Where is the flying saucer?
Published in european oil company No. 97
While on vacation in Cadiz in July 2023, I stayed in a hotel overlooking the lively square of the old town, surrounded by tapas bars and restaurants. One night I discovered a small bar called “Los Platillos Volantes” on the street near the hotel. The menu displayed outside is decorated with interesting sketches of alien spaceships. A group of tourists were drinking at tables on the sidewalk. I walked in expecting to find a space-style interior, but was surprised by the simplicity of the bar. The common images on the walls are of beaches and villages with white houses, rather than filled with Mars-related paraphernalia.
When my beer arrived, I asked the bartender about the strange name of the bar. He introduced me to a middle-aged man named Juan José, a local designer. Juan Jose’s eyes sparkle as he remembers the history of this place.
“The Saucers have been here since 1955, but before that it opened under another name,” he said.
-Wow! Almost seventy years ago? -I answer-. It’s less than a decade since a famous sighting in Washington state sparked the UFO craze.
Juan José describes the colorful carnival scene in Cadiz in the 1950s, with parties filling the streets. The city is home to two rival choirs with curious names: “Los Bichitos de Luz” and “Los Marcianos”.
-One year, Los Bichitos de Luz released a song mocking their rivals – Juan José explains -. It begins with the line: “Flying saucers are everywhere today.” The sly lyrics are an obvious jab at his rivals.
Juan Jose looked around with a smile. — The original owner was a friend of two choir members. Inspired by the song, he decided to change the name of the place from “La Botella” to “Los Platillos Volantes”.
-What happened to the choir? -I asked for it.
“Los Marcianos won the tournament that year and Los Pictos was disqualified,” Juan Jose said with a laugh. — Now I’m redesigning the place. I plan to renovate it and pay homage to its historical origins.
Later, when I returned to the hotel, Juan José sent me the full lyrics of the famous melody that triggered everything. Now I had the missing piece to understand the unusual story behind the mysterious name of this humble bar.
Martian (1955)
Lyricist: Antonio Torres Ramirez
“I saw a flying saucer today.
Flying everywhere,
I don’t know what this pot means
They guarantee that from Mars,
I promise you this
This is a bit disturbing.
if they come from that planet
This shows us that they are very smart.
Those Martians know a lot,
but in my opinion
From what I’ve seen,
Those are the conventions,
Gossip and comments.
if they invented a dish
like a big thing
believe they will go
Terrorize us with him.
It is necessary to convince them,
Earth is ready,
When you want to liquidate them.
I do not care
The dishes and their staff,
No matter where they come from, no matter where they are
Monday or Tuesday.
Continue as before,
On top of that planet,
if they want to scare us
Let’s speak out and let them know
if they were martians
Olé! , I was born in La Caleta. “
Juan José also sent me some photos of a rival choir’s Carnival parade. In the image of the “Masians” float, they can be seen wearing tunics and winged helmets with a bright star engraved on their chests. On the dome of a makeshift spaceship, two “little green men” watch the reveling crowd from above.
Now, the inverted bowl is more than just an accessory: it’s a symbol that has spread across continents and cultures since its creation shortly after World War II.
It is remarkable that a mysterious phenomenon in the skies of North America could make such a profound impression on Spain, which is nearly 6,440 kilometers away. Yet this ubiquitous dish has become deeply ingrained in our collective unconscious, appearing in every medium imaginable around the world. Its influence is undeniable, appearing in the most unexpected places, from rock music to colloquial nicknames for architectural landmarks in the United Arab Emirates.
less than 1%
Try this: Do a quick Google Image search for the word “UFO.” You’ll see a kaleidoscope of strange objects, most shaped like upside-down bowls or domed pancakes. The roots of this form date back to June 1947, when pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine anomalous objects in the sky near Mount Rainier on the west coast of North America. That day, the concept of flying saucers was born; however, interestingly, modern UFO photos rarely show actual discs. Nowadays spheres, triangles and other shapes prevail. Our beloved dishes seem to have disappeared, existing mainly in black and white photos from the past.
In 2003, I founded the research group Magnolia exchange Early reports of Arnold’s UFO sightings were discovered. Over two decades, we collected approximately 40,000 newspaper clippings, magazine articles, letters and other hard-to-access sources. Our results suggest that the history of this phenomenon, whatever its exact origins, is much earlier than many thought, and that optical discs have been conspicuous by their absence.
In 2010, I co-authored Wonders of the sky In collaboration with renowned ufologist Jacques Vallée, 500 cases were collected from ancient Egypt to 1880. Since then, we have continued to improve our ever-expanding catalog. In 2022, I published the first volume cultural relics alienexplores the cultural history of the subject of extraterrestrial contact.
After so much time and research, I estimate that disk-shaped UFOs accounted for less than 1% of all reported sightings from ancient times to June 24, 1947. I collect these rare cases here for the first time so that everyone can judge. yourself.
NUFORC (National UFO Reporting Center) has recorded approximately 145,500 sightings from 1980 to the present, of which disk-shaped sightings account for approximately 5.9%, followed by lights, circles, triangles, fireballs, unknown objects, etc. The website of the U.S. Secretary of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) shows a pie chart in which disks account for only 2% of cases collected since 1996, surpassing Oval (3%), Light (16%), Other (7%), vague sensory contact or ASC (19%), and spheres (47%). Other minority categories include Tic Tac (1%), Polygon (1%), Square (1%), Rectangle (1%), Triangle (2%), and Cylinder (2%).
Let’s take a moment to think about this. Before 1947, less than 1% of all UFO sightings were disc-shaped, but today, flying discs have become extremely rare. In other words, in 4,000 years of recorded history, saucer-shaped UFOs have only been prevalent for a brief 50-year window, a period even shorter than the Rolling Stones’ musical career to date. This difference has always fascinated me. How can a single image of a flying saucer symbolize such a widespread phenomenon when this form of UFO has been so rare over thousands of years of history?
This is the heart of the book and a mystery that we will explore from different angles:
• Our journey begins in 1947, when Kenneth Arnold emerged as the spark that ignited flying saucer mania.
• From there, we’ll travel back in time to examine historical records of Arnold’s encounters with previously unexplained aerial phenomena. Can we unearth evidence of flying saucers in ancient documents?
• Next, we put the phrase “flying saucer” under a microscope. Surprisingly, it appears in sources before the invention of airplanes and was used during World War II.
• Hereafter, we will focus on the evidence in the literature regarding flying saucers. Are there any similarities between early science fiction and modern cases?
• Finally, we will return to Arnold’s original sighting with our new knowledge and ask: Did he really see what we think he saw? As the source of all things, this question is far from irrelevant.
How did the disk become our typical UFO symbol? The story is full of twists and turns. Let’s take a look at why those naughty light bugs chose to sing about the “flying saucers” flying around Cadiz instead of the cups or teapots.
Chris Obeck
The “dish” is complete Available on Amazon 