[Ads-l] antedating "UFO"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I just posted that under "antedating 'unidentified flying object.'"

You'll have noticed, as did I, that the '47 example is used literally, with
none of the later connotations of the phrase.

Captain Edward Ruppelt of Blue Book claimed to have coined "UFO" as an
official term. Perhaps he was not alone though Blue Book's actual staff at
Wright-Patterson was usually single-digit minuscule.

At any rate, soon after the appearance of Keyhoe's "Flying Saucers from
Outer Space," everybody knew the difference between a merely unidentified
flying object and a "UFO."

JL

On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 2:36 PM dave at wilton.net <dave at wilton.net> wrote:

>
> "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."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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