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By Jennifer Ouellette
The classic 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still features the quintessential depiction of a flying saucer. As the local townspeople gaze upward and gawk in wonder, the alien spaceship wafts overhead like a giant frisbee before hovering over what is supposed to be the National Mall in Washington, DC, and gently touching ground.
It was an era when the nation was enamored of the prospect of one day building our own versions of saucer-shaped aircraft. But the idea actually dates back to an obscure patent granted in 1898 to one F.A. Jone -- a rare bit of archival history recently highlighted by blogger John Ptak, who specializes in this kind of obscure trivia (like the first achievement of upside-down flight in 1913. Ptak notes (based on the patent drawings): "From the ladder that led to the major axle we can infer that the aircraft was at least 60 feet high, which made its disk apparatus a very ferris-wheel-like 40' or 50' in diameter." .... continues
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