The Flying Saucer Myth
By THE ASTRONOMER ROYAL (Sir Harold Spencer Jones, F.R.S.) FROM about midsummer 1947 and throughout the past three years there have been numerous reports of mysterious saucer-like and other objects having been seen moving through the sky at great speeds. These reports have largely emanated from the United States, where they have given rise to much interest and to some alarm. Are these mysterious objects secret weapons in course of trial ? Are they sent by an enemy Power to spy out the land ? Are they perhaps launched from another planet ? Or is there a simple explanation, some natural phenomenon having been
- misrepresented and incorrectly reported ?
It not infrequently happens that when there is a report of some- thing having been seen which is mysterious and outside ordinary experience, other people begin to think that they see the same thing. The reports of the Loch Ness Monster provide an instance. In the case of the flying saucers, something similar seems to have occurred.
'The first reports of these objects apparently came from Boise in Idaho ; before long, flying saucers were being seen in many other of the States. It has been suggested that the whole thing may be merely a case of mass-hallucination.
So widespread has been the interest aroused by the flying-saucer problem that the reader will turn tO Mr. Gerald Heard's book* in expectation of finding some light thrown on the mystery. He will be doomed to disappointment, for, after summarising and discussing the evidence, the author, after possible alternatives have been examined and discarded, offers an explanation which is more improb- able than the flying saucers themselves.
But, first of all, what do the observers of these objects state that they have seen ? There is a marked diversity in the various reports, and it is certain thg they cannot all refer to the same type of phenomenon. Most frequently the reports refer to disk-shaped or saucer-like objects which, however, are sometimes described as being heart-shaped or as having a tail fin. Statements about size are strangely discordant, ranging from a few feet to several hundred or one thousand feet in diameter ; but it may be remarked that there are many people who estimate the moon to be about the size of a dinner plate. The speeds at which the objects move are variously estimated from about 200 to 18,000 miles an hour. In one instance, a flying saucer is said to have gone from horizon to horizon in three seconds. Some other reports describe giant cigat-shaped wingless torpedoes, with windows and fore-cabin, glaring with a weird mysterious light, which are capable of tremendous speed and are of master-manoeuvrability, so that they can make circles around a plane travelling at a speed of 300 miles.an hour.
A third type is described as a giant balloon. One such is stated to have anchored itself for nearly two days at a height of about 5,000 feet about the town of Alice, Texas ; it is curious that it was apparently seen by only five citizens of that town. In another instance the balloon is said to have been double-decked. One was seen to explode, but no fragments could be found. Then there are objects described as balls of light, appearing as bright white globes, a foot or so in diameter, which can make sudden darts, or rapid twists and turns, and which can suddenlx hop up thousands of feet and perform other weird capers.
Almost all the reports appear to agree that there is no sound accompanying these appearances. If the objects have a material existence, they have never been observed to start from the ground, or to fall to or alight on the ground. They either disappear over the sea or into the depths of the sky. If they are of terrestrial origin they must sooner or later come down somewhere. If they are mechanical devices, something must sometimes go wrong and a crash occur. But this never happens with flying saucers.
There are many natural phenomena which appear mysterious, and for which, in some cases, there is as yet no satisfactory explana- tion. The accounts of such appearances given by those who are unfamiliar with them may be strangely unlike the real thing. The aurora borealis, ball lightning, St. .Elmo's fire, mock suns and 'The Riddle of the Flying Saucers. By -Gerald Heard. (Carroll and Nicholson. 10s. 6d.1 parhelia, the Brocken spectre, °.'a blue sun or a blue moon, a brignt fire-ball, a slow-moving train of meteors, for instance, are sufficiently . far from the normal range of most people's experience to give rise to wonderment. I receive many reports of unusual or strange phenomena ; but rarely is an account of what was seen sufficiently precise and accurate for a definite opinion to be given as to the cause. There was an occasion during the 1914-1918 War when it was reported by a British officer in France that a Zeppelin was in a certain direction and was moving westwards ; he had for some time been carefully watch* Jupiter through his field-glasses and had interpreted the four bright satellites as lights in the hull ; the diurnal motion of the planet had convinced him that he was observing a distant moving Zeppelin.
In December, 1949, the U.S. Air Force declared that all the reports of flying saucers received had been investigated and had been disposed of as having natural causes. I believe that many of them are distorted accounts of natural phenomena ; in a few instances, meteorological balloons, experimental Orcraft or guided missiles may possibly have been observed. In one or two cases fire-halls may have been seen.
But such explanations are too prosaic for Mr. Gerald Heard. He wants something more exciting. In the course of my experience I have come across so many instances of the unreliability of ocular evidence that I prefer to seek a natural explanation, and I frankly mistrust much of the testimony. Mr. Heard prefers to trust the evidence, and so is compelled to seek an unnatural explanation. For he accepts the view that flying saucers are not U.S. secret weapons in course of trial, and he admits that they cannot be launched by an unfriendly Power, as it would be quite illogical for any such Power to disclose its own secret weapons to a possible enemy.
Mr. Heard is therefore compelled to suggest an extra-terrestrial - origin, and the suggestion which he makes is that the flying saucers have come from Mars. Because the largest sunspots ever recorded appeared not long after the firing-off of atomic bombs, he assumes (quite illogically) that the atomic bombs caused the sunspots. It is well-established that the sun's ultra-violet radiation is increased at times of great sun-spot activity ; the Martians, he asserts, have the strongest of reasons for not wishing ultra-violet radiationwfrom the sun to increase, since the tenuous Martian atmosphere affords little protection against the short-wave rays, which are deadly to life He suggests further that the sun is one of the pulsating stars known as Cepheids, and that it is these stars which are liable to explode and become novae (neither statement, incidentally, is correct) ; atom bombs might serve as the trigger which would cause the sun to explode. The Martians may have read the signs, have assumed that some trouble is brewing, and have therefore taken steps to find out what we are up to. That is presumably why they have devoted their attention almost entirely to the United States. The two small satellites of Mars have provided the platforms from which they have launched,their Mars-to-Earth flights. The Martians, he considers, are large insects, super-bees about two inches in length, with a highly developed social organisation !
There are no limits to such unscientific speculation. Once one embarks upon it, it is necessary to plunge deeper and deeper. The enormous speeds attributed to these objects, and their silence, almost presuppose that some form of super-energy, which is unknown to us, is available to these Martian insects. The ability to hover silently for any time at any height "seems to demand the power to resist gravity with its counter-force, a negative reaction to the pull of the earth, as on the negative pole of the magnet objects are not drawn in but driven out." Mr. Heard supposes that "magnetism is, as it were, the other pole of gravity." Two saucers, reported to have been whirling round each other, were, it is suggested, recharging each other. Even radar is brought in to add an air of plausibility for the unscientific reader: the "rods and foci of force that, the radar picks up, directed force, may be from the disks."
Mr. Heard supposes that the smaller disks come down from a giant disk, riding as a second and very midget moon right under our lee, and that the dancing balls of light were directed by a super- intelligence from this space-platform.
The scientific reader will jettison the whole of this chain of argu- ment We know enough about Mars and the conditions that prevail there to be confident that no animal life can exist on it. As for very big manufacturing plants being in operation on Mars in order to turn out disks in large numbers, as is supposed, it is just fantastic. The unscientific reader will find his credulity strained to the utmost. The fact that such arguments have to be put forward to account for these flying saucers seems to me to provide the strongest possible demonstration that the whole thing is a myth.
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