Ummo

[[File:San José de Valderas 5.jpg|thumb|
[https://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Skiff Arilou Skiff]
 Supposed Ummo ship in the outskirts of {{wpl|Alcorcón}}, [[Spain]], on June 1, 1967.]]{{ufology}}

In [[ufology]], '''Ummo''' is a fictitious [[planet]] orbiting the [[star]] {{wpl|Wolf 424}}{{efn|As noted in the Wikipedia's article actually a double star system. That they do not specify ''which'' star of both such planet orbits should be a red flag}} in the constellation of {{wpl|Virgo}}, which was very popular even outside ufologist circles in both [[Spain]] and [[France]] between the decades of 1960 and 1980.

This affair began in 1966, when José Luis Jordán Peña claimed to have seen in {{wpl|Madrid}} "an enormous circular object with three legs and, on its underside, a curious symbol: three vertical lines joined by a horizontal bar. The two exterior lines curved outward at the edges, which made the pictogram resemble the alchemical sign for the planet [[Uranus]].". Not long afterwards, the author of a UFO book who also lived in such city received several photographs in an anonymous mailing of a craft similar to the one reported by Peña, and bearing the same symbol. Within a few weeks, a Spanish [[contactee]] became involved when he began receiving lengthy, typewritten documents which purported to come from a spacefaring race called the Ummites who lived among humans disguised such way and claimed to have come to [[Earth]] in 1950, landing in France.

Most supposedly Ummite communications took the form of letters and pictures sent such way and telephone calls{{efn|So much for a supposedly advanced race}}. However, besides skeptics showing their objections, few ufologists outside Spain took Ummoism seriously —the photographic evidence was highly suspect and, while the Ummite letters were more sophisticated than most contactee communication, there was nothing in them that could not have originated on Earth even if people who have studied such communication note that, whatever their origins, considerable effort had gone into the supposed hoax with the science described there being knowledgeable but unremarkable, lacking anything unknown to science of these times, and while to date in the '60s obsolete by the standards of later decades helping how what was described in such purported alien letters appeared in foreign [[scientific journal]]s that were difficult to obtain in [[Francisco Franco|Francoist]] Spain.

Eventually José Luis Jordán Peña claimed responsibility for having written the letters and produced the pictures, claiming to have wanted to test human credibility with such hoax and also noting how "Ummo" came from the Spanish ''Humo'' (which means "smoke"){{efn|An expression in Spanish is ''"vendedor de humo"'' ("smoke seller"), which can be translated as "snake oil salesman"}}. According to him, Wolf 424 as the star of origin of the Ummites was chosen at random and Ummoism was instigated with the help of some random collaborators, stoppping when he felt the Ummo affair had escaped out of control producing up to religious [[cults]] as {{wpl|Edelweiss_(organization)|Edelweiss}}, that marked its members with Ummo's symbol. Despite that, some still believe on it as precisely a religious cult in [[Bolivia]]<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110606092247/http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/267/ummos_children.html Ummo's Children]</ref>.

== External links ==
*{{wpl|Planetary_objects_proposed_in_religion,_astrology,_ufology_and_pseudoscience#Ummo|Ummo at Wikipedia}}
*[https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ummo Ummo at Spanish Wikipedia - contains far more information and links]

==Notes==
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[[Category:Ufology]]

== References ==
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Categories: Ufology