Photo: National Museum of the U.S. Air Force
Historically, the military has been very secretive when it comes to UFOs, but with pressure from Congress, in recent years they've revealed more information about strange sightings in the skies. However, this week, when the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force posted photos of a flying saucer being loaded onto a cargo plane, many followers were shocked. It turns out though that the saucer is not at all otherworldly.
The photos, which were taken at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, just show a VZ-9 Avrocar, a craft made by Avro Canada for the Air Force in the late 1950s. The military was seeking a supersonic aircraft that could takeoff and land vertically. Avro had been working on something similar, and that evolved into two prototypes of saucer-shaped crafts for the Air Force that were intended to have a maximum speed of 300 mph.
According to official Army training documents, the craft "was powered by three Continental J69 turbojet engines. These drove the central fan which provided a peripheral air curtain and ground cushion for VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) operation. The air intakes for the engine were in the center, while the focusing ring control was located around the bottom edge. The body of the saucer was designed for aerodynamic lift in forward flight."
Unfortunately, the craft never lived up to expectations and in 1961, the project was cancelled after millions of dollars had been put into it.
One of the two prototypes of the VZ-9 was on public display outside for years, deteriorating it, but it was sent to the U.S. Army Transportation Museum in Virginia where it underwent restoration for indoor public viewing. The other prototype spent decades in storage at Washington D.C.'s Smithsonian's National Air And Space Museum. It was later put on display at the museum's annex in Virginia and then sent out on loan to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, arriving in the C-5 cargo plane seen in the pics. It is there now and you can learn how to see it at the museum's website.