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Teen-Age Times of Friday-Sunday, March 24-26, 1950. Credit: D. Marler.

This story could be told in two ways. Starting with the problem and ending with the solution, or the reverse. In the case of this controversial UFO photograph from the early years of the flying saucers craze, I will not follow the chronology of when researchers became aware of the facts but the historical sequence, that is, when things developed, although they were known later. La Voz de España, March 22, 1950 edition. Credit: J.C. Victorio Uranga. La Voz de España was a Francoist newspaper edited in San Sebastián city, province of Guipúzcoa, in the north of Spain, 20 km from the frontier with France. The cover page of the issue of Wednesday, March 22, 1950 shared its selected news with this amazing headline: “Flying Saucers [Platillos volantes]

By Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos UFO FOTOCAT BLOG 310-18

over San Sebastián”. It reported that at 3:30 pm on the prior Sunday, Mr. Mauricio Basurco, a dental technician, and his two twin sisters saw “something black” through one window of their apartment. “Immediately I thought of the flying saucers fad,” the man said. This object was lost to sight between roofs. One of the ladies went to the kitchen’s window and from there they witnessed two more objects. “They didn´t look like airplanes to us,” Mr. Basurco claimed. They were oval-shaped with a black stripe in the middle emitting sparks around. They crossed a cloud bank and reappeared on the background of the blue sky. Now, their shape was “black and they looked like a gramophone record.” Then, five more objects bobbed up, three of which marched almost altogether, “as in a squadron”. The sighting lasted 5-6 minutes.

In my view, this is the unsuspected prelude, never told before, to a long story.
The Teen-Age Times was a short-lived1 weekly magazine for youngsters edited in Dublin (Ireland). Sensationalism-bound, the March 24-26, 1950 edition carried on its cover page an extraordinary and exclusive news feature: Russians had developed a “suspension bomb” that would be “swinging like a red star over your city,” and this could somehow be related to the apparition of flying saucers. This piece was signed by “Nobel Price”. Hand in hand with the information was a photograph of nothing less than “the first sensational picture of The Flying Saucers.” Two bomb shells, indeed…if true. Regarding the so-called suspension bombs, nobody heard about this anymore. Regarding the picture, we will judge it later.

The present article has been motivated by David Marler, a US UFO researcher who was investigating this picture for a long time. ...
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This month is the 70th anniversary of the beginning of a new epoch, when the flying discs invaded our skies for the first time…officially. For some, it began in 1946 with the “ghost rockets” in Sweden, or in the IIWW theatre with the “foo fighters”, or with the “phantom airplanes” of 1912-1913, whilst others would go back to the “airships” of the late XIX century, or to ancient times. But, we all know that it was since the US press attached the “flying saucer” tag to this subject that a large-magnitude phenomenon emerged. One that has had a heavy impact on the general population all over the world. The way I wish to commemorate this ephemeris is by writing down my present vision about the UFO phenomenon, after 50 years of personal

By Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos UFO FOTOCAT BLOG 6-9-17

study, centering on the nature of the supposed evidence that has been collected in all these 70 years of UFO phenomenology. These are the views of a sincere investigator of a mystery that seems to play with us, until we realize that we have simply allowed ourselves to be led astray by a number of surrounding circumstances and influences. What seems at first sight absurd, really is illogical, irrational, incoherent ... finally inadmissible.

I have prepared an essay on the foundation of what can only be a portent or a chimera: the true level of certainty, proof and conviction, that is, the evidence. And I have asked Indiana University emeritus professor Thomas Bullard to accompany me in this global evaluation of the UFO problem with his own thoughts. We agree for the most part but we also have a degree of disagreement. But we both recognize that advancement and progress in this study will only happen when ideas are confronted in a framework of respect and tolerance.

For bibliography quotation purposes, the formal reference to this article will be as follows:
Ballester Olmos, V.J. & Bullard, T.E. (2017), “The Nature of UFO Evidence: Two Views,”




It is exactly 70 years since the society of the United States was thrilled and shaken by the first report of “flying saucers”. This was the early sighting by Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947. It also started a phenomenon ufologists would later call “wave”, a huge avalanche of reports throughout all the nation’s newspapers. It was short-lived and profiled as a sharp Gaussian curve developed over only three weeks: following the initial sighting’s press coverage, news interest ignited, peaked, reached a saturation point and quickly declined. This aftermath triggered two important developments: (1) the stories were disseminated all over the globe, taking on a life of their own in every country, and (2) the Army Air Force (later, USAF) jumped on the matter, beginning to investigate the visions of flying saucers (later, unidentified flying objects or UFOs).

Seven decades of UFO history have provided countless facts and histories, actions and reactions, military and civilian initiatives, Congress and Parliamentary hearings, symposia, scientists and laypersons declarations, and countless UFO-related portrayals in media, cinema, television, publishing and advertisement, daily bombarding and influencing the citizens. Not to mention the millions of supposed UFO reports that emerged from the public and the feedback they yielded. Not to neglect the important effect produced by thousands of UFO proponents all over the globe, people that James Carrion, ex-CEO of MUFON, the top UFO organization in the world, characterized as “self-proclaimed investigators or investigation journalists, whose modus operandi is to perpetuate the mystery, not to solve it”. Seen from a European perspective, this diagnostics is right on target.
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