Historical Photos To Blow Your Mind: New Release!

UFO

This photograph from Project Blue Book case 24-185-19-7X shows an object over Phoenix in June 1947. Since the photo was just released by the Air Force in 2015, it’s been used by UFO conspiracy theorists at proof that the truth is out there—the truth being aliens, that is.

Of course, an unidentified flying object is just that—an unidentified object. That doesn’t mean it’s extraterrestrial in origin. Often UFOs are later identified as clouds, balloons, meteors, weather events, bright planets, drones, and known aircrafts. But hey, some people just want to believe that we’re being visited by extraterrestrial life forms.

Fugitive

This photo, taken in 1939 by Luis Marden, shows a fugitive being dragged back into the United States by border patrol so that he doesn’t escape El Paso, Texas and enter Mexico. Border crossings in the 1930s were commonplace. Prohibition-era bootleggers were common in the city. The Great Depression also saw a rash of crime related to desperation, and since El Paso was an agricultural economy, it was hit before major cities felt the Depression.

The Rio Grande Rift passes along the southern end of the Franklin Mountains and divides the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez to the south and west.