Flying Saucers Come from a Distant World (American Weekly, 1954)
Also known as Flying Saucers Come from a Distant World
Hermann Oberth's signed 24 October 1954 article in The American Weekly — the primary-source origin of his extraterrestrial-hypothesis statement.
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Flying Saucers Come from a Distant World (American Weekly, 1954)
A signed article by Hermann Oberth, "Flying Saucers Come from a Distant World," published in The American Weekly — a syndicated Sunday newspaper supplement — on 24 October 1954 [S1]. It is the verifiable primary source for Oberth's most-quoted UFO statement: "It is my thesis that flying saucers are real and that they are space ships from another solar system... manned by intelligent observers... their present mission may be one of scientific investigation" [S1]. A 1968 U.S. government (DTIC) annotated bibliography independently confirms the article's date and content, making this one of the better-documented mid-century pro-ETH statements by a mainstream scientist [S2]. Notably, the article does not contain the apocryphal "aliens helped us build rockets" line later attributed to Oberth.
Sources
[S1] "Quote Origin: We Cannot Take All the Credit..." | Quote Investigator URL: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/11/14/flying-saucer Accessed: 2026-07-18 Claim: verbatim article text, byline, publication, and 24 Oct 1954 date (GenealogyBank scan)
[S2] "UFOs and Related Subjects: An Annotated Bibliography" | DTIC (AD0688332) URL: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0688332.pdf Accessed: 2026-07-18 Claim: government bibliographic confirmation of the article