Undebunking UFOs: Flying Saucers with Stanton Friedman

Monday, May 4, 2015

Flying Saucers with Stanton Friedman

The following is a great interview with Friedman, in which a great deal of time is devoted to discussing the UFO debunkers, or the as he likes to refer to them, the "noisy negativists."

A flying saucer (also referred to as a flying disc) is a type of described flying craft with a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to any anomalous flying object. In 1947 the term was coined but was later officially supplanted by the United States Air Force in 1952 with the broader term unidentified flying objects or UFO's . Early reported sightings of unknown "flying saucers" usually described them as silver or metallic, sometimes reported as covered with navigation lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly, either alone or in tight formations with other similar craft, and exhibiting high maneuverability.

While disc-shaped flying objects have been interpreted as being sporadically recorded since the Middle Ages, the first highly publicized sighting by Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947, resulted in the creation of the exact term by U.S. newspapers. Although Arnold never specifically used the term "flying saucer", he was quoted at the time saying the shape of the objects he saw was like a "saucer", "disc", or "pie-plate", and several years later added he had also said "the objects moved like saucers skipping across the water." Both the terms flying saucer and flying disc were used commonly and interchangeably in the media until the early 1950s.

Stanton Terry Friedman (born July 29, 1934) is a professional Ufologist who resides in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He is the original civilian investigator of the Roswell incident. He studied physics at the University of Chicago and worked as a nuclear physicist on research and development projects for several large companies. He is a dual citizen of Canada and the U.S.