The Almost Daily

It’s National UFO Day.  Or should it be International UFO Day… or Interstellar UFO Day?  Regardless, it was on this day in 1947 that amateur pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing a formation of UFOs flying near Mt. Ranier, just up the road in central Washington.  Arnold estimated the nine saucer shaped objects were traveling at speeds over 1700 mph, way faster than anything on earth at that time.  And he wasn’t the only one to see them.  They were spotted by people all over the Pacific Northwest, even by a United Airlines crew, who reported they were paced by these flying objects for several minutes before they… just… disappeared.  Though Arnold never called what he saw “flying saucers,” the newspapers did, using the term for the first time.  All accounts of Arnold and his story verify that the guy was not a nut. 

But it did start a rash of UFO sightings.  The most famous of those, just a few weeks later, was by rancher Mac Brazel, who, on July 7, 1947, discovered some “unusual” debris just outside of Roswell, New Mexico.  The United States Air Force says it was a crashed weather balloon from the nearby Alamogordo Nuclear Testing Grounds.  That’s still their story, and they’re sticking to it, even though the FBI sent out a notice that it was a flying disc that only looked like a weather balloon.  And so the conspiracy began. 

For years the government would not admit there was anything in the sky that couldn’t be explained.  You know… UFOs, or, as the government now calls them:  UAPs – Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.  Which means the same thing, but, hey, it’s the government.  If they change the name to something we don’t understand, then we’re more likely to think they know what’s going on.  And, in fact… they don’t.  Only now they are more inclined to admit it.  According to the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (or, as the government calls it, the AARO), which is a branch of the Department of Defense, there were well over 700 reports of WSTs – Weird Sky Things – in the past year or so.  Many of those were easily explained.  I still remember back when I was a kid and a weather balloon came down not too far from where I lived.  That thing really looked weird floating up there.  There still are weather balloons.  And nowadays we have UAS’s – Unmanned Ariel Systems… you know.  Drones.  And there are still birds and airplanes and stuff like that.  But, yeah.  Out of all of those 700 or so reported WSTs, there were 21 cases that nobody could explain.  The AARO says that doesn’t mean they’re from other planets or some sort of new technology buzzing around up there.  It only means they’re unexplained.  They’re unexplained phenomena.  And they’re in the air.  So, yeah.  There’s no need to worry about aliens.  Because we all know how truthful the government is. 

For those of you who don’t believe in WSTs, it’s also Midsummer Day.  OK.  It’s more close to the first day of summer, but it’s a Quarter Day, and that’s what they call it.  If you don’t like it, take it up with the British.  They’ll probably tell you to fuck off, but it sounds so much less offensive with a British accent.  Midsummer Day traditionally celebrates the Nativity of John the Baptist.  If you’re keeping track, the next Quarter Day is on September 29 – Michaelmas.  And then after that is December 25, which, if you remember from when you were a kid, is Christmas.  Following that is Lady Day on March 25, which celebrates the Feast of the Annunciation.  And that brings us back around to Mid-Summer Day.  It never ends.

​