus, N.J.:
> Carol)  222:
> UAP. Acronym for either Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or Unexplained Aerial
> Phenomena. This official Air Force designation refers exclusively to that
> particular class of UFO sightings in which only light manifestations or
> phenomena were visible. A UAP may be a natural phenomenon and thus may
> eventually be explainable without reliance on the extraterrestrial origin
> theory.
>
> 1983 _New Scientist_ (Feb. 10) 380: To distinguish such phenomena from more
> dubious data, we propose that they should be renamed "UAPs," for
> unidentified atmospheric phenomena.
>
> Etc., etc.
>
> On Sat, Oct 22, 2022 at 2:23 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > The acronym in the subject line might illustrate the euphemism treadmill:
> > flying saucer ==> UFO ==> UAP
> >
> > https://twitter.com/GadiNBC/status/1583436360890753024
> >
> > [Begin tweet information]
> > Gadi Schwartz @GadiNBC
> > 8:33 AM · Oct 21, 2022
> > Are you a commercial or private pilot that has seen UAP's flying in
> > racetrack patterns in the direction of the Big Dipper? My DM's are
> > open. CC #ufoTwitter
> > https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/1583429043785170944
> > [End tweet information]
> >
> > Garson
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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