Hello and welcome to the program UFO Warning.
In this episode, we're looking at an 1878 Texas UFO sighting.
That's correct, an 1878 Texas UFO sighting.
Now, what I love about these old sightings is that we can rule
out drones, weather balloons, hobby balloons, top secret war
machines, all that kind of nonsense.
We can just. We can just take those tools out
of the tool bag of the debunker, because 1878 was a long time
before any of that stuff was even conceived of.
Also, what I like about these is that so often the reports are
just printed from the witness's mouth to our ear.
We don't have a lot of this interjected stuff from the
government. We don't have a lot of this
nonsense from the debunker, so we get some of our very best
reports of and sighting of sightings and counters I think
from this pre purely modern era. Now this first article comes to
us from theufocasebook.com ufocasebook.com.
I'll put a link to their site at the Kofi and Locals website.
A lot of really neat stuff over there.
A very detailed, very full site over there.
I definitely recommend you go over and take a look for
yourself now. This article says January 1878
Denison, TX Daylight UFO got a little illustration here and
then it says the term flying saucer was made popular by a
journalist covering Kenneth Arnold's sighting of nine flying
disc in June of 1947. The Journal misquoted Arnold,
who did not describe the objects as saucer shaped, but describes
their strange movements as similar to a saucer thrown on
the water and bouncing several times.
Quote, they flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across
the water. But a Texan farmer, John Martin,
used the term saucer 69 years earlier to describe the flying
object he saw on a hunting expedition in the surroundings
of Denison, TX on January 2nd, 1878.
In this case also, saucer does not refer to the shape but to
the size of the object observed. As its shape was described as
that of a balloon, John Martin saw the dark object high in the
southern sky. He first noticed it to be about
the size of an orange that grew in size as it got closer to him.
After he had to rush his eyes, it had increased considerably
and size and appeared to be going quite fast.
When it was over him, it was the size of a large saucer and at a
great height. So even though he says this is
similar to a balloon, it doesn't sound at all like a balloon to
me. Hard to believe somebody would
have had the resources to place, you know, a large hot air
balloon down there in this part of Texas, almost what 150 years
ago. Because this UFO was dark and
not a mysterious light, reflective or silvery, many
scientists believe he saw a solid object against the sky
with the light behind it. The sighting was reported by the
local newspaper Dennison Daily News on January 25th, 1878 with
the title A Strange Phenomena. The article was a first hand
report from the farmer and its full text is and read it, it
says from Mr. John Martin, a farmer who lives some 6 miles
South of the city. We learned the following strange
story Tuesday morning while hunting.
His attention was directed to a dark object high up in the
southern sky. The peculiar shape and velocity
with which the object seemed to approach riveted his attention,
and he strained his eyes to discover its character.
When first noticed, it appeared to be about the size of an
orange which continued to grow in size.
After gazing at it for some time, Mr. Martin became blind
from long looking and left off viewing it for a time in order
to rest his eyes. On resuming his view, the object
was almost overhead and had increased considerably in size.
It appeared to be going through space at wonderful speed, went
directly over him. It was about the size of a large
saucer, and was evidently at great height.
Mr. Martin thought it resembled, as well as he could judge, a
balloon. It went as rapidly as it had
come, and was soon lost to sight in the heavenly skies.
Mr. Martin is a gentleman of undoubted veracity, and his and
this strange occurrence, if it was not a balloon, deserves the
attention of our scientists. Of course, old reports somehow
lack inaccurate information and no witnesses interviewed.
It's possible to get the missing information or check the witness
reliability, but these old reports exist and even lacking
of clear data, they sometimes cannot be easily interpreted in
terms of commonplace phenomena. And goes on, it says.
Who knows, maybe some even older report can still surface where a
UFO is described as a saucer, like in some aspect written by
BJ Booth. Yeah, that's kind of gives you a
short synopsis of what happened there.
Now let's take a look at this next article.
This is from texascooppower.com. It's like the date on this is
March 2016 by ER Bills. It says the first flying saucer
description of Dennison. UFO in 1878 became archetype for
alien space travel. That goes on, it says.
When I was growing up in the late 1970s, the Star Wars and
close Encounters of the Third Kind practically owned the big
screen, and Hollywood followed up with a mork and many takeover
of network TV. Folks were captivated by
galaxies far, far away, and I was no different.
But Texas seemed light years away from everything that was
going on in deep space. I recently stumbled across
something that dispelled this youthful misperception.
Mork, Han Solo, Chewbacca and the visitors pertayed in close
Encounters were all space travellers, and the modern
archetype for alien space travellers is the flying saucer.
As it turns out, the first recorded flight of a flying
saucer was not in Roswell, NM, or Boulder, Co or at the Devil's
Tower in Wyoming. One was spotted in Texas on
January 22nd, 1878. Now the other article said
January 17th, so just keep that in mind.
According to a January 25th, 1878 front page report and the
Dennison Daily News, which was attributed to the Dallas Herald
and headlined a strange phenomena, a farmer named John
Martin was hunting 6 miles north of the city when he spotted
something in the distance. Martin's attention was directed
to a dark object high up in the southern sky, the story said.
The shape and velocity with which the object seemed to
approach riveted his attention, and he strained his eyes to
discover its character. At first, the object appeared to
be the size of an orange, but it got bigger and brighter as it
approached. Martin stared at it so long.
He was temporarily blind, he was temporarily blinded, and by the
time his vision was restored, the object was almost directly
overhead. Kind of wonder if that was from
staring or if that was from some sort of light this thing was
emitting by then. It was about the size of a large
saucer, quote UN quote, and was soaring across the sky at high
altitude and with incredible speed.
Martin said it resembled a balloon, and the Herald reporter
noted that if it was not a balloon, it deserved the
attention of our scientists. The story appeared in the Dallas
Weekly Herald on January 26th, and the Daily Oklahomans soon
after that. There is no evidence this
incident ever actually received examination from local, state or
national scientists at the time, but it did grab the attention of
stargazers and researchers decades later.
It was discussed in the influential book The Flying
Saucers Are Real Faucet Publications, 1950 by Donald
Kehoe Revisited in the Dallas Morning News on August 6th, 1965
and examined in close Encounters of the Lone Star Kind and The
Texas Monthly in 1969. It says although mysterious
objects in the sky have been recorded throughout human
history. The sighting in Dennison led to
the first ever mention of a flying saucer, and flying
saucers have been a staple of UFO lore ever since.
Where Martin saw the saucer is not exactly clear.
According to the 1880 US Census, there was a tenant farmer named
John E Martin living in Grayson County, where Dennison is
located. But there were five John Martins
working as farmers at Collin County just north of Dallas and
Dallas County. Three Johns, two of whom are
listed in 1870 census, 1 John P and one John W in the 1880
census listed no John Martin in the Dallas County.
So definitely there were people there by that name and and it
even in that very near location where this was reported to have
happened at, it says. Regardless of which John Martin
saw a flying saucer in North Texas in 1878.
At least three local newspapers reported it at a time when no
one had even heard of a UFO, much less base aliens, close
Encounters or R2D2. The sighting occurred before
there was a genuine context or compelling rhetoric for such
events. It also took place before the
sightings themselves became cliche, lending credence to the
original account and firmly submitting the notion of
visitors from galaxies far, far away, right here in our own
backyard. That much is true.
I mean, you weren't hearing about UFOs and the papers all
the time, and it certainly didn't have the Internet or
television or cell phones. This guy was just out hunting,
trying to make ends meet, trying to put food on the table, and he
sees this UFO that he describes as about the size of a saucer.
Now this last article here is from boxton.com.
Looks like it's about four years ago and it says 69 years before
UFO Pop culture. January 1978 Denison, TX Well,
most researchers attribute the term flying saucer to a 1947
sighting of several disc shaped objects by pilot Kenneth Arnold
at Mount Rainier, Washington. The term saucer was actually
first used for a UFO in 1878 when Texas former John Martin
described a flying object he saw during a hunting trip.
Martin was hunting on his property north of Dallas, TX on
the morning of Wednesday January 2nd, 1878.
Suddenly he noticed a dark object in the sky to the South.
When the farmer first saw it, the UFO was spot the size of an
orange, but it grew in size rapidly as it approached his
position, the local newspaper said.
The peculiar shape and velocity with which the object seemed to
approach riveted his attention and he strained his eyes to
discover the character. Since it was morning and yet the
the object looked dark. It seems like the UFO did not
have any lights. Instead, it appeared as a dark
shape against the bright blue of the sky.
Martin kept staring at it as it moved rapidly toward him.
Martin said the UFO appeared to be going through space at a
wonderful speed. Let's think about this.
This is back in the time of horse and buggies.
I mean, not that long, but a dozen years after the Civil War.
Ten years after the Civil War. I mean fastest thing around
would have been a locomotive, I suppose.
The brightness of the sky temporarily blinded Martin and
he lost track of where the object was.
He rested his eyes for a few minutes.
By the time he could see it again the UFO was right on top
of him and it was much larger than before.
Some magic in this fellow being out there looking up into this
bright sun filled sky, absolutely free of chemtrails I
might add. And I suppose this the
brightness of the sun behind this you know beautiful blue sky
might have been enough to strain his eyes while he was staring at
this UFO for a little too long, the newspaper article said when
directly over him. It was about the size of a large
saucer and was evidently a great height.
So he knows this thing's big, but it's just way up there.
So although it was huge in size, it was also very high up in the
sky. This means his true size was
even larger than what it seemed to be.
Martin described the shape of the objects as sort of like a
balloon, but although hot air balloons already existed, they
were extremely rare and they did not move very fast.
Martin kept watching the UFO until it moved completely out of
view. It went as rapidly as it had
come and was soon lost to sight in the heavily skies, the
newspaper said. A report about the sighting
appeared in the Denison Daily News on January 25th, 1878.
It was titled A Strange Phenomena and consisted of a
first hand report from the farmer.
The newspaper article confirmed that Martin was a very
trustworthy person. He was not the kind of person
who would make up a false story. Mr. Martin is a gentleman of
undoubted veracity, and his strange and this strange
occurrence, if it was not a balloon, deserves the attention
of our scientists, the article said.
It's got a picture of this old newspaper here, pretty cool, and
it also gives you the links to the actual.
The actual newspaper article goes on.
It has the quotes here from. It talks about when he's when,
you know when he saw the this UFO Hut was the size of an
orange Hut came up over him. He looks up, it's the size of a
saucer and then it darts off. Then it goes on down here.
Talking about Doctor J Allen Heineck, it says in the early
1970s, Doctor J Allen Heineck, a famous astronomer and UFO
investigator, studied the Martin sighting.
Heineck classified the incident as a daylight disc.
These types of UFOs usually travel very fast and make almost
no sound. They sometimes make sudden sharp
turns while traveling extremely fast.
Daylight disk are often described as shiny or metallic.
They usually display no lights. Sometimes the witnesses may hear
a very faint swooshing sound. Daylight disk are mostly
reported after 1940, so this is is a very unusual case from
1878. It is extremely rare.
It remains one of the most interesting UFO cases of the
late 1800s. When you think about that, this
guy's seen the same thing back then that we're seeing today.
OK, but the difference is, is 1878.
We don't have automobiles. We don't have cars that have
airplanes that haven't been invented.
So what was the UFO that this Mr. Martin's actually saw?
Well, we know it wasn't a drone. We know it wasn't a Chinese or a
Russian warplane or spy plane or spy balloon for that matter.
It was a UFOI. Just think, this is so cool to
go back and look at some of these old articles, especially
in light of some of the stuff that's been going on.
I think I'll cover it next week. Possibly.
There's an article out talking about Representative Tim
Burchett being approached by I don't know if it's a congressman
or what, but this person telling him, unnamed person telling him
that he needs to quit pursuing disclosure on UFOs because
Americans can't handle the truth, can't handle the truth?
Well, look what happened in 1878.
They handled the truth. They just reported what they
saw. But today we have this huge
apparatus that I call the Deep State.
Some people, I guess, call it the BLOB of these dozens, if not
hundreds, of agencies and departments and whatnot filled
with bureaucrats. Most of them pretty well pay, by
the way, the living living off of the taxpayer largesse.
And they're the ones telling us that only they should know about
the UFOs. Only they are allowed to have
this information. Now, in 1878, we didn't really
have that. We didn't have all of the
bureaucracy that was created under Woodrow Wilson's
administration. And after that we didn't have
the whole modernization of of society being taken over by
these government bureaucrats. So information did seem to flow
somewhat more freely on a lot of levels.
In this case, we had a guy who claimed to see a UFO, and the
reporter simply reported what the man said.
He didn't take it upon himself to debunk him.
He didn't take it upon himself to try to deperson this
individual. He didn't print lies about him,
or innuendos or rumors, or didn't accuse him of being
mentally ill or having some other design on the situation to
profit from it. He simply reported what the
witness told him. He saw a simpler, better time.
So when people say that we can't handle the truth, I would have
to say, well, perhaps some people couldn't handle the
truth. I mean, after what we've been
through the last couple years, I think that's obvious.
But I do believe that the majority of the people can
handle the truth. And we can handle it the same
way it was handled in 1878 when John Martin seen this UFO fly
over his farm while he was out hunting.
Just report the truth. Nothing but the truth.
As they say, the truth will set you free, right?
Until next time, this is UFO warning.
Over and out.