Alien Mystery

It was a sunny day in 1947, about 80 years ago. A pilot named Kenneth Arnold was flying his plane.

Suddenly, he saw nine objects in the sky. Were they birds? No. They were too shiny. 

Were they planes? No. He didn’t know of any plane that could fly that fast. 

What were these strange flying objects? Could he be seeing spaceships flown by aliens from another planet? 

Arnold landed his plane and told his story. A newspaper printed an article about what he’d seen. It said that the flying objects looked like saucers. (A saucer is a small round plate.)

Other newspapers shared the story too. 

People couldn’t stop reading about it. They wanted to know if Arnold had really seen alien spaceships.

After the newspaper stories, people across the country said they had also spotted UFOs. (UFO stands for unidentified flying object.) 

People thought they saw UFOs everywhere. Farmers said they saw lights over their land. Kids thought they saw flying saucers. 

Looking for UFOs became something fun to do. People joined UFO clubs. Movies and TV shows about aliens were popular. But no one knew if alien spaceships could be real. 

Then a strange object was found in New Mexico. People wondered if it was an alien spaceship that had crashed! 

The government said no. It said it was a weather balloon. That is a tool people use to see what the weather will be. But some UFO fans didn’t believe it. They still thought it was made by aliens.

Were people really seeing spaceships? Probably not.

After 1945, the U.S. began trying out new kinds of planes. They were secret, and they flew higher than other planes. Maybe these planes were what people saw back then.

Some people still say they see UFOs. In 2014 and 2015, five Navy pilots saw flying objects in the air. They saw these objects almost every day for a year!

Experts are puzzled by all the stories of UFOs. Maybe the UFOs are birds, balloons, or a new kind of secret technology. Or maybe they are from another planet. No one knows.

We may never know what Arnold saw all those years ago. But scientists learn more about space every day. They even use big telescopes to find new planets. 

So far, no one has found life on another planet. But life could be out there. Will it be found in your lifetime? Maybe you’ll be the one to find it.