Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ralph Horton flying saucer crash


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to James W. Moseley. Pretty clear consensus that the sourcing is not adequate to justify an article. If people want to see the page history and the redirect go as well, WP:RFD would be the place to ask. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:14, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Ralph Horton flying saucer crash

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Obscure UFO report fails WP:NFRINGE. At about this time there were hundreds if not thousands of these sorts of "yokel finds UFO in his backyard" stories in local media. There are grey-lit books chock-a-block full of them. That is not enough to establish the notability of the claims enough for a standalone article. This looks like it may have been started by an erstwhile fan of the story, and I have some sympathy for that because this story is a delight if a bit cringey and eye-rolly. jps (talk) 02:06, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Paranormal-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 02:06, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Aviation-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 02:06, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Georgia (U.S. state)-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 02:06, 24 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep. It has two sources in the article, plus it was covered in the Atlanta Constitution, but I don't have a specific reference.  It is also important because of the similarity of the debris to that recovered at the Roswell crash.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:13, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Your sources are "martiansgohome.com" and a tell-all jaunt from Prometheus Books (an enjoyable one, to be sure, but not one that confers notability on particular "weird tales" it covers). As much as I respect AJC, a single newspaper article is surely not enough for us to base a Wikipedia article on. WP:NFRINGE is a high standard for a reason. jps (talk) 02:35, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete There's a bunch of fringe coverage but nothing reliable. One of the two sources (External link, actually) is a UFO research society that should probably be removed. Misidentified weather balloon is similar to another misidentified weather balloon and/or non-ufo-related government coverup. –dlthewave ☎ 02:32, 24 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I think this has great relevance to the Roswell crash, in terms of the similarity of the debris. If this had been widely known at the time that all of the Roswell hype came out, it should have quickly been settled.  This was reliably identified as a weather balloon, and it matches the Roswell debris. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:38, 24 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. The article says Ufologist James Moseley investigated the incident...called the airport... and confirmed that the object was a device used by the Air Force to determine wind velocity and direction." Since when has an identified weather device been a flying saucer, and how do we justify "flying saucer crash" in the heading when the text said it involved something else? Wikipedia was such a good idea. What a pity. Moriori (talk) 02:48, 24 December 2019 (UTC).
 * "Since when has an identified weather device been a flying saucer?" Roswell!  I think people interested in the Roswell crash are entitled to know about this.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 03:05, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. You wrote above that "This was reliably identified as a weather balloon". Please read our article Flying saucer. Note that flying saucer = UFO. This Horton debris was neither anomalous or unidentified.Moriori (talk) 08:53, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Balloons mistaken for UFOs is a reasonable topic, and there are probably plenty of sources you can use to write about it. Ralph Horton could make an appearance in such an article. But as a standalone, this article is problematic. jps (talk) 03:12, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Insufficient notability/sourcing for a stand alone article so Redirect to James W. Moseley where it rightly belongs. - LuckyLouie (talk) 03:09, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect per LuckyLouie. There is no suitable and properly sourced "flying saucer crash" material in the article. Johnuniq (talk) 07:05, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * BTW, I thought Mosely's book was a fun and instructive read. But the text says he was prompted on his adventure after "Perusing the flying saucer file of The Atlanta Constitution...", which could mean old, unpublished reports kept in a file, and no actual published record in the newspaper. How wrong I was. It's the second entry down in the the (paywalled) newspapers.com archive, dated Wednesday July 8, 1953,, and the second snippet view mentions Horton's discovery of a "kite shaped apparatus". - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:30, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Comment. As redirect seems to rule the day, the article content will need fixing before moving elsewhere. I will request references. Moriori (talk) 01:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Seems to be wholly unnotable.Slatersteven (talk) 11:05, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Redirect and merge to James W. Moseley. It’s kinda notable, since it illustrates a typical ufo observation. Also, very entertaining to read imho. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heptor (talk • contribs) 11:29, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Perfect for the Weekly World Wikipedia, but not here. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:30, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Non-notable hoax that was pulled off in 1953.   Newspapers.com has full archives of the Atlanta Constitution from 1868 to the present.  On July 7, 1953 (not 1952 as the article inaccurately reports), page 1 of the newspaper had a short article Cone-Shaped Rocket' Puzzles Scores Here which described multiple sightings of a cone-shaped object "about six inches in diameter" travelling about 40 miles an hour, several hundred feet in the air.  The next day, the same paper, also on page 1, had another article Experts Baffled, Doubt 'Thing' a Wind Gauge, which describes how Atlanta resident Ralph Horton found a "ra-wind" device in his front yard near the County Airport, which is an instrument that is used to plot wind currents in the upper air, and how they all agreed that what Mr. Horton found was not the "thing" that people were reporting about the previous day.  The Air Force said they released the weather balloon at 4pm that day, but it would not have still been aloft when the UFO reports were coming in.   There's no mystery about Ralph Horton's device, there was no UFO, and there was no controversy.  Interestingly, and illustrative of what a rabbit hole searching archives on newspapers.com can become, on page 1 of the paper the next day was a pretty lengthy story about two barbers and a butcher from Atlanta who claimed they captured "a little man from outer space" trying to board a flying saucer. Scientists at Emory University identified the body of the alien as a nothing but Capuchin Monkey that had been shaved and its tail cut off.  The "mastermind" of the plot  who claimed to have found the alien was fined $40 the next day for placing a carcass on a highway and admitted he was surprised that anybody fell for his hoax, saying he was just trying to get his picture in the paper and had bet a friend $10 that he could.  On July 10, he won his bet after being handed the fine and a threat of jail time if he tried any more pranks.   He told the newspaper that he had been trying for several days to spread reports of flying saucers in the sky and found it very easy to do by just staring in the air and asking bystanders if they'd seen that flying saucer that just went by.   The whole story is about a prank pulled off by a couple of bored people that received some trivial coverage in their local paper.  Ralph Horton found a weather balloon.  Not worthy of an article about the hoax itself due to WP:NFRINGE "silly season" news reports- an editorial in the paper on July 9 described the UFO and the alien man as an illustration of the start what they in the business call the "silly season".  RecycledPixels (talk) 21:10, 27 December 2019 (UTC)  Change to Redirect to James W. Moseley per LuckyLouie.  RecycledPixels (talk) 22:00, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete: for lack of significant coverage in reliable sources. Sufficiently obscure so that a redirect is not needed. Nothing to merge. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:58, 31 December 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.