On my most up-to-date YouTube video I talked about my favourite UFO story, the story of Joe Simonton and his alien pancakes. Below is the fabric I wrote about Simonton and his unusual encounter for the ebook about UFO’s and Zen that I by no means completed.
The story of Joe Simonton’s encounter with a flying saucer whose occupants gave him pancakes is, to me, the quintessential UFO story. When I first got here throughout this story I assumed it needed to be a joke. But many ufologists take it significantly. As they need to.
Before I begin, I need to say that, as humorous as this story is, I don’t current it right here as an object of ridicule. It’s tremendous to snicker about it. I did once I first heard it. But please don’t snicker about it since you suppose Joe Simonton is simply too dumb to provide you with a extra plausible hoax. I’ve little question that he was telling the reality about his expertise. That is what makes it so fascinating. Even although it is humorous too.
Here’s the story.
On April 18, 1961, Joe Simonton, a 54 12 months outdated (some sources say he was 60) plumber who lived about 4 miles west of Eagle River, Wisconsin, says he had a detailed encounter of the third form with a UFO. Eagle River is a small rural group within the far north of Wisconsin. The 1960 census counted 1,367 folks in Eagle River, whereas in 2010 the inhabitants was 1,398. Eagle River in the present day is named the “Snowmobile Capitol of the World.” Many of the houses there are trip locations whose homeowners use them as launching spots for seasonal searching and fishing expeditions.
The incident came about close to Simonton’s home. There’s a video on YouTube of an interview with Simonton filmed not lengthy after the occasion came about. You can see his home within the video. It’s a tough trying single-story picket construction standing in what seems like a clearing in a forest. Simonton was married, however his spouse was away in Chicago, the place she labored at a division retailer, when the incident came about.
Simonton mentioned that he was performing some dishes at about 11:00 am that Tuesday morning when he heard “something like the screech of automobile wheels as a car goes around a sharp bend fast.” He appeared out the window and noticed a big shiny steel object, “coming straight down just like an elevator. At first I thought the roof went off of my house. But then I thought, ‘No, the roof is green, and this is bright. What the heck is it?’ So I raced out to see what it was.”
A silvery craft — “brighter than chrome,” Simonton mentioned — formed like “two plates or bowls one inverted over the top of the other” had come to relaxation above the driveway to the rear of his home. It was about 30 ft in diameter and about 12 ft tall, Simonton mentioned. The craft didn’t contact the bottom, however appeared to hover, unsupported, simply above it. Simonton noticed a hatchway open “just like the trunk of your car.” A small individual, about 5 ft tall appeared within the hatchway. Simonton described the individual as trying “swarthy, like an Italian.” His face was fully hairless and Simonton couldn’t see if he had hair on his head because of the tight becoming cap he wore. Simonton estimated the saucer man’s weight at round 120 kilos.
The saucer man, Simonton mentioned, “motioned by tipping his head backward and making a motion as if drinking water.” Then he handed Simonton a “metallic tureen or bowl with two side handles.” Simonton mentioned, “I looked at his eyes and it was so penetrating, I had to look away.” Simonton carried the article into the basement of his home, stuffed it with water from the pump down there, after which returned to the craft.
Simonton mentioned he leaned in opposition to the craft, steadying himself on it together with his left hand, and handed the tureen as much as the person standing within the hatchway. In a dialog three days after the occasion with Judge Franklin Carter, an area man with an curiosity in UFOs who reported the occasion within the December 31, 1961 challenge of the Saucerian Bulletin, Carter requested Simonton to point out him the hand he’d used to regular himself in opposition to the alien craft. Carter reported seeing no burns or redness. Carter had heard of people that had been near UFOs and had been affected by radiation, however there was no proof of this in Simonton’s case.
When Simonton introduced the water out of his home, he says that he averted trying the saucer man within the face till he obtained up shut. When he appeared up on the being, “he had the same look in his eyes, a sort of a penetrating look.” He mentioned he felt like the person within the saucer might see proper into him, like he might learn his thoughts.
Simonton then seen two extra beings contained in the craft. All three have been dressed identically in what he described as “one piece tunic(s) with no buttons or zippers that I could see, but with a hood up over the head. It looked like black Jersey material.” The saucer one that had requested for the water had a white strip operating down one leg of his pants, which Simonton took to be a sign of upper tank than the opposite two.
The different two beings, he mentioned, “seemed to be chained or belted to what they were doing” with one thing that appeared like a seat belts or stabilizing cables. One of the beings, he mentioned, was “busily engaged at the panel or control boards.” The different gave the impression to be cooking on one thing Simonton described as a “square, grill-like concern.” There have been no flames, however it gave the impression to be extremely popular, he reported, “There was smoke coming from it.”
“I was interested in them,” Simonton informed Judge Carter, referring to what the saucer individual was cooking. “I made a gesture like eating,” he mentioned, “I figured I’d get a conversation going. Nobody was saying anything.” Then, Simonton mentioned, “The man in the hatchway noted my interest and walked over and scooped some of them (the items on the grill) up and gave them to me. They looked somewhat like pancakes.”
Simonton took the 4 small pancakes the saucer man supplied him. He described them as “hot and greasy.” He took a chew of 1. Later he mentioned, “If that was their food, God help them because … it tasted like a piece of cardboard.” He additionally remarked, “If that’s what they lived on no wonder they’re small.”
Simonton confirmed Carter the remaining pancakes, which he had saved. Carter famous the greasiness and mentioned the odor reminded him of the goose grease his mom had greased his chest with when he was a toddler. The pancakes appeared rubbery, Carter mentioned. Carter reported that the pancakes have been round three inches throughout and have been perforated with holes in regards to the circumference of lead pencils. However, within the YouTube video, Simonton shows a fraction of one of many pancakes and the holes look quite a bit smaller than that to me. It kinda seems to me like an everyday outdated pancake.
Judge Carter gave the pancake to UFO investigator Major Donald Keyhoe of the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) for evaluation. Although the NICAP informed reporters that the pancake had been returned with out evaluation, Carter claimed in June of 1961 that he by no means obtained it again. The NICAP, it must be famous, was a civilian group. Keyhoe had as soon as served within the Marine Corps however was a civilian on the time of the incident. In any case, evidently the pancakes have been analyzed however that there was some confusion between Judge Carter and the NICAP folks across the matter.
Simonton mentioned that after handing over the pancakes to him, the saucer man “placed the tips of his right hand to his forehead and immediately withdrew it.” Simonton figured this was some form of a salute. “So I gave him my salute. What am I gonna do?” he mentioned.
“Immediately after he gave me the pancakes,” Simonton mentioned, “he shut the hatchway and you could not see any notice of where the door was or that there had been a door there at all.” He mentioned, “You couldn’t see a bit more where that hatch was than you could see a hole in my hand.”
“After the door shut, the ship began to rise,” Simonton mentioned. “It went up about twenty feet, tipped on its side at about a 45 degree angle, then shot forth and away to the south. There was a backwash of some kind, for a pine tree near the ship, with a butt of about 8 or 9 inches, bent completely back. As the ship shot upward at a terrific speed, the tree oscillated back and forth and finally came to a stop. It showed no damage whatsoever, the trunk and branches being intact.”
After the craft was out of sight, Simonton mentioned, “Well, there I stood in the driveway with a handful of greasy pancakes and my mouth open wondering what the heck I saw. What had happened?”
In the YouTube video, a person in an Air Force uniform comes on after Simonton finishes his story. He says, “It is outside the realm of the Air Force to pass judgment on Mr. Simonton’s case” earlier than stating that the pancakes have been analyzed by the “food and drug people” and located to be “pure buckwheat.”
The man within the Air Force uniform within the video just isn’t Donald Keyhoe, who went on to put in writing variety of books about his many investigations of UFO experiences on behalf of the NICAP. Keyhoe believed that the federal government ought to launch its UFO experiences to the general public. Psychologist Carl Jung used Keyhoe’s books, Flying Saucers Are Real (1950) and Flying Saucers From Outer Space (1953), as main references for his ebook on the flying saucer phenomenon.
Not lengthy after the occasion, Simonton reported that 23 of the chickens he raised, whose eggs he bought to his plumbing clients as a facet enterprise, had died since his encounter with the flying saucer. Simonton suspected there was some connection, however none was ever established.
A set of letters backwards and forwards between Judge Carter and the parents at NICAP reveal that the NICAP folks thought Carter was a ache within the ass, however that they did take the story significantly. The goofiness of Joe Simonton’s story apprehensive them because it was already being handled as a joke by the numerous press accounts revealed on the time. Still, they did analyze the pancake. Their evaluation didn’t flip up something definitively extraterrestrial.
Simonton was irritated by the publicity his story attracted. He mentioned it price him plenty of plumbing jobs. He didn’t like that he was sometimes called a “chicken farmer” when he solely raised chickens on the facet. On the present movie, he seems to be honest and sane. Investigators have been skeptical of his story, however none of them thought he was mendacity or attempting to create a hoax. One of the investigators speculated that, residing alone removed from human contact might need made Simonton prone to hallucinations or that he might need had a really vivid dream that he took to be actual.
Another resident of the realm, Savino Borgo, an insurance coverage agent, reported seeing an flying saucers the identical day as Simonton says he met the unusual folks with their bizarre greasy pancakes. Phyliss Lorbetske, one other space resident, mentioned that she and he three kids additionally noticed a UFO that day, in the identical space the place Simonton lived.
The story stays as mysterious in the present day because it was in 1961.
I name the story of Joe Simonton and his pancake consuming saucer males a quintessential UFO story as a result of it’s obtained just about every part an excellent UFO story must have. It’s bizarre. It’s inexplicable. And but it was informed with nice sincerity, obvious honesty, and there’s even some proof to again it up within the type of the opposite witnesses and the pancakes.
When I first began conceiving of this ebook, my understanding of UFOs was that they have been presupposed to be mechanical spacecraft piloted by creatures from one other planet. Of course there are all kinds of very logical arguments each for and in opposition to that concept. It appears extremely unlikely that another superior civilizations exist in our photo voltaic system. Mars is a barren desert. The hellish floor of Venus is scorching sufficient to soften lead. The gasoline giants within the outer photo voltaic system don’t have any surfaces on which a civilization might exist. And whereas a few of their moons could possibly help life, it’s tough to think about such life may very well be very extremely advanced.
Which implies that if UFOs are from different planets, these planets must be tremendously distant. Our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri, is 4 mild years away. We presently know of no sensible approach {that a} car might journey on the velocity of sunshine and its believed that exceeding that velocity is unattainable. It appears unattainable that automobiles akin to those folks declare to have seen might journey such distances.
On the opposite hand, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku has identified that there could also be civilizations who’re 1000’s, hundreds of thousands, and even billions of years extra superior than ours. It’s unattainable to say what kind of scientific breakthroughs such a civilization might have made. Maybe there’s a way for them to get right here from wherever they’re and we simply haven’t figured it out but.
We can’t categorically say that it might be unattainable for a extremely superior civilization to journey right here from many mild years away. But I’ve to agree with those that discover it extremely unlikely.
But right here’s the factor. Before I began digging into this I assumed there have been solely two potential explanations for the UFO phenomenon. The first clarification is that each one UFO experiences are a mixture of hoaxers, delusional folks, and folk making sincere errors about strange objects like planets, meteors, airplanes, clouds and suchlike. The different is that some UFOs actually are area ships from different planets. It’s fairly clear that the majority UFO experiences actually do fall into a kind of classes of hoaxes, delusions or errors. But there are different experiences that can not be defined any of these methods. And, despite the fact that these depend for a small share of total UFO experiences, the really unexplained instances quantity within the 1000’s.
The hottest concept about these unexplained instances is that UFOs are spacecraft from different planets. These spacecraft, it’s assumed, are doing just about what we human beings would do if we have been capable of journey to and observe life on one other planet. They’re finding out us, possibly trying to speak with us. Perhaps they’re attempting to be as secretive as potential about their observations in order to not alarm us or trigger any disruption in our pure evolution — one thing just like the Prime Directive in Star Trek, the place the United Federation of Planets is forbidden to intervene with much less scientifically superior civilizations. Maybe each infrequently they slip up and present themselves. Or possibly these seeming slip-ups are intentional, a part of an total plan to step by step reveal themselves to us.
UFO researchers name this the Extra-terrestrial Hypothesis or ETH, for brief.
But then you definately run right into a case like Joe Simonton. His encounter is among the many genuinely unexplained UFO tales that don’t make any sense even by way of the extraterrestrial speculation. Unless you suppose that aliens would possibly really be brief, mute Italians who like pancakes.
Those who factor UFOs are all simply hoaxes or figments of the creativeness love tales like Joe Simonton’s as a result of they’re so absurd and foolish. They’re nice tales to carry up if you wish to debunk UFOs and show that the one individuals who declare to see them are uneducated yokels from the boondocks. Those who imagine in UFOs and the help the extraterrestrial speculation hate tales like Joe Simonton’s for a similar causes the debunkers love them. They make the entire research of UFOs look goofy. They attempt to ignore the existence of UFO experiencers like Joe Simonton and the 1000’s of others whose encounters have been equally absurd.
And but, if we put apart the silliness of it, Joe Simonton’s is among the many most convincing tales of a UFO encounter. Despite his lack of formal schooling, Simonton was a reliable witness. He wasn’t a nut-job or a publicity seeker. He had no purpose to make up a narrative just like the one he informed. There have been different witnesses who noticed what was presumably the identical object that took off from Simonton’s driveway after its occupants gave him the pancakes. And there’s bodily proof within the type of the pancakes themselves. Sure, there was no proof that the pancakes got here from outer area. But I problem you to look at the interview footage on YouTube and picture Simonton cooking up some pancakes himself with a purpose to attempt to put one over on the world together with his weird story. I don’t suppose he did. I’m satisfied he was telling the reality about what he skilled.
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