[Ads-l] antedating "UFO"

[dave@wilton.net]

"Unidentified flying object" appears as early as 1947.
 
“Area Residents Join Many Seeing ‘Discs.’” Times News (Twin Falls, Idaho), 6 July 1947, 1. Newspaperarchive.com.
 
"Large numbers of flying discs Saturday were reported seen both on Independence day and several weeks ago by many Magic Valley residents. Within a 20-minute period at least 35 of the unidentified flying objects were seen by nearly 60 persons who were picnicking at Twin falls park Friday." [sic: non-standard capitalization in original]
 
 
[ https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/flying-saucer ]( https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/flying-saucer ) 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: "Jonathan Lighter" <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2023 12:42pm
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: [ADS-L] antedating "UFO"



OED: 1953 (Nov.)

1952 Project Blue Book memorandum (Wright Patterson AFB, O.) TS. (Nov. 4):
Sightings of UFO's at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee. (Dec. 15):
The purpose of the call was to contact Mr. Gittings in regard to some
previous data that Capt [sic] Ruppelt had obtained about the visual
sightings of UFO [sic] and radiation from unknown sources.

<goog_1925437364>
https://archive.org/details/1949-11-6314850-Mt-Palomar-California/page/n17/mode/2up?q=%22project+blue+book%22+UFO

1953 [pub. Oct. 5] Donald E. Keyhoe _Flying Saucers from Outer Space_
(N.Y.: Holt) 6: Whipping into a tight circle, the UFO cut inside the
pursuit curve he had set up.

1953 _Atlanta Journal and Constitution_ (Oct. 4) 7-F: The Air Force says
that flying saucers are very real. (The official term is "unidentified
flying object" or UFO.)

Keyhoe's book and reviews like the AJC's publicized the term. (OED's ex.is
from an excerpt in a pilots' magazine.)

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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