Through Wired, I found out that the term "flying saucers" were coined exactly sixty years ago, on June 24th 1947, by Kenneth Arnold, when he reported seeing nine objects flying in a "V" formation over Mount Rainier, Washington.
On this occation, Wired has a good article by Nigel Watson.
Out of This World: 60 Years of Flying Saucers
What I like about the article is that while it explains the views of UFOlogists, it doesn't try to pretend that there is any evidence supporting their views. I would of course have prefered a more critical tone to the article, but I think the overall message of lack of evidence (and conspiracy theories) shines through pretty well.
I should perhaps conclude this post by saying that I don't dounbt that there is other intelligent life out there - there are a huge number, perhaps infinite number, of galaxies after all. However, I don't believe that there is any governmental coverup of alien visits, and I certainly don't believe that a large number of Americans have been picked up by aliens and had highly personal thing done to them (to paraphrase Terry Pratchett).
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