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Karen Latchana Kenney Karen Latchana Mysterious UFOs and UFOs

MYSTERIOUS UFOS AND ALIENS THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK Fear Fest Mysterious UFOs and Aliens

Karen Latchana Kenney

Lerner Publications Minneapolis To Mrs. White, my third-grade teacher, who encouraged me to write Chapter 1 SEEING FLYING Copyright © 2018 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. SAUCERS . . . page 4 All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written Chapter 2 permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review. Lerner Publications Company SIGNS AND A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. 241 First Avenue North Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA SIGHTINGS . . . page 10 For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com. Chapter 3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kenney, Karen Latchana, author. MEETING ALIENS . . . page 16 Title: Mysterious UFOs and aliens / by Karen Latchana Kenney. Description: Minneapolis : Lerner Publications, [2017] | Series: Searchlight books. Fear fest | Audience: Ages 8–11. | Audience: Grades 4 to 6. | Includes bibliographical Chapter 4 references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016054408 (print) | LCCN 2016056309 (ebook) | ISBN 9781512434064 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512456066 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512450774 (eb pdf) EVIDENCE OR HOAX? . . . page 20 Subjects: LCSH: Unidentified flying objects—Sightings and encounters—Juvenile literature. | Human-alien encounters—Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC TL789.2 .K476 2017 (print) | LCC TL789.2 (ebook) | DDC 001.942— Chapter 5 dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016054408 SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS . . . page 24

Manufactured in the United States of America 1-42042-23912-2/27/2017 Believe It or Not! • 29 Glossary • 30 Learn More about UFOs and Aliens • 31 Index • 32 Contents

Chapter 1 SEEING FLYING SAUCERS . . . page 4

Chapter 2 SIGNS AND SIGHTINGS . . . page 10

Chapter 3

MEETING ALIENS . . . page 16

Chapter 4

EVIDENCE OR HOAX? . . . page 20

Chapter 5

SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS . . . page 24

Believe It or Not! • 29 Glossary • 30 Learn More about UFOs and Aliens • 31 Index • 32

3 Chapter 1 SEEING FLYING SAUCERS

You’re in a car driving down a dark country road. Suddenly you see a blue-green beam of light. It shines over you, and the car stops working. Everything buzzes and has an eerie glow. The light quickly rises. Then it speeds across the sky in a flash, and it’s gone. What just happened?

Some people say they’ve seen a UFO. What is a UFO?

4 You just saw an unidentified flying object, or UFO. Sometimes people report seeing mysterious flying objects shoot through the sky. Scientists study these reports. Sometimes scientists find that the strange sightings can be explained. Maybe someone saw oddly shaped clouds. Or it might have been a comet or a meteor. Maybe it was even a secret military aircraft. But sometimes even scientists can’t explain what was seen. Then the object is called a UFO. Some people think the explanations for UFOs are far stranger than clouds and comets. They say that UFOs might even be from other planets!

Some people believe that UFOs are ships from outer space.

5 UFOs in the News! The first famous UFO sighting happened on June 24, 1947. A man named Kenneth Arnold was flying his plane near Mount Rainier in Washington. He said he saw nine objects in the sky. They had a crescent shape and moved very fast. He thought they looked like saucers skipping across water. Newspapers reported Arnold’s strange story. They called the objects flying saucers.

This is an image of what Arnold said the flying objects looked like.

6 Fact or Fiction?

Is it true that someone could mistake a cloud for a flying saucer?

Yes!

Certain clouds have round saucer shapes. They are called lenticular clouds. These clouds are large, flat, and round. Sometimes people mistake these clouds for UFOs. But the clouds can’t move as fast as the speeding objects Kenneth Arnold reported. They usually stay still in the sky.

Lenticular clouds often form near mountains.

7 This famous crash is called the Roswell Incident. A UFO Crash? In early July 1947, soon after Arnold’s sighting, another strange event happened. In Roswell, New Mexico, people reported seeing a large glowing object flying very fast. A sheep rancher heard a loud explosion, and the next day, he found thin foil pieces on the ground. An air force official said the government had found something there. The official originally said it was a flying disk! Then the air force investigated further and said it was only a crashed weather balloon. The government later revealed the actual crashed object was a balloon from a secret military project. Some people think the government is lying though. They think it was really a UFO crash.

8 After Arnold’s flying saucers and the Roswell Incident, many more people started reporting sightings of mysterious objects in the sky. Some say they are shaped like shiny metal saucers. Some are strangely moving lights in the night. Some people report seeing UFOs with blinking colors. People have even said that they have seen figures standing inside. Were they aliens? What the flying objects really are is still a mystery. Yet sightings keep happening. And we keep searching the skies for answers.

People have reported seeing flying saucers everywhere, from the desert to deep in the woods.

9 For hundreds of years, people have claimed to see mysterious flying objects. But what are they? Do visitors from other planets come to Earth? Many reports say they have. While some reports can be explained away, others cannot. What do you think? Take a look at the evidence. You might be surprised by what you discover about UFOs and aliens!

Do you believe there might be life beyond our planet?

28 Believe It or Not!

• In 1938, a radio program said aliens from the planet Mars were invading Earth. More than a million people were listening. Some panicked. But it was all just a story called War of the Worlds.

• Some people report being visited by strange men in black suits called the Men in Black. They visit people who have seen UFOs and ask questions about the sightings.

• UFOs seem to be spotted in certain states more than others. As of the end of 2016, California was the state with the most UFOs reported to the National UFO Reporting Center. North Dakota had the least.

29 Glossary aircraft: a vehicle that can fly airship: a large air balloon with a structure that carries passengers underneath autopsy: an examination of a dead body to find out the cause of death citizen: a person who lives in a city, town, or country evidence: information or facts that help prove that something is true or real hoax: a trick or joke hypnotize: to put someone into a trance. While a person is hypnotized, sometimes it is easier for them to remember the past. investigate: to find out all that you can about a mystery, event, or person lenticular cloud: a round cloud with layers that forms near mountains weather balloon: a balloon that carries scientific instruments into the sky to collect data about the weather

30 Learn More about UFOs and Aliens Books Halls, Kelly Milner. Alien Investigation: Searching for the Truth about UFOs and Aliens. Minneapolis: Millbrook Press, 2012. This book includes stories and interviews of people who witnessed UFOs. Krasner, Barbara. The Mystery of Area 51. Minneapolis: Abdo, 2016. Learn the theories about the Area 51 military base in Nevada. Rivkin, Jennifer. Searching for UFOs. New York: PowerKids, 2015. Find out about UFOs and aliens by looking at science and history in this book.

Websites Discovery Kids: Aliens http://discoverykids.com/articles/do-aliens-really-exist Read an article about aliens, and find out what we know about aliens and UFOs. ESA Kids: Exoplanets https://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEM3NFXPXPF_LifeinSpace_0.html Learn about exoplanets and the possibility of life outside our solar system.

31 Index airships, 5, 13–14, 19 pilots, 6, 15, 23 alien appearance, 9, 11–12, Project Blue Book, 24 16–17, 22, 25 Arnold, Kenneth, 6–9 Roswell Incident, 8–9, 19

evidence, 21–23, 26, 28 weather, 5, 7, 21, 26

Lusk, Charles, 13

Photo Acknowledgments

The images in this book are used with the permission of: Blend Images/Alamy Stock Photo, p. 4; INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo, p. 5; Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo, pp. 6, 9, 15, 21; © Ed Darack/SuperStock, p. 7; REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo, p. 8; © iStockphoto.com/ikonacolor, p. 10; © Unukorno/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0), p. 11; Photo Researchers, Inc/Alamy Stock Photo, p. 12; Chronicle/Alamy Stock Photo, p. 13; © Science & Society Picture Library/Getty Images, p. 14; adike/Shutterstock.com, p. 16; © Bettmann/Getty Images, p. 17; Dan Callister/Alamy Stock Photo, p. 18; Alexey Stiop/Alamy Stock Photo, p. 19; robertharding/Alamy Stock Photo, p. 20; AW/ Alamy Stock Photo, p. 22; YAY Media AS/Alamy Stock Photo, p. 23; Dimitar Todorov/Alamy Stock Photo, p. 24; Columbia Pictures/AF archive/Alamy Stock Photo, p. 25; © PASCAL PAVANI/AFP/Getty Images, p. 26; Stocktrek Images, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo, p. 27; Lonely/Shutterstock.com, p. 28.

Cover: © Mike_kiev/Dreamstime.com.

Main body text set in Adrianna Regular 14/20. Typeface provided by Chank.

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