In 1947, UFO sightings were rampant throughout Louisiana, particularly in the Alexandria area, as seen in this photo illustration. So many people reported seeing disc-like objects in the sky that a national UFO convention was planned for Alexandria.
PROVIDED PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY URSATII/iSTOCK
During the Atomic Age, launched in 1945, the detonation of the atomic bomb ushered in Cold War politics, nuclear energy and Godzilla. That's also when objects began appearing seemingly en masse in the sky throughout Louisiana, particularly in Alexandria, a fact that prompted Kyle Watt's inquiry.
"I once heard that a national conference on UFOs was once organized in Alexandria but never happened," the Zachary resident said. "It was supposed to happen in the 1940s. Is this true? And if it is, why not?"
Yes, it's true, and the year was 1947, long before the 2020s, when popularity of unidentified flying objects have soared to an all-time high through such popular television series as "Ancient Aliens."
In 1947, there were so many reported UFO sightings in central Louisiana that a national UFO conference was planned for Alexandria's downtown grand hotel, the Hotel Bentley.
PILE PHOTO BY ASSOCIATED PRESS/LEANDRO HUBNER
These days, the mysterious flying machines are officially known as unidentified anomalous phenomena or unidentified aerial phenomena, but most people still use the term UFO.
Mention UFO, and people begin thinking of spaceships, specifically flying saucers.
"And that's what most people were reporting in Louisiana in 1947 — saucer-shaped spaceships," said Michael Wynne, author and central Louisiana historian. "There were so many of these sightings, and they were all reported by Alexandria's local newspaper, The Town Talk."
The UFO capital of the world
In fact, it was the newspaper's managing editor and columnist, Adras Laborde, who organized the national conference. Laborde was inducted into the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame in 2012 after a career stretching from the mid 1940s to the early 1990s.
He was fairly new at the newspaper when he supported the idea of staging a national UFO conference at Alexandria's downtown grand hotel, the Hotel Bentley.
"He was one of its biggest promoters," Wynne said. "It was going to be the first of its kind, but it didn't happen. Why? Because Adras Laborde and his committee required at least 10 out-of-state people who had made sightings to commit to coming to Alexandria, but they only two out-of-state people signed up."
Adras Laborde, managing editor and columnist for the Alexandria Daily Town Talk, spearheaded the effort to stage a national UFO conference in Alexandria in 1947.
PROVIDED IMAGE BY THE LOUISIANA POLITICAL HALL OF FAME
Meanwhile, almost 80 Louisianans who had filed sightings registered for the event. And central Louisianans continued filing their reports.
Wynne has transcribed these reports in his book, "It Came From Outer Space!: Flying Saucers Visits To Louisiana," for which he did extensive research not only on the conference but the sightings.
"The mass sightings were only for a short period, from August to December in 1947," Wynne said. "Adras had scheduled the conference for December of that year. Alexandria was considered the UFO capital of the world, and it's kind of ridiculous to have called off the conference because they only had two out-of-state people who signed up between 60 and 80 in-state people who had committed to it."
A phenomenon in the sky
But, as noted in Wynne's book, sightings were taking place throughout the state, one as far back as 1801.
While UFO sightings were rampant in central Louisiana between 1947-1955, reports were coming from throughout the state. Mystery still surrounds saucer-like lights snapped by Coast Guard in 1952. New Orleans is buzzing with talk about the "mystery object" spotted by a Coast Guard cutter just 200 miles south of the city in the Gulf of Mexico. What is the object? Is it manmade? A visitor from another planet? Or some phenomenon of nature? Few remember that this is the 10th anniversary of "flying saucers" and that a great deal of study and investigation has been made since first reports of these objects.
FILE PHOTO
"The first documented sighting was in a letter sent to Thomas Jefferson in 1801," Wynne said. "And that sighting was in Baton Rouge."
The letter was from Natchez, Mississippi, resident Thomas Dunbar, who sent it about a month before Jefferson's presidential inauguration. Jefferson also was serving as president of the American Philosophical Society, which was founded by Benjamin Franklin.
The organization published Dunbar's letter in Volume 6 of its newsletter, "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society."
"Dunbar was a member of the society and was also a diligent investigator of natural phenomena in the lower Louisiana region, which, at the time, was still Spanish territory," Wynne said.
UFO sightings were reported from throughout Louisiana from 1947 to 1955. Though reports began to fade, they were by the time this 1967 photo, they were still prevalent enough for Dr. David Deener and students to conduct a survey of student and community representatives on belief of flying saucers and attitudes toward space race. Deener conducted the survey as a part of a class in space law at Newcomb College. He also was dean of the Tulane Graduate School.
FILE PHOTO
The phenomenon allegedly passed in Baton Rouge at night on April 5, 1800. Dunbar's description of the sighting is detailed:
"It was first seen in the South West, and moved so rapidly, passing over the heads of the spectators, as to disappear in the North East in about a quarter of a minute. It appeared to be of the size of a large house, 70 or 80 feet long. ...
"It appeared to be about 200 yards above the surface of the earth, wholly luminous, but not emitting sparks; of a colour resembling the sun near the horizon in a cold frosty evening, which may be called a crimson red. When passing right over the heads of the spectators, the light on the surface of the earth, was little short of the effect of sun-beams, though at the same time, looking another way, the stars were visible, which appears to be a confirmation of the opinion formed of its moderate elevation. In passing, a considerable degree of heat was felt but no electric sensation."
The Air Force gets involved
The object was seen crashing in a wooded area, but caused no cataclysmic damage. Could it have been a meteorite? Wynne says no.
Is it true that central Louisiana was called the UFO Capital of the World in 1947? UFO sightings were rampant throughout Louisiana, particularly in the Alexandria area, as seen in this photo illustration. So many people reported seeing disc-like objects in the sky that a national UFO convention was planned for Alexandria.
PROVIDED PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY KESHAN JALOTA/UPSLASH
"It is believed that what Dunbar describes, if accurate, was not a meteorite, because an object of this size, entering Earth's atmosphere at a speed typical of objects falling to earth from space, would have left a much larger trace of itself," Wynne said. "For example, scientists estimate the size of the iron meteor that created Arizona's Meteor Crater at roughly 50 meters."
As for the reason for the influx of 1940s UFO sightings in central Louisiana, Wynne said there is no definitive explanation.
The area was home to England Air Force Base, which logged the reports through the Air Force's Project Blue Book, which have recently been released by the National Archives.
"And the sightings were extremely detailed, not only the statements from the people, but also in how the Air Force addresses these cases," Wynne said. "And then the Air Force, in turn, investigated the people who reported the sightings."
Wynne also researched data from the National UFO Reporting Center, which documented reports from throughout Louisiana.
"It's just raw data that hasn't been investigated," he said.
Flying objects with orange lights
Finally, he zeroed in on central Louisiana through The Town Talk's barrage of news reports.
"The Air Force would just downplay them, saying, 'Oh, there was a weather balloon or there were airplanes in the area, and we can't talk about it at this time," Wynne said. "But the accounts just proliferated from, from '47 through as late as 1955. In fact, the sightings became so overwhelming that they became old hat. People stopped paying attention, and it just died out."
That is, until 1978, when Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" hit movie theaters.
"That reinvigorated the sightings," Wynne said. "People weren't embarrassed to talk about them anymore."
Looking now at all the descriptions, Wynne has found a running theme — most people identified the flying objects as saucer-shaped with orange lights.
Did they really see these spaceships? Well, the people who saw them apparently believed it, so much that they were willing to bear witness at a national conference.