Transcriber’s Notes
Italic text is enclosed in _underscores_, while subscripts are preceded,
but not followed by an underscore. Other notes will be found at the end
of this eBook.
THE WORLD OF FLYING SAUCERS
_The World of
Flying Saucers_
A SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION OF A
MAJOR MYTH OF THE SPACE AGE
_Donald H. Menzel_
AND
_Lyle G. Boyd_
DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC., GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
_Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 63-12989_
_Copyright © 1963 by Donald H. Menzel and Lyle G. Boyd_
_All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America_
_To_ FRED L. WHIPPLE, _whose studies have added much to our knowledge
of meteors--which have furnished more than their share of UFOs._
_Contents_
PREFACE xiii
I. THE SAUCER WORLDS 1
UFO Reports and the Air Force--The Scientist’s View--The
Question of “Evidence”--Various Types of UFO--Descriptions
of UFOs--A “Baedeker’s Guide” to Saucerdom
II. LO! 13
Arnold’s Nine Disks--The Great Shaver Mystery--The Maury
Island Fragments--Science Fiction Adopts the Saucers--Mirage
or Wave Clouds?
III. AIR-BORNE UFOS: BALLOONS TO BUBBLES 31
The Mantell Tragedy--A Probable Solution of the Mantell Case--A
Radiosonde over Virginia--Skyhook and Pibal UFOs--The
Guantánamo “Dogfight”--The Wallops Island UFO--Weather
Balloons and Saucers--Plastic UFOs and the “Stack of Coins”--Jets
and Contrails--The Killian Case-- ... And Kites and Soap
Bubbles
IV. THE SPANGLED HEAV’NS: STARS AND PLANETS 60
A Mirage of Sirius--Earth’s Distorting Atmosphere--The “Whipping
Girl” of Saucerdom--The Ryan Case--Venus as a Morning
Star--Venus as an Evening Star--The Rotating Lights of Japan--UFOs
and the Opposition of Mars--The Gorman “Dogfight”--Only
a Balloon?--Jupiter through a Jet Trail
V. OUT OF THE SKY: METEORS AND FIREBALLS 88
Stones from Heaven--Meteor Streams and Showers--The Green
Fireballs--Meteors in the Records--Fallacies about Meteors--Facts
about Meteors--Unusual Fireballs--Great Meteor Processions--The
Chiles-Whitted Sighting--Other Flaming UFOs
VI. LIVING LIGHTS 118
The Luminous Owls of Norfolk--Things That Glow in the Dark--Sea
Gulls as UFOs--The Lubbock Lights--The Lubbock Pictures--Other
Winged UFOs--The Tremonton Movies
VII. PANIC 133
Growth of a Panic--The Scoutmaster’s UFO--Monster in West
Virginia--The Panel of Civilian Scientists
VIII. PHANTOMS ON RADAR 145
Radar as a Reporter--The Principle of Radar--Weather and
Radar Echoes--The Kinross Case--The “Invasion” of Washington,
D.C.--Radar Experiments in Washington--“Simultaneous”
Radar-Visual Reports--“Ghosts” and “Angels” on Radar--The
Rapid City Sighting
IX. E-M AND G-FIELDS IN UFO-LAND 172
Stormy Weather in Texas--The Phenomenon of Ball Lightning--E-M
and Non-E-M Saucers--The Saturnian Visitors--Surveillance
by Flying Eggs--Saucerdom’s Miraculous Electromagnetic
Force--Effects and Causes--“G-Fields” and UFO Propulsion--The
G-Field Myth--Electricity, Magnetism, and Gravity
X. CONTACT! 198
Earthlings and Extraterrestrials--The “Contactees”--Adamski’s
Travels--Photography and the UFO--The Isle of Lovers Hoax--The
Trindade Island Saucer--The Brazilian Naval Ministry--The
Icarai Submarine Hunting Club--The Trindade Photographs--Project
Ozma
XI. ANGEL HAIR, PANCAKES, ETC. 219
Angel Hair and Spiders--Other Varieties of Angel Hair--The Wisconsin
Pancakes--The Moon Bridge--“Pieces of Saucers”--Silver
Rain in Brazil--Other Mysterious Fragments
XII. SPECIAL EFFECTS 238
The Role of Unusual Coincidence--The Problem of Unknown
Lights--Michigan’s Flying Bird Cage--UFOs from Reflections--Sundogs
in Utah and France--Bright Spots on Films--Unfamiliar
Lights on Planes--Inversions in California--The Chesapeake Bay
Case--A Possible Explanation of the Nash-Fortenberry Disks--Other
UFOs in “Stack” Formation--The Tombaugh Rectangles
XIII. INVESTIGATORS: AIR FORCE AND CIVILIAN 271
Official Study of UFOs--Civilian Saucer Groups--NICAP--The
“Conspiracy” Fantasy-UFO at Sheffield Lake, Ohio--“The Fitzgerald
Report”--The Open Mind
APPENDIX 291
INDEX 295
_Acknowledgments_
PLATE I: a, The Seattle _Times_. b, A Shell Photo
PLATE II: a, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. b, Wide World
Photo
PLATE III: a, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. b, Gilberto
Vazquez, _El Imparcial_, San Juan, Puerto Rico
PLATE IV: a, Wide World Photo. b, Wide World Photo. c, David Atlas,
Air Force Cambridge Research Center, Bedford, Massachusetts
PLATE V: a, Bernd T. Matthias and Solomon J. Buchsbaum, Bell
Telephone Laboratories. b, Dr. John C. Jensen, Nebraska
Wesleyan University
PLATE VI: a, United Press Photo. b, United Press Photo
PLATE VII: a, C. L. Johnson. b, Mrs. William Felton Barrett
PLATE VIII: a, United Press Photo. b, Wide World Photo
Figure 18. Courtesy _True, The Man’s Magazine_. Copyright 1952,
Fawcett Publications, Inc.
_Drawings by Cushing and Nevell_
PREFACE
Both as scientists and as devotees of science fiction, we have long
been interested in space travel. When reports of unidentified flying
objects began to increase in the years between 1947 and 1952, one of
us (D.H.M.) collected and studied the limited information available
about the sightings. He soon concluded (with a slight feeling of
disappointment!) that the flying saucers were not vehicles from other
worlds but were only mundane objects and events of various kinds,
some of them commonplace, some familiar chiefly to meteorologists,
physicists, and astronomers.
At a conference with Air Force officials in Washington in April 1952,
he presented his idea that planetary mirages, sundogs, reflections,
and other astronomical, atmospheric, and optical phenomena probably
accounted for a large percentage of the mysterious UFOs. This
suggestion met with strong skepticism from some of the conferees who at
that time were sympathetic to the interplanetary hypothesis and were,
of course, better acquainted with military than with physical science.
Other conferees, however, wished to consider and test the theories
offered. Proof obviously required a knowledge of all the facts of a
given sighting, facts that often were not available to the public. The
Air Force therefore granted access to the file of UFO cases. At the
same time, since many of the cases were then classified as secret,
the Air Force imposed the condition that security regulations must be
strictly observed.
D.H.M. was then preparing a book to present his explanations of flying
saucers. Acceptance of the Air Force offer, with the accompanying
restriction, would have prevented his publishing analyses based on
material in the files. It would also have hindered any future public
discussion of the UFO problem. For these reasons he felt compelled to
decline the opportunity.
In the spring of 1959 as we began planning the present book, we again
requested permission to study the Air Force records of UFO sightings.
This time the officials generously opened their files to us without
restriction. Thus we have been able to include detailed studies of
particular incidents, to give the explanations found for most of them
by Air Force investigators, to explain the causes of some hitherto
unsolved cases, and to suggest highly probable solutions for several
classic “Unknowns.”
To discuss each one of the thousands of unidentified flying objects
reported during the last fifteen years is obviously impossible. We
have therefore chosen to describe the common types of sighting and to
analyze some of the representative and most interesting cases in each
category. In general we have avoided using the names of the persons
involved; but when the names are well known to the flying-saucer public
and have previously appeared in print, we have felt no obligation to
disguise them.
Many persons have contributed to the material in this book. Members of
the United States Air Force have generously helped us to collect the
basic facts, and have shown amazing patience in answering hundreds of
small questions of detail. In particular, we wish to thank Col. Philip
G. Evans, Col. Edward H. Wynn, Lt. Col. William T. Coleman, Lt. Col.
Robert J. Friend, Lt. Col. Lawrence J. Tacker, Major Carl R. Hart, and
Sgt. David Moody.
Others who have helped us in various ways include Dr. Isaac Asimov,
Mr. Carleton Atherton, Miss C. M. Botley, Mr. Wilfred J. Chambers, Mr.
Albert M. Chop, Dr. Leon Davidson, Mr. Charles W. Dean, Mr. John F.
Gifford, Mr. Richard Hall, Mr. Theodore Hieatt, Prof. Seymour B. Hess,
Prof. J. Allen Hynek, Dr. Luigi G. Jacchia, Mr. Craig L. Johnson, Dr.
Urner Liddell, Mr. Oscar Main, Prof. Charles A. Maney, Dr. Richard E.
McCrosky, Mr. John W. McLellan, Capt. William B. Nash, Dr. Thornton W.
Page, Dr. Vernon G. Plank, the late Dr. H. P. Robertson, Dr. Donald H.
Robey, Dr. Carl Sagan, Dr. Clyde W. Tombaugh, Mr. John Walkin, Prof.
Fred L. Whipple, and Mr. John G. Wolbach.
D.H.M.
L.G.B.
THE WORLD OF FLYING SAUCERS
_Chapter_ I
THE SAUCER WORLDS
Thousands of reports of “flying saucers,” “unidentified flying
objects,” or “UFOs” have appeared in print during the last fifteen
years. Although most of the things seen have later been explained as
unusual but normal phenomena, some enthusiasts continue to regard them
as mysterious, and thus help perpetuate the myth that the “saucers” are
actually spaceships from other planets, busily carrying out a patrol of
the earth.
This saucer myth owes an unacknowledged debt to Charles Fort, a
talented reporter, writer, and self-appointed gadfly of science. With
a strong curiosity about the world of nature but without training
in the disciplines of research, Fort liked to challenge scientists
in general and astronomers in particular with tales of “impossible”
happenings culled from books of folklore, old journals, and newspapers.
He mistrusted orthodox knowledge because, he believed, it smugly damned
to oblivion all reports of marvels that it could not explain: pyrogenic
persons; rains of fish, frogs, and stones; accounts of telepathy,
teleportation, the vanishing of human beings, luminous objects in the
sky. Although he never claimed that he believed the stories himself,
Fort enjoyed collecting them and before his death in 1932 had completed
four volumes of these anecdotes.
Science-fiction writers have found an inexhaustible mine of ideas in
_The Book of the Damned, New Lands, Lo!_, and _Wild Talents_, which
also provide the chief elements of the saucer myth:
“Unknown, luminous things, or beings, have often been seen, sometimes
close to this earth, and sometimes high in the sky. It may be
that some of them were living things that occasionally come from
somewhere else in our existence, but that others were lights on the
vessels of explorers, or voyagers, from somewhere else.”[I-1] These
extraterrestrials may have been in communication with earthmen for many
years, Fort suggested, and they may sometimes kidnap and carry away
human beings.
_UFO Reports and the Air Force_
Most flying-saucer reports have come from reliable citizens who have
seen something extraordinary, something they do not understand.
Genuinely puzzled, they often report the incident to the nearest Air
Force base. The evaluation of such cases is the responsibility of the
United States Air Force. Since the beginning of the saucer scare in
1947, the chief investigating agency has been that at Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, and has borne a succession of
names--Project Sign, Project Grudge, Project Blue Book, and the Aerial
Phenomena Group of the Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center,
usually known as ATIC. Until recently this group operated under the
jurisdiction of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence. On July 1,
1961, it was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Air Force Systems
Command. To simplify discussion in this book, however, the group that
investigates unidentified aerial phenomena is generally referred to as
ATIC.
In military parlance the phrase “unidentified flying object,”
abbreviated as UFO, is used to indicate any air-borne phenomenon that
fails to identify itself to, or to be identified by, trained witnesses
on the ground or in the air who are using visual or radar methods of
observation. Created in the early days of the saucer era, the term UFO
is unfortunately misleading because it seems to imply that the unknown
is a solid material object. Many of them are not. The more dramatic
phrase “flying saucer” is similarly misleading because not all the
unknowns are shaped like a saucer, and not all of them are flying.
Since no one has been able to devise a more accurate brief term that
will apply to all reports in this category, both “UFO” and “flying
saucer” have remained in common use.
Air Force investigators and scientists have been able to account
for almost every reported “spaceship” as the result of failure to
identify some natural phenomenon. Some were the product of delusion
or deliberate hoaxes. A few remain technically “Unknown” because,
although the probable explanation is obvious, too few facts are
available to permit a positive identification. No such report suggests
the possibility that interplanetary craft are cruising in our skies.
_The Scientist’s View_
If a spaceship from another planet should ever visit the earth, no one
would be more eager to acknowledge it than our government officials
and our scientists. All governments would feel their responsibility
to protect the human race if necessary, and to establish diplomatic
relations with the alien race if possible. The scientists would want to
study, analyze, and try to understand the nature of both the ship and
its occupants.
Many persons, sincerely believing that flying saucers do exist, berate
the investigator who denies their reality and characterize him as
stupid, willfully obtuse, or intellectually dishonest because he does
not accept the saucer reports at face value but weighs them by the same
methods most of us use in weighing evidence in everyday life. When told
there’s a horse in the bathtub, for example, the sensible man realizes
that the alleged visitation, while not impossible, is extremely
improbable. Therefore he does not immediately begin speculating on the
color of the horse, where it might have come from, what its purpose
may be, and whether it will wreck the bathroom. Instead he adopts the
scientific method and first goes to find out whether the horse is
really there.
Like Fort, some flying-saucer believers are consciously or
unconsciously antagonistic to the scientific method and resent its
restrictions as a child objects to discipline. Suggesting that a
strictly logical approach deprives us of valuable truths about the
nature of the universe, and bluntly asserting that present-day
physicists and astronomers have closed their minds to the possibility
of new knowledge, these enthusiasts imply that we should require less
rigorous proof for the reality of saucers than for other types of
physical phenomena.
Because so many amateur investigators have misunderstood,
misrepresented, and condemned the scientists’ attitude, the authors of
this book (asking the indulgence of their colleagues) will briefly
outline the principles a researcher ordinarily applies to the study of
any new problem--the nature of radioactivity, the cause of a disease,
or the origin of flying saucers.
_The Question of “Evidence”_
Most physicists, chemists, biologists, and astronomers will agree
that life in some form probably exists in other parts of the galaxy.
These other life forms, if they exist, may or may not have a kind of
intelligence similar to our own; if they have, we might or might not
be able to recognize it. Such speculations, while fascinating, lie
entirely in the realm of theory. They are not facts and do not provide
the slightest support to the often stated corollary that intelligent
creatures do live on other planets and frequently visit the earth.
In approaching the spacecraft hypothesis, the scientist asks first:
What facts are we trying to account for? And second: Does the
spacecraft theory account for these facts better than the normal
explanations that are already available? After studying hundreds of UFO
reports, however, he concludes that much of the startling “proof” that
saucers are spacecraft is merely inference. Of the established facts,
none requires a new theory to account for it; and no evidence exists
that even faintly suggests, to the expert, that interplanetary visitors
are involved.
In the study of UFO phenomena this question of “evidence” is crucial.
The careful investigator tries always to distinguish sharply between an
observed fact, which is evidence, and an interpretation of that fact,
which is not evidence no matter how reasonable it may seem.
As a simple analogy, consider this situation: A man is sitting in his
living room late at night; the rest of the family have gone to bed.
Suddenly he is startled by a loud noise somewhere upstairs. Trying to
account for the noise, he thinks of various possible causes--a burglar,
the “settling” of the house, a mouse in the wall, someone dropping a
shoe, the wind rattling a door, the sonic boom from a distant plane.
If, without having further information, he decides that any one of
these is the true cause, he is accepting a guess as though it were a
fact. The real cause of the noise may be one of these or it may be
something else that he hasn’t even thought of.
Amateur investigators of UFOs publish many reports which they
characterize as absolute proof that spaceships exist. The expert,
analyzing the same reports, finds no proof at all because the actual
facts and the interpretations of the witnesses are hopelessly confused.
An early UFO case provides a typical example.
According to Air Force records[I-2], on the morning of December 6,
1952, a B-29 bomber was over the Gulf of Mexico returning from a
training mission. At 5:25 A.M. the student radar operator, using an
uncalibrated set, observed four bright blips (radar jargon for bright
spots on a radarscope; such a spot indicates the presence of an object
reflecting the radar pulses, but does not reveal the nature or shape
of the object). The blips were apparently returns from objects about
twenty miles away, in no specific group, which rapidly moved off the
scope. Similar groups of fast-moving blips appeared at intervals during
a period of about five minutes, and appeared also on two auxiliary
radarscopes. After the first set was calibrated, the blips reappeared;
none was observed after 5:35 A.M. From the radar data estimates of size
and distance were made; calculations based on these estimates indicated
a probable speed of 5000 to 9000 miles an hour. During the ten-minute
period two visual observations were made, lasting about three seconds,
which bore no obvious relation to the radar observations: at the right
of the plane one crewman saw a single blue-white streak going from
front to rear under the wing, and another crewman saw two flashes of
blue-white light.
An explanation of the incident was not found immediately, and ATIC at
first classified it as an Unknown. Some saucer enthusiasts interpreted
the facts to mean that several groups of saucers had been in the area,
machines flying so fast that they were visible only as blue-white
streaks, whose presence was confirmed by radar. These conclusions were
merely deductions from fact, not observed facts. The radarscope is
not a camera and does not, at least at present, picture the shape or
physical structure of the phenomenon it reports; it shows only spots of
light that change position and size. Similarly, the blue-white streaks
were mere flashes of light without size or shape.
In a later study of the evidence, the Air Force experts recognized
this incident as one of false targets on radar (see _Chapter_ VIII).
The radar phantoms may have been caused by beacon returns triggered
by another radar; by variations in the atmosphere; or, if “ducting”
conditions existed, by reflections from objects that were far beyond
the normal range of the radar set. The blue-white flashes had no
relation to the radar returns and were probably meteors; the date
corresponded with the beginning of the annual Geminid shower (see
_Chapter_ V).
This Gulf of Mexico incident is neither complicated nor puzzling. We
mention it chiefly to illustrate why the saucer enthusiasts so often
disagree with the conclusions reached by the Air Force experts. The
amateur assumes that the instrument operated faultlessly and detected a
solid object; he uses these assumptions to interpret the data, uses the
interpretation as fact, and by this “bootstrap” process deludes himself
into thinking he has proved what he assumed in the first place.
_Various Types of UFO_
A biologist trying to identify a group of unusual animals which are
said to represent a new species begins by collecting all possible
information about their appearance and behavior. After he has
determined their typical size, shape, color, mode of reproduction,
manner of locomotion, etc., he compares these characteristics with
those of animals of known species and eventually classifies the strange
specimens. In a similar way the professional investigator of UFO
phenomena begins by asking the question: What is a typical unidentified
flying object?
The published reports comprise a heterogeneous collection of facts,
fiction, and guesses. The investigator must first separate and discard
accounts that are obvious hoaxes or delusions. There are many of
these. The remaining material he divides into two classes. The first
includes statements made by competent, careful witnesses, describing
what they have seen and heard--for example, “I saw a brilliant light
moving swiftly without sound.” The second class includes statements of
opinion or belief about the thing seen--for example, “The strange light
obviously was controlled by intelligence.” Putting aside this second
class of material for the time being, he looks at the information in
the first and immediately faces an awkward conclusion: apparently no
“typical” flying saucer exists.
_Descriptions of UFOs_
No two reports describe exactly the same kind of UFO. There are dozens
of types of saucers, resembling each other as little as turnips do
comets. Hoping to find some consistent pattern, the investigator opens
his notebook and starts listing the data.
_Shape_--The flying saucer varies greatly in shape (see Figure 1).
At different times and places it may be a circular disk like a
saucer, often with a small protrusion in the center like the knob on
a tea-kettle lid; elliptical or bean-shaped like a flattened sphere;
a circular base supporting a dome-like superstructure; a sphere
surrounded by a central platform, like Saturn in its rings; long and
thin like a cigar; a tapered sphere like a teardrop; spindle-shaped,
with or without knobs on the ends; or a double- or triple-decked form
like a stack of plates.
_Size_--The saucer varies greatly in size. Estimated diameters range
from 20 or 30 feet to several thousand. While under observation it may
instantaneously increase or decrease in size.
_Color_--The saucer varies greatly in color. It may be white, black,
gray, red, blue, green, pink, yellow, silver; may be luminous or dull;
may be a solid color; may be circled by a central band of different
color; may display flashing lights of various colors. It may change
color or luminosity while being observed.
_Motion_--The saucer displays a wide variety of motions. It may travel
very slowly; very fast, approaching the speed of light; at jet speed;
at meteoric speed; may hover motionless over one place. At any speed it
can instantaneously change velocity and direction of motion--can move
horizontally, vertically, toward the observer, away from the observer,
in a straight path, a zigzag, a spiral. Like the Cheshire cat, it can
vanish instantly or slowly fade away.
_Means of propulsion_--Unknown. Some saucers move in complete silence;
others produce noises: a hiss, a whistle, a roar, a thunderclap, or a
detonation like a sonic boom.
[Illustration: _Figure 1._ Shapes of various reported UFOs.]
_Incidence_--Saucers may appear at any hour of the day or night,
but they appear most frequently in the hours before and after sunset,
and before and after sunrise. Their numbers may suddenly increase at
certain places and certain times. The objects can appear singly, in
random groups, in groups showing a geometrical pattern. A single object
may split and multiply into a group, or a group may merge into one.
Saucers almost always appear in the air, rarely on the earth’s surface
or in bodies of water. They almost never come within touching distance
of the observer. The length of their stay varies greatly, from about
two seconds to two or three hours.
_Structure_--Unknown. A saucer may be visible or invisible to the
observer; visible to the human eye but not to the camera or radar;
visible to the camera or radar but not to the eye. Some obey the laws
of gravity and inertia, others do not.
_Purpose_--Unknown. No officials in the government, the press,
the churches, or the universities have received any attempt at
communication. No saucer has produced intelligible visible, audible, or
radio signals.
Long before finishing this tabulation the investigator realizes that
he is not dealing with one thing but with many. No single phenomenon
could possibly display such infinite variety. However, before he
starts trying to classify the descriptions and to explain them, he
takes a look at the second class of material--the conclusions offered
by saucer enthusiasts. Leaving the realm of observation for that of
interpretation, he is suddenly catapulted into a world of fantasy.
_A “Baedeker’s Guide” to Saucerdom_
One of the commonest themes in science fiction is that of parallel
universes--a number of nearly identical worlds coexisting in alternate
space-time continua. Occasionally, at a vulnerable spot, the barrier
between two of these worlds will dissolve so that they overlap near
the point of contact. After such an accident a man may find himself
unhappily living two lives at once, identical in some ways but so
different in others that if one is real, the other cannot be. Until the
break is repaired and the incompatible worlds are safely separated once
more, the man exists in a state of desperate confusion and performs
agonizing mental acrobatics, trying to maintain a foothold in both
worlds until he can decide which one is valid.
From the “damned” phenomena collected by Charles Fort, plus the legends
of Atlantis, Mu, and Lemuria, flying-saucer addicts have constructed
a multiplicity of such alternate worlds. Although they differ in
minor ways, all are in direct conflict with the real world known to
science. Let us ignore, for the moment, the descriptions given by
the “contactees” (_Chapter_ X) and consider only the beliefs and/or
theories offered by serious proponents of the interplanetary theory
and publicized by writers such as Donald E. Keyhoe[I-3, I-4, I-5]
Aimé Michel[I-6], and Morris K. Jessup[I-7]. A “Baedeker’s Guide” to
saucerdom based solely on statements and speculations in the books
published by these investigators would portray a fantastic universe:[A]
[A] Following common practice in scientific discussion, we originally
included the specific sources of important and/or controversial ideas
described in this book and, for maximum accuracy, often used the
original phrasing of the several authors involved. In this and certain
other sections, however, we have been forced to abandon the more
scholarly method of presentation because one author (Major Donald E.
Keyhoe) refused permission to quote from his works.
“In saucerdom, alien spacecraft continually visit the earth and have
done so for centuries. Constructed and controlled by intelligent
extraterrestrial beings, the craft perhaps come from secret bases
on artificial earth satellites; on the moon; on Mars; on Venus; on
Jupiter; perhaps on the planets supposed to be orbiting the binary
stars 61 Cygni and 70 Ophiuchi; or from planets supposed to be in orbit
around the stars Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, about eleven light-years
distant from earth. Radio transmitters serving as beacons for space
navigation may exist on both Venus and Jupiter.
“These spacecraft can perform maneuvers that, on earth, are possible
only for rays of light. They fly at speeds of many thousands of miles
an hour, can reverse direction instantaneously at any speed, ascend or
descend vertically, and hover motionless in the air. They accomplish
these feats perhaps by using the power of cosmic rays and by generating
and manipulating artificial gravitational fields, which they could also
use to prevent the transmission of sound waves and to become invisible.
“The extraterrestrial visitors may be explorers sent to study the
earth, descendants of a race living thousands of light-years away from
the solar system. They may be the ancestors of the human race, which
itself is a remnant of a colony established on earth thousands of years
ago and then abandoned. More than 300,000 years ago the inhabitants of
earth had found the secret of space travel, and human beings mapped
the earth by an aerial survey at least 5000 years ago. It is also
possible that these craft come not from space but from time; they may
be earthmen of the future who have traveled backward through time to
explore their own past.
“The purpose of these visitors is still unknown. They shun close
contact with human beings, rarely if ever land their ships, and never
allow close-up photographs, perhaps because they are afraid of human
savagery or are afraid of starting a panic. Nevertheless they attempt
to signal to earthmen in various ways: they have caused the production
of gigantic letters of the alphabet [U and Z] on earth radarscopes;
from a material that radiates light they have built an enormous letter
W, spanning more than 1000 miles on the surface of Mars; they have sent
out wireless signals in Morse code to represent the letter S. They may
occasionally abduct earthmen in order to use them as language teachers.
“Although these visitors are probably not hostile to human beings,
they often manifest their presence in destructive ways. They cause
many airplane crashes; seize and carry off ships, human beings, and
airplanes; destroy flocks of birds; interfere with the operation
of radio, TV, gasoline and electric motors; pelt the earth with
rocks, metal, and strange organic substances; create loud noises and
detonations; damage the windshields of cars; set fire to highways; hurl
various types of missiles; drop chunks of ice; cause storms; and cause
radioactive rain.
“One of the most peculiar features of saucerdom is the role played by
government officials and scientists who, knowing the space visitors are
real, yet deny their existence and unite in a gigantic conspiracy to
deceive the public.”
* * * * *
These excerpts from a hypothetical Baedeker have summarized the
ideas publicized by the most literate and most persuasive advocates
of the saucer theory. The chapters that follow will examine certain
flying-saucer cases. As the discussion continues and is able to account
for specific UFOs in terms of normal physical phenomena, these
anarchistic worlds of saucerdom will gradually dissolve and merge with
reality as we know it--a world that holds many mysteries but is still
subject to the laws of nature.
[I-1] Fort, Charles. _Lo!_ New York: Claude H. Kendall, 1931.
[I-2] Air Force Files.
[I-3] Keyhoe, D. E. _The Flying Saucer Conspiracy._ New York: Henry
Holt & Co., 1955.
[I-4] ---- _Flying Saucers from Outer Space._ New York: Henry Holt &
Co., 1953.
[I-5] ---- _Flying Saucers: Top Secret._ New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1960.
[I-6] Michel, A. _The Truth about Flying Saucers._ New York: Criterion
Books, Inc., 1956.
[I-7] Jessup, M. K. _The Case for the UFO_. New York: Citadel Press,
1955.
_Chapter_ II
LO!
The overture to the _Flying Saucer_ opera took place in the summer of
1947, presenting the main themes that were to develop with fantastic
variations during the fifteen-year-long drama that followed: mysterious
apparitions in the sky, alleged interplanetary visitors, government
investigators, growing public excitement, civilians who zealously
encouraged the hysteria, and, as a climax, an elaborate hoax that
produced material “evidence” to prove the existence of spaceships.
_Arnold’s Nine Disks_
The first man to report a flying saucer was a veteran pilot named
Kenneth Arnold, representative of a fire-control equipment firm in
Boise, Idaho. On the afternoon of June 24 Arnold was flying a private
plane on his way from Chehalis to Yakima, Washington. Above the Cascade
Mountains at about 9200 feet, he noticed a series of bright flashes in
the sky off to his left. Looking for the cause, he saw what appeared
to be a formation of peculiar aircraft approaching Mount Rainier at
fantastic speed. There were nine very bright, disk-shaped objects which
he estimated to be twenty to twenty-five miles away, forty-five to
fifty feet long, and traveling at a speed of almost 1700 miles an hour.
Talking with a reporter that evening, Arnold said that the objects
“flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water.” In a
later report to Air Force Intelligence he stated: “They flew very close
to the mountaintops, directly south to southeast down the hogback of
the range, flying like geese in a diagonal, chainlike line, as if they
were linked together.... They were flat like a piepan and so shiny
they reflected the sun like a mirror.”[II-1]
Newspapers all over the country picked up the story and printed it
under headlines describing flying pies, flying piepans, and flying
saucers. Alert to the possibility that the objects might have been a
new type of aircraft of Russian origin, investigators from Military
Intelligence interviewed Arnold and officials from Air Technical
Intelligence requested a report.
No one doubted Arnold’s word. He was an experienced pilot, a respected
citizen, and a careful observer. Nevertheless his description showed
some inconsistencies that made it difficult to decide what the nine
disks really were. If they had actually been forty-five or fifty feet
long, they must have been much closer than he thought; objects that
size would not have been visible at a distance of twenty to twenty-five
miles. However, if the estimated distance was correct, then in order to
be visible the objects must have been much larger, at least 210 feet
long. One of the estimates must be wrong--but which one? Until that
question was settled, the computed speed was meaningless, since to
estimate the velocity of a moving object an observer must know either
its true distance or its true size. Even after a careful study, Air
Force investigators could not identify the disks; they might have been
clouds, a mirage, or some kind of aircraft, but no definite answer was
possible from the evidence available.
Predictably, after so much publicity, a rash of similar sightings
broke out all over the country and continued for the rest of the
summer. During the hot months of the “silly season,” newspapers are
traditionally hospitable to tales of barnyard freaks, sea serpents,
and man-bitten dogs. Such stories were now shoved aside as people in
every state began to report unorthodox objects sailing through the
sky--flying disks, flying dimes, flying ice-cream cones, flying shoe
heels, and flying hubcaps. Seeing saucers became a national pastime,
but Arnold, who had reported the strange objects in all good faith,
resented the implied ridicule. Deluged with telephone calls and mail,
he resolved to keep silent in the future even if he should happen to
see a ten-story building flying through the air.
In spite of the publicity, the flying-saucer scare would probably have
died with the first frost of autumn but for the efforts of a talented
writer, editor, and publisher of science fiction, Raymond A. Palmer.
Among the many letters Arnold received was one from Palmer, then editor
of _Amazing Stories_. Tired of being laughed at, Arnold found the tone
of “sincere interest” so appealing that he answered the letter[II-2].
After a second letter a week later, he changed his mind about keeping
silent and agreed to sell his story for publication.
Under the title, “I _Did_ See the Flying Disks,” the article appeared
in the first issue of a new magazine, _Fate_, which published “true
stories of the strange, the unusual, the unknown.”[II-3] Although
Arnold was not a professional writer, he had the assistance of an
expert and produced a vivid, clearly written story--Palmer had had
unusual experience in helping fledgling authors tell their tales.
Interesting differences between Arnold’s original statements and those
in the magazine version demonstrate how much he must have owed to
editorial help. Without it, he might not have included certain colorful
details that he had apparently overlooked earlier. In his original
reports, for example, he said that he had at first supposed the disks
to be some type of experimental aircraft; in the magazine version he
added that, even at the time, the objects had given him “an eerie
feeling.” In the intervening months he had also remembered more about
their shape (see Figure 2). He no longer described them as saucerlike,
flat and shiny like piepans. Instead, a drawing based on his revised
account shows an object like the crescent moon with a sharp protrusion
on the inner, concave side and a dark, mottled circle marking the
center of the top surface. Furthermore, he told the readers of _Fate_,
one object had been darker than the others and of a slightly different
form--a detail he had forgotten to mention to reporters, to military
officials, to his friends, or even to his wife.
Arnold had never been much of a reader and was not a science-fiction
fan, but his interests were obviously widening. The next two issues
of _Fate_ carried other articles under his name. Palmer’s growing
influence is suggested by the titles: “Are Space Visitors Here?”[II-4]
and “Phantom Lights of Nevada.”[II-5]
[Illustration: _Figure 2._ Arnold’s flying saucers. Left, as first
described; right, as later sketched.]
_The Great Shaver Mystery_
Ray Palmer lays claim to being “the _first_ flying saucer
investigator”[II-6], although he frankly admits his debt to the
writings of Charles Fort. Any full account of the saucer era must
include the names of other enthusiasts such as Adamski, Bethurum,
Scully, Cramp, Keyhoe, Jessup, Michel, and Wilkins, but none merits so
much credit for keeping the saucers flying as does Palmer. He not only
opened the pages of his magazines to the first saucer reports but also,
in the beginning, paid the witnesses for their stories.
In 1947 Palmer was the editor of _Amazing Stories_ and _Fantastic
Adventures_, two of the great magazines of science fiction in which
stories of spaceships and interplanetary travel have long been
commonplace. For several years he had been hinting to readers of these
magazines that alien spaceships might _actually_ be cruising in our
skies, but _Fate_ was the first magazine that seriously promoted the
idea. No man was better qualified to glimpse the dramatic possibilities
of flying saucers. Born in Wisconsin in 1910, Palmer had begun reading
_Amazing Stories_ soon after it started publication in 1926. Turning to
writing, he showed the remarkable persistence that has characterized
his life. Although he received 100 rejections before he sold his second
story, he stubbornly kept on until he not only achieved success as an
author but also, in 1938, became managing editor of _Amazing Stories_
for the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Under Palmer’s guidance, “...
the entertainment side of science fiction took over.... Gone were the
ponderous styles, the verbiage, the highly technical explanations of
what mattered little in the first place. The stories took on pace and
excitement, the characters in them were faced with human problems, the
dialogue was realistic....”[II-7]
Alert to the tastes of his readers, Palmer carried the magazine to new
heights. Many science-fiction fans (including the present authors)
still remember that golden age around 1940 when _Amazing_ came out
every month with 146 pages full of startling, fantastic, wonderful
stories of how life might be on other worlds and in other galaxies.
In January 1944 began the publishing drama that for a time changed the
direction of _Amazing_ and heralded the advent of flying saucers. The
“Discussions” department that month included a letter captioned “An
Ancient Language?” which introduced what came to be known both as the
Great Shaver Mystery and the Great Shaver Hoax. Signed “S. Shaver,” the
letter began:
“Sirs: Am sending you this in hopes you will insert in an issue to keep
it from dying with me. It would arouse a lot of discussion.”[II-8]
It did indeed. The letter announced the discovery that words and
syllables of the ancient Atlantean language still exist in English
today; hence the legends of Atlantis must be true and a “wiser race
than modern man” must once have existed on the earth.
Richard Sharpe Shaver was then living in Barto, Pennsylvania, and
operated a welding machine in a war plant. In writing to thank the
editor for publishing his letter, he enclosed a manuscript called
“Warning to Future Man” which purported to give his memories of life
in the fabled continent of Lemuria. The information had been preserved
in “thought records” hidden in secret caves. By “telaug,” a kind of
audio-visual telepathy, he had begun to remember his forgotten past
when, through the noise of his welding machine, he heard voices. After
visiting Shaver and probing his “memories,” Palmer bought the story. He
didn’t like the way it was written, however, so he rewrote it, added
material that expanded it to three times its original length[II-9],
changed the title to “I Remember Lemuria,” and started advertising it
well in advance of publication as a _true_ story:
“Twelve thousand years ago the Lemurians and the Atlanteans disappeared
from the Earth. Where and why did they go?”[II-10] This story would
show that Newton and Einstein were all wrong, Palmer promised, and
would reveal new concepts of gravity, the nature of matter, and the
foundation for physical mathematics.
Thus began the controversy that rocked the world of science fiction.
Since Palmer has affirmed that “Flying saucers are a part of the Shaver
Mystery--integrally so”[II-11], we turn to the old files of _Amazing
Stories_ to trace their development.
The first of the Shaver series, “I Remember Lemuria” appeared in March
1945[II-12], along with “Mantong, The Language of Lemuria,” an article
signed by both Shaver and Palmer, and other stories followed quickly
in succeeding issues of _Amazing_. The basic themes were shopworn--a
jumble of Fortean ideas, Plato’s fables, and mystic science--but when
brightened by Palmer’s magic pencil, they seemed fresh and exciting:
The earth had an ancient past, now forgotten. The lost continents of
Atlantis, Lemuria, and Mu had been colonized many thousands of years
ago by superior beings from another planet who could travel through
space by utilizing forces unknown to present-day earthmen. Eventually
these noble aliens had been forced to abandon the earth to escape evil
radiations coming from our sun, but they had left descendants who still
lived on earth in concealment in great subterranean cities that could
be entered through certain caves. The underground dwellers in the
hidden world had retained all the secret powers of their ancestors.
They could communicate by thought transference, could speak to earthmen
by mental “voices,” and could travel on beams of light because they
understood the true nature of gravity and magnetism. These creatures
were divided into two opposing groups, one good and one evil. The
dero (detrimental robots) were the bad guys and they caused all the
unexplained accidents and misfortunes that happen to human beings.
The tero (integrative robots) were the good guys; they warned earthmen
of danger and tried to protect them from the destructive forces of the
dero.
Reader response to these fantasies was phenomenal. Fan mail zoomed from
40 or 50 to 2500 letters a month[II-13], and the magazine’s circulation
increased by some 50,000. As the records of “racial memory” continued
to appear, connoisseurs of good science fiction began to cry “Hoax!”
but their protests had no effect. Thousands of new readers were buying
the magazine and many of them were beginning to recall and report
“memories” of their own. Since the “Discussions” columns could not
take care of so many letters, Palmer opened a new department, “Report
from the Forgotten Past”[II-14], and urged the readers to send in
their personal experiences with the hidden world. Did they ever hear
strange voices? Receive mysterious messages through the air? Suspect
that they were being affected by strange rays? Feel that they had
been put on earth for some special mission? Have dreams that they
could not explain? Have a strong urge to explore caves? Have memories
of other lives? The editor was eager to learn of all such incidents.
Through the Shaver stories, Palmer was already promoting the idea that
interplanetary craft do visit the earth:
“There are many mysteries of the past that have intrigued investigators
to an almost unbearable point.... What were the glories of Babylon?
What truth is there in the Chinese legend of being the people of the
Moon, and of coming to Earth in rocket ships? What was the mystery
metal of the Lemurians, orichalcum? What was the secret of their
airships that walked on beams of light?”[II-12]
When one correspondent informed him that space travel was possible “if
one travels through curves but not through angles,” Palmer replied,
“Your editor is sincere--and he’d like to know everything you know....
For instance, please explain this space-travel business--about curves
and not angles.”[II-15]
For more than three years the columns of _Amazing_ continued to assert,
not as fiction but as fact, that interplanetary travel is a present
reality and that the laws of physics are not valid. In a mystic mumbo
jumbo the readers were told that the velocity of light, for example,
was not the ultimate speed:
“Light speed is due to ‘escape velocity’ on the sun, which is not
large. This speed is a constant to our measurement because the friction
of exd, which fills all space, holds down any increase unless there
is more impetus. The escape velocity of light from a vaster sun than
ours is higher, but once again exd slows the light speed down to its
constant by friction, so that when it reaches the vicinity of our
sun, no appreciable difference is to be noted. A body can travel at
many times the exd constant, under additional impetus, such as rocket
explosions. A ship whose weight is reduced to a very little by reverse
gravity beam can attain a great speed with a very small rocket.”[II-12]
Devotees of reasonable science fiction (who include many leading
scientists) were writing angrily to Palmer, protesting that the Shaver
hoax had gone too far, but their letters seemed only to amuse him: