Northrop's flying wing looks like a UFO, but it was an aircraft far ahead of its time when it flew, and crashed, in the late 1940s. Northrop's idea was to build the ultimate low-drag, high-lift aircraft by taking out everything that added drag, right down to the fuselage. The flying wing was radical when the US Air Force commissioned it as a long-range bomber in 1941, so much so that it was more than two decades before the concept properly got off the ground.
For more on Jack Northrop and the flying wing, check out the latest post on Vintage Space over at Popular Science: http://www.popsci.com/northrops-yb-49-flying-wing-definitely-wasnt-ufo
There's plenty more olde timey space to explore on Vintage Space, too! http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/vintage-space
And don't forget my new book, Breaking the Chains of Gravity, is available now in the UK and January 12 in the US, Canada, Australia, and India (I think!). You can (pre)order your copy on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Chains-Gravity-Spaceflight-before/dp/1472911172/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446234098&sr=8-1&keywords=breaking+the+chains+of+gravity
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