Sexism In Early UFO Investigation

An early ad affirming the frailty of women

The very word "hysteria" comes from an sexist belief that women were more emotionally and labeled "female hysteria" (nervousness, anxiety, emotional responses, having ideas or opinions, seeking legal or political redress, questioning male authority - these were all symptoms that led to a diagnosis of 'female hysteria').  Sadly, this type of thinking can be seen in some cases of investigations into unidentified flying object reports. Often, by men who labeled themselves "scientists" and should have known better.
mentally unstable due to their biology. The word comes from the Greek for "uterus."  It was bad science that led to worse science and guided far too much thinking about women, their intellect and emotional structure well into the 20th century.  A large group of symptoms were used to define something broadly believed to be a female condition and something that made her inherently inferior in mental capacity, physical stamina and emotional stability.

In Sheffield Lake, Ohio, 21 September 1958, one of the most aggressively sexist of all reports appeared with the story of a woman who reported an unidentified flying object in her front yard. The part that rankled the Air Force was that a local UFO group jumped in and issued a paper on the sighting making claims they could not and would not support. The rivalry between the AF and civilian UFo investigative groups (often mocked with the title 'saucerians') fills many pages throughout the Project Blue Book ( and its predecessor names) records. Some reports to government and military agencies are nothing but pages outlining the numerous civilian periodicals and/or groups in the nation at that time. At one time over fifty national organizations existed and this, it was clear, was just too much.

In short, the witness described an object seen for five minutes has having a side view of a round "saucer shaped object" with smoke coming from the two far "ends" of the thin rim aspect of the "saucer". In other view it was round with a projection on the top. It followed a course across her front yard, appeared 8 feet diameter. The object crossed her driveway, becoming lower, about a foot off the ground - then object turned east to center of lawn, hovering there releasing a grayish-pink smoke- while visible a humming or whirring sound.

The air force explained this away, despite the attempts of the local and national UFO organization to present it as a viable unidentified sighting.  The AF said the combination of events leading to her sighting were:
1. Coast Guard boat using a searchlight to signal another boat at that same time
2. Train with an oscillating headlight and a tail light at that same time
3. Rain and mist with smoke and haze at that same time

1936 film that led to witness emotional vulnerability

4. Witness had just finished watching a horror movie...leaving her emotional vulnarable at that same time.

Believe me, having seen said movie,
it would hardly leave anyone emotional vulnerable let alone overly imaginative about  UFO's.


There was a tendency for some groups to equate any and all unidentified objects with "flying saucers', i.e. craft from other worlds. There was ,also, a tendency by the Air Force and its scientific supports - such as Dr. Donald H. Menzel and Dr.  J. Allen Hynek (although he would later adjust his views to a belief there was much to investigate in the subject) -were less open minded scientists as avid (in Menzel's case, rapid) debunkers. A skeptic is one whose mind is open and will accept what the science, evidence, and witnesses have to say in making a decision. A debunker has already has made up their mind and will only consider the aspects, evidence, and witness statements that support a predetermined belief or supposition.

The tendency is made clear in this case in both Dr. Menzel's book The World of Flying Saucers but in the actual file itself, that includes a letter from Project Blue Book administrator Robert J. Friend to Menzel sending the man a report of recent cases and a copy of statistics. The cozy letter sent to the residence of Menzel in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Menzel worked at Harvard) starts out with a salutation to the man and his family for the recent holiday and then launches into apology that he had been unable to send the agreed upon 'bi-weekly' reports on cases and would begin attempting a 'bi-monthly' report "of our activities" instead. ["0800z 21 September 1958, Sheffield Lake, Ohio"]

Friend wrote out a detailed, point by point response and exception report concerning the "Fizgerald Case" by local UFO group (17 Dec. 1958) in which among the many "omissions, errors" etc. he lists "3....a. No mention of the horror movie (Dracula's Daughter) which the witness was viewing before the sighting. It is the opinion of ATIC [Air Technology Intelligence Center in charge of Project Blue Book] that this was a contributing factor to the emotional vulnerability of Mrs. [blanked out name of witness]."

This them of emotional instability and vulnerability fills the pages of Menzel's almost verbatim report of the sighting in The World of Flying Saucers (pg. 279- 283 in the chapter Investigations - Air Force and Civilian). Menzel summed up the Air Force stance by saying the UFO was an illusion "produced by a combination of factors: an excited frame of mind induced by Dracula's Daughters, the spotlight on a Coast Guard cutter, the rotating headlight of the train and the noise of its engine, drifting smoke and the haze of thedrizzly night."

In September of 1960 a Tulsa, Oklahoma woman came in for this treatment after reporting something she and her husband had observed at the nearby airport around August 1, a finally felt it was important enough they should report what had been seen. They lived near an airport and had lived in such a location most of their adult lives.

"Mrs. [Blanked out name] is a heavy set woman about fifty years old. Her husband is a barber in Tulsa..." A notation about her health and eyesight continue the details about one  half of the pair having shared the sighting experience. The investigator was an O.S.I. officer (Office of Special Investigations).  The physical description of the woman and her age are mentioned while the spouse is labeled merely by an occupation. Both were totally irrelevant to the report.