Monday, March 16, 2020

Foo Fighters and UFOs

Foo Fighters and UFOs Foo Fighters and UFOs Foo Fighters and UFOs By Maeve Maddox Only recently have I come across the delicious term Foo Fighter. foo fighter: Any of various unidentified lights encountered by airborne forces during the Second World War (1939-45), interpreted variously as enemy weapons, natural phenomena, or alien spacecraft. OED According to a lengthy and informative article at Answers.com, foo fighters were seen at sites all over the world during World War II: 1941: Indian ocean: 1942 Java Sea, Solomon Islands 1945 France The etymology of foo fighter is uncertain: The term is generally thought to have been borrowed from the often surrealist comic strip Smokey Stover. Smokey, a firefighter, was fond of saying, Where theres foo theres fire. (This foo may have come from feu, the French word for fire, or Feuer the German word for fire, or from Smokeys pronunciation of the word fuel.) A Big Little Book titled Smokey Stover the Foo Fighter was published in 1938. Foo may alternatively have come from either of the French words faux meaning fake, or fou, mad. Answers.com The term flying saucer to describe an unidentified flying phenomenon dates from 1947. The term Unidentified Flying Object dates from 1950; the first documentation of the abbreviation UFO is from 1953. The abbreviation led to the coining of the unlovely word Ufology: the study of UFOs. Perhaps because UFO carries connotations of craziness, a new acronym has come into use: UAP, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenona. There’s a National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena dedicated to the study of UAP sightings. Whatever you call them, these strange aerial phenomena have been around for a very long time. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Direct and Indirect ObjectsEnglish Grammar 101: Verb MoodThe "Pied" in The Pied Piper