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The United States Air Force
and UFOlogy
For years now, the debate between debunkers and skeptics as
opposed to believers has raged on over whether the United States
Government, or more specifically the United States Air Force
considers the subject of UFOlogy to be serious business. Also
what must be considered is what elements or departments of the
government would be concerned with this if UFO's proved to be a
threat.
The United States Airforce has maintained for over
thirty years that the largest percentage of reports are
explainable, and most usally are. However, the Air Force also
maintains that the rest could be explained if only enough
information were present. Is this true, or is it a smoke screen
as many researchers maintain? And, what if anything does the Air
Force tell its own officer corps that may be presented with this
enigma in the course of their duty?
The following document is taken verbatim from the United
States Air Forces Academy textbook, " Introductory Space Science,
Volume II, Department of Physics, USAF. " This is the volume
that was being used by the Air Force Academy, at Colorado
Springs, Colorado. The Air Force Academy has since pulled this
volume from the curicullem in the very early 70's, because of the
contraversy it generated, but after reading this, I think you
will find that the United States Air Force has considered the
subject of UFOlogy to be very "serious business."
Transcribed by:
Don Ecker
Public Relations Director
ParaNet(sm) Information Service
ParaNet Alpha
1:102/422
INTRODUCTORY SPACE SCIENCE - VOLUME II
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS - USAF
Edited by:
Major Donald G. Carpenter
Co-Editor:
Lt. Colonel Edward R. Therkelson
CHAPTER XIII
UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS
What is an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO)? Well,
according to United States Air Force Regulation 80-17 (dated 19
September 1966), a UFO is "Any" aerial Phenomenon or object which
is unknown or appears to be out of the ordinary to the observer."
This is a very broad definition which applies equally well to one
individual seeing his first noctilucent cloud at twilight as it
does to another individual seeing his first helicopter. However,
at present most people consider the term UFO to mean an
object which behaves in a strange or erratic manner while moving
through the Earth's atmosphere. That strange phenomenon has
evoked strong emotions and great curiosity among a large segment
of our world's population. The average person is interested
because he loves a mystery, the professional military man is
involved because of the possible threat to national security, and
some scientist are interested because of the basic curiosity that
led them into becoming researchers.
The literature on UFO's is so vast, and the stories so many
and varied, that we can only present a sketchy outline of the
subject in this chapter. That outline includes description
classifications, operational domains (temporal and spatial), some
theories as to the nature of the UFO phenomenon, human reactions,
attempts to attack the problem scientifically, and some tentative
conclusions. If you wish to read further in this area, the
references provide an excellent starting point.
33.1 DESCRIPTIONS
One of the greatest problems you encounter when attempting
to catalog UFO sightings, is selection of a system for
cataloging. No effective system has yet been devised, although a
number of different systems have been proposed. The net result
is that almost all UFO data are either treated in the form of
individual cases, or in the forms of inadequate callification
systems. However, these systems do tend to have some common
factors, and a collection of these factors is as follows:
a. Size
b. Shape (disc, ellipse, football, etc.)
c. Luminosity
d. Color
e. Number of UFO's
Behavior:
a. Location (altitude, direction, etc.)
b. Patterns of paths (straight line, climbing, zig-zagging, etc.)
c. Flight Characteristics (wobbling, fluttering, etc.)
d. Periodicity of sightings
e. Time duration
f. Curiosity or inquisitiveness
g. Avoidance
h. Hostility
Associated Effects:
a. Electro-Magnetic (compass, radio, ignition systems, etc.)
b. Radiation (burns, induced radioactivity, etc.)
c. Ground disturbance (dust stirred up, leaves moved, standing
wave peaks of surface of water, etc.)
d. Sound (none, hissing, humming, roaring, thunderclaps, etc.)
e. Vibration (weak, strong, slow, fast)
f. Smell (ozone or other odor)
g. Flame (how much, where, when, color)
h. Smoke or cloud (amount, color, persistence)
i. Debris (type, amount, color, persistence)
j. Inhibition of voluntary movement by observers
k. Sighting of "creatures" or "beings"
After Effects:
a. Burned areas or animals
b. depressed or flattened areas
c. Dead or "missing animals"
d. Mentally disturbed people
e. Missing items
We make no attempt here to present available data in terms of the
foregoing descriptors.
33.2 OPERATIONAL DOMAINS - TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL
What we will do here is to present evidence that UFO's are a
global phenomenon which may have persisted for many thousands of
years. During this discussion, please remember that the more
ancient the reports the less sophisticated the observer. Not
only were the ancient observers lacking the terminilogy necessary
to describe complex devices (such as present day helicopters) but
they were also lacking the concepts necessary to understand the
true nature of such things as television, spaceships, rockets,
nuclear weapons and radiation effects. To some, the most
advanced technological concept was a war chariot with knife
blades attached to the wheels. By the same token, the very lack
of accurate terminolgy and descriptions leaves the more ancient
reports open to considerable misinterpretation, and it may well
be that present evaluations of individual reports are completely
wrong. Nevertheless, let us start with an intriguing story in
one of the oldest chronicles of India. . . . the Book of Dzyan.
The book is a group of "story-teller" legends which were
finally gathered in manuscript form when man learned to write.
One of the stories is of a small group of beings who supposedly
came to Earth many thousands of years ago in a metal craft which
orbited the Earth several times before landing. As told in the
Book "These beings lived to themselves and were revered by the
humans among whom they had settled. But eventually differences
arose among them and they divided their numbers, several of the
men and women and some children settled in another city, where
they were promptly installed as rulers by the awe-stricken
populace.
"Separation did not bring peace to these people and finally
their anger reached a point where the ruler of the original city
took with him a small number of his warriors and they rose into
the air in a huge shining metal vessel. While they were many
leagues from the city of their enemies, they launched a great
shining lance that rode on a beam of light. It burst apart in
the city of their enemies with a great ball of flame that shot up
to the heavens, almost to the stars. All those who were in the
city were horribly burned and even those who were not in the city
- but nearby - were burned also. Those who looked upon the lance
and the ball of fire were blinded forever afterward. Those who
entered the city on foot became ill and died. Even the dust of
the city was poisoned, as were the rivers that flowed through it.
Men dared not go near it, and it gradually crumbled into dust and
was forgotten by men."
"When the leader saw what he had done to his own people he
retired to his palace and refused to see anyone. Then he
gathered about him those warriors who remained, and their wives
and children, and they entered their vessels and rose one by one
into the sky and sailed away. Nor did they return."
Could this foregoing legend really be an account of an
extraterestrial colonization, complete with guided missle,
nuclear warhead and radiation effects? It is difficult to assess
the validity of that explanation...just as it is difficult to
explain why Greek, Roman and Nordic Mythology all discuss wars
and contacts among their "Gods." (Even the Bible records
conflict between the legions of God and Satan.) Could it be that
each group recorded their parochial view of what was actually a
global conflict among alien colonists or visitors? Or is it that
man has led such a violent existence that he tends to expect
conflict and violence among even his gods?
Evidence of perhaps an even earlier possible contact was
uncovered by Tschi Pen Lao of the University of Peking. He
discovered astonishing carvings in granite on a mountain in Hunan
Province and on an island in Lake Tungting. These carvings have
been evaluated as 47,000 years old, and they show people with
large trunks (breathing apparatus?...or "elephant" heads shown on
human bodies? Remember, the Egyptians often represented their
gods as animal heads on human bodies.)
Only 8,000 years ago, rocks were sculpted in the Tassili
plateau of Sahara, depicting what appeared to be human beings but
with strange round heads (helmets? or "sun" heads on human
bodies?) And even more recently, in the Bible, Genesis (6:4)
tells of angels from the sky mating with women of Earth, who bore
them children. Genesis 19:3 tells of Lot meeting two angels in
desert and his later feeding them at his house. The Bible also
tells a rather unusual story of Ezekiel who witnessed what has
been interpreted by some to have been a spacecraft or aircraft
landing near the Chebar River in Chaldea (593 B.C.).
Even the Irish have recorded strange visitations. In the
Speculum Regali in Konungs Skuggsa (and other accounts of the era
about 956 A.D.) are numerous stories of "demonships" in the
skies. In one case a rope from one such ship became entangled
with part of a church. A man from the ship climbed down the rope
to free it, but was seized by the townspeople. The Bishop made
the people release the man, who climbed back to the ship, where
the crew cut the rope and the ship rose and sailed out of sight.
In all of his actions, the climbing man appeared as if he were
swimming in water. Stories such as this makes one wonder if the
legends of the "little people" of Ireland were based upon
imagination alone.
About the same time, in Lyons (France) three men and a women
supposedly descended from an airship or spaceship and were
captured by a mob. These foreigners admitted to being wizards,
and were killed. (No mention is made of the methods employed to
extract the admissions.) Many documented UFO sightings occurred
throughout the Middle Ages, including an especially startling one
of a UFO over London on 16 December 1742. However, we do not
have room to include any more of the Middle Ages sightings.
Instead, two "more-recent" sightings are contained in this
section to bring us up to modern times.
In a sworn statement dated 21 April 1897, a prosperous
and prominent farmer named Alexander Hamilton (Le Roy, Kansas,
U.S.A.) told of an attack upon his cattle at about 10:30 PM the
previous Monday. He, his son, and his tenant grabbed axes and
ran some 700 feet from the house to the cow lot where a great
cigar-shaped ship about 300 feet long floated some 30 feet above
his cattle. It had a carriage underneath which was brightly
lighted within (dirigible and gondola?) and which had numerous
windows. Inside were six strange looking beings jabbering in a
foreign language. These beings suddenly became aware of Hamilton
and the others. They immediately turned a searchlight on the
farmer, and also turned on some power which sped up a turbine
wheel (about 30 ft diameter) located under the craft. The ship
rose, taking with it a two-year old heifer which was roped about
the neck by a cable of one-half inch thick, red material. The
next day a neighbor, Link Thomas, found the animal's hide, legs
and head in his field. He was mystified at how the remains got
to where they were because of the lack of tracks in the soft
soil. Alexander Hamilton's sworn statement was accompanied by an
affidavit as to his veracity. The affidavit was signed by ten of
the local leading citizens.
On the evening of 4 November 1957 at Fort Itaipu, Brazil,
two sentries noted a "new star" in the sky. The "star" grew in
size and within seconds stopped over the fort. It drifted slowly
downward, was as large as a big aircraft, and was surrounded by a
strong orange glow. A distinct humming sound was heard, and then
the heat struck. A Sentry collapsed almost immediately, the
other managed to slide to shelter under the heavy cannons where
his loud cries awoke the garrison. While the troops were
scrambling towards their battle stations, complete electrical
failure occurred. There was panic until the lights came back on
but a number of men still managed to see an orange glow leaving
the area at high speed. Both sentries were found badly
burned...one unconscious and the other incoherent, suffering from
deep shock.
Thus, UFO sightings not only appear to extend back to 47,000
years through time but also are global in nature. One has the
feeling that this phenomenon deserves some sort of valid
scientific investigation, even if it is a low level effort.
33.3 SOME THEORIES AS TO THE NATURE OF THE UFO PHENOMENON
There are very few cohesive theories as to the nature of
UFO's. Those theories that have been advanced can be collected
in five groups:
a. Mysticism
b. Hoaxes, and rantings due to unstable personalities
c. Secret Weapons
d. Natural Phenomena
e. Alien visitors
Mysticism
It is believed by some cults that the mission of UFO's and
their crews is a spiritual one, and that all materialistic
efforts to determine the UFO's nature are doomed to failure.
Hoaxes and Rantings due to Unstable Personalities
Some have suggested that all UFO reports were the results of
pranks and hoaxes, or were made by people with unstable
personalities. This attitude was particularly prevalent during
the time period when the Air Force investigation was being
operated under the code name of Project Grudge. A few airlines
even went as far as to ground every pilot who reported seeing a
"flying saucer." The only way for the pilot to regain flight
status was to undergo a psychiatric examination. There was a
noticeable decline in pilot reports during this time interval,
and a few interpreted this decline to prove that UFO's were
either hoaxes or the result of unstable personalities. It is of
interest that NICAP (The National Investigations Committee on
Aerial Phenomena) even today stillreceives reports from
commercial pilots who neglect to notify either the Air Force or
their own airline.
There are a number of cases which indicate that not all
reports fall in the hoax category. We will examine one such case
now. It is the Socorro, New Mexico sighting made by police
Sergeant Lonnie Zamora. Sergeant Zamora was patrolling the
streets of Socorro on 24 April 1964 when he saw a shiny object
drift down into an area of gullies on the edge of town. He also
heard a loud roaring noise which sounded as if an old dynamite
shed located out that way had exploded. He immediately radioed
police headquarters, and drove out toward the shed. Zamora was
forced to stop about 150 yards away from a deep gully in which
there appeared to be an overturned car. He radioed that he was
investigating a possible wreck, and then worked his car up onto
the mesa and over toward the edge of the gully. He parked short,
and when he walked the final few feet to the edge, he was amazed
to see that it was not a car but instead was a weird eggshaped
object about fifteen feet long, white in color and resting on
short, metal legs. Beside it, unaware of his presence were two
humanoids dressed in silvery coveralls. They seemed to be
working on a portion of the underside of the object. Zamora was
still standing there, surprised, when they suddenly noticed him
and dove out of sight around the object. Zamora also headed the
other way, back toward his car. He glanced back at the object
just as a bright blue flame shot down from the underside. Within
seconds the eggshaped thing rose out of the gully with "an
earsplitting roar." The object was out of sight over the nearby
mountains almost immediately, and Sergeant Zamora was moving the
opposite direction almost as fast when he met Sergeant Sam Chavez
who was responding to Zamora's earlier radio calls. Together
they investigated the gully and found the bushes charred and
still smoking where the blue flame had jetted down on them.
About the charred area were four deep marks where the metal legs
had been. Each mark was three and one half inches deep, and was
circular in shape. The sand in the gully was very hard packed
so no sign of the humanoids' footprints could be found. An
official investigation was launched that same day, and all data
obtained supported the stories of Zamora and Chavez. It is
rather difficult to label this episode a hoax, and it is also
doubtful that both Zamora and Chavez shared portions of the same
hallucination.
Secret Weapons
A few individuals have proposed that UFO's are actually
advanced weapon systems, and that their natures must not be
revealed. Very few people accept this as a credible suggestion.
Natural Phenomena
It has also been suggested that at least some, and possibly
all of the UFO cases were just mis-interpreted manifestations of
natural phenomena. Undoubtedly this suggestion has some merit.
People have reported, as UFO's, objects which were conclusively
proven to be balloons (weather and skyhook), the planet Venus,
man-made artificial satellites, normal aircraft, unusual cloud
formations, and lights from ceilometers (equipment projecting
light beams on cloud bases to determine the height of the
aircraft visual ceiling). It is also suspected that people have
reported mirages, optical illusions, swamp gas and ball lightning
(a poorly-understood discharge of electrical energy in a
spheroidal or ellipsoidal shape...some charges have lasted for up
to fifteen minutes but the ball is usually no bigger than a large
orange.) But it is difficult to tell a swamp dweller that the
strange, fast-moving light he saw in the sky was swamp gas; and
it is just as difficult to tell a farmer that a bright UFO in the
sky is the same ball lightning that he has seen rolling along his
fence wires in dry weather. Thus accidental mis-identification
of what might well be natural phenomena breeds mistrust and
disbelief; it leads to the hasty conclusion that the truth is
deliberatly not being told. One last suggestion of interest has
been made, that the UFO's were plasmoids from
space...concentrated blobs of solar wind that succeeded in
reaching the surface of the Earth. Somehow this last suggestion
does not seem to be very plausible; perhaps because it ignores
such things as penetration of Earth's magnetic field.
Alien Visitors
The most stimulating theory for us is that the UFO's are
material objects which are either "Manned" or remote-controlled
by beings who are alien to this planet. There is some evidence
supporting this viewpoint. In addition to police Sergeant Lonnie
Zamora's experience, let us consider the case of Barney and Betty
Hill. On a trip through New England they lost two hours on the
night of 19 September 1961 without even realizing it. However,
after that night both Barney and Betty began developing
psychological problems which eventually grew sufficiently severe
that they submitted themselves to psychiatric examination and
treatment. During the course of treatment hypnotherapy was used,
and it yielded remarkably detailed and similar stories from both
Barney and Betty. Essentially they had been hypotically
kidnapped, taken aboard a UFO, submitted to two-hour physicals,
and released with posthypnotic suggestions to forget the entire
incident. The evidence is rather strong that this is what the
Hills, even in their subconscious, believe happened to them. And
it is of particular importance that after the "posthypnotic
block" was removed, both of the Hills ceased having their
psychological problems.
The Hill's description of the aliens was similar to
descriptions provided in other cases, but this particular type of
alien appears to be in the minority. The most commonly described
alien is about three and one half feet tall, has a round head
(helmet?), arms reaching to or below his knees, and is wearing a
silvery space suit or coveralls. Other aliens appear to be
essentially the same as Earthmen, while still others have
particularily wide (wrap around) eyes and mouths with very thin
lips. And there is a rare group reported as about four feet
tall, weight of around 35 pounds, and covered with thick hair or
fur (clothing?). Members of this last group are described as
being extremely strong. If such beings are visiting Earth, two
questions arise: 1) why haven't they attempted to contact us
officially? The answer to the first question may exist partially
in Sergeant Lonnie Zamora's experience, and may exist partially
in the Tunguska metor discussed in Chapter XXIX. In that chapter
it was suggested that the Tunguska metor was actually a comet
which exploded in the atmosphere, the ices melted and the dust
spread out. Hence, no debris. However, it has also been
suggested that the Tunguska meteor was actually an alien
spacecraft that entered the atmosphere too rapidly, suffered
mechanical failure, and lost its power supply and/or weapons in a
nuclear explosion. While that hypothesis may seem far fetched,
sample of tree rings from around the world reveal that,
immediately after the Tunguska meteor explosion, the level of
radioactivity in the world rose sharply for a short period of
time. It is difficult to find a natural explanation for that
increase in radioactivity, although the suggestion has been
advanced that enough of the meteor's great Kinetic energy was
converted into heat (by atmospheric friction) that a fusion
reaction occurred. This still leaves us with no answer to the
second question: why no contact? That question is very easy to
answer in several ways: 1) we may be the object of intensive
sociological and psychological study. In such studies you
usually avoid disturbing the test subjects' environment; 2) you
do not "contact" a colony of ants, and humans may seem that way
to any aliens (variation: a zoo is fun to visit, but you don't
"contact" the lizards); 3) such contact may have already taken
place secretly; and 4) such contact may have already taken place
on a different plane of awareness and we are not yet sensitive to
communications on such a plane. These are just a few of the
reasons. You may add to the list as you desire.
33.4 HUMAN FEAR AND HOSTILITY
Besides the foregoing reasons, contacting humans is
downright dangerous. Think about that for a moment! On the
microscopic level our bodies reject and fight (through production
antibodies) any alien material; this process helps us fight off
disease but it also sometimes results in allergic reactions to
innocous materials. On the macroscopic (psychological and
sociological) level we are antagonistic to beings that are
"different". For proof of that, just watch how an odd child is
treated by other children, or how a minority group is socially
deprived, or how the Arabs feel about the Israelis (Chinese vs
Japanese, Turks vs Greeks, etc.) In case you are hesitant to
extend that concept to the treatment of aliens let me point out
that in very ancient times, possible extraterrestrials may have
been treated as Gods but in the last two thousand years, the
evidence is that any possible aliens have been ripped apart by
mobs, shot and shot at, physically assaulted, and in general
treated with fear and aggression.
In Ireland about 1,000 A.D., supposed airships were treated
as "demonships." In Lyons, France, "admitted" space travellers
were killed. More recently, on 24 July 1957 Russian anti-
aircraft batteries on the Kouril Islands opened fire on UFO's.
Although all Soviet anti-aircraft batteries on the Islands were
in action, no hits were made. The UFO's were luminous and moved
very fast. We too have fired on UFO's. About ten o'clock one
morning, a radar site near a fighter base picked up a UFO doing
700 mph. The UFO then slowed to 100 mph, and two F-86's were
scrambled to intercept. Eventually one F-86 closed on the UFO at
about 3,000 feet altitude. The UFO began to accelerate away but
the pilot still managed to get within 500 yards of the target for
a short period of time. It was definately saucer shaped. As the
pilot pushed the F-86 at top speed, the UFO began to pull away.
When the range reached 1,000 yards, the pilot armed his guns and
fired in an attempt to down the saucer. He failed, and the UFO
pulled away rapidly, vanishing in the distance. This same basic
situation may have happened on a more personal level. On Sunday
evening 21 August 1955, eight adults and three children were on
the Sutton Farm (one-half mile from Kelly, Kentucky) when,
according to them, one of the children saw a brightly glowing UFO
settle behind the barn, out of sight from where he stood. Other
witnesses on nearby farms also saw the object. However, the
Suttons dismissed it as a "shooting star", and did not
investigate. Approximately thirty minutes later (at 8:00 pm),
the family dogs began barking so two of the men went to the back
door and looked out. Approximately 50 feet away and coming
toward them was a creature wearing a glowing silvery suit. It
was about three and one-half feet tall with a large round head
and very long arms. It had large webbed hands which were
equipped with claws. The two Suttons grabbed a twelve gauge
shotgun and a .22 caliber pistol, and fired at close range. They
could hear the pellets and bullet ricochet as if off of metal.
The creature was knocked down, but jumped up and scrambled away.
The Suttons retreated into the house, turned off all inside
lights, and turned on the porch light. At that moment, one of
the women who was peeking out of the dining room window
discovered that a creature with some sort of helmet and wide slit
eyes was peeking back at her. She screamed, the men rushed in
and started shooting. The creature was knocked backwards but
again scrambled away without apparent harm. More shooting
occurred (a total of about 50 rounds) over the next 20 minutes
and the creatures finally left (perhaps feeling unwelcome?)
After about a two hour wait (for safety), the Suttons left too.
By the time the police got there, the aliens were gone but the
Suttons would not move back to the farm. They sold it and
departed. This reported incident does bear out the contention
though that humans are dangerous. At no time in the story did
the supposed aliens shoot back, although one is left with the
imprssion that the described creatures were having fun scaring
humans.
33.5 ATTEMPTS AT SCIENTIFIC APPROACHES
In any scientific endeavor, the first step is to aquire
data, the second step to classify the data, and the third step to
form hypothesis. The hypothesis are tested by repeating the
entire process, with each cycle resulting in an increase in
understanding (we hope). The UFO phenomenon does not yield
readily to this approach because the data taken so far exhibits
both excessive variety and vagueness. The vagueness is caused in
part by the lack of preparation of the observer...very few people
leave their house knowing that they are going to see a UFO that
evening. Photographs are overexposed or underexposed, and rarely
in color. Hardly anyone carries around a radiation counter or
magnetometer. And, in addition to this, there is a very high
level of "noise" in the data.
The noise consists of mistaken reports of known natural
phenomena, hoaxes, reports by unstable individuals and mistaken
removal of data regarding possible unnatural or unknown natural
phenomena (by overzealous individuals who are trying to eliminate
all data due to known natural phenomena). In addition, those
data, which do appear to be valid, exhibit an excessive amount of
variety relative to the statistical samples which are available.
This has led to very clumsy classification systems, which in turn
provide quite unfertile ground for formulation of hypothesis.
One hypothesis which looked promising for a time was that of
ORTHOTENY (i.e., UFO sightings fall on "great circle" routes).
At first, plots of sightings seemed to verify the concept of
orthoteny but recent use of computers has revealed that even
random numbers yield "great circle" plots as neatly as do UFO
sightings.
There is one solid advance that has been made though.
Jacques and Janine Vallee have taken a particular type of UFO -
namely those that are lower than tree-top level when sighted -
and plotted the UFO's estimated diameter versus the estimated
distance from the observer. The result yields an average
diameter of 5 meters with a very characteristic drop for short
viewing distances. This behavior at the extremes of the curve is
well known to astronomers and psychologists as the "moon
illusion." The illusion only occurs when the object being viewed
is a real, physical object. Because this implies that the
observers have viewed a real object, it permits us to accept also
their statement that these particular UFO's had a rotational axis
of symmetry.
Anotehr, less solid, advance made by the Vallee's was their
plotting of the total number of sightings per week versus the
date. They did this for the time span from 1947 to 1962, and
then attempted to match the peaks of the curve (every 2 years 2
months) to the times of Earth-Mars conjuction (every 2 years 1.4
months). The match was very good between 1950 and 1956 but was
poor outside those limits. Also, the peaks were not only at the
times of Earth-Mars conjunction but also roughly at the first
harmonic (very loosely, every 13 months). This raises the
question why should UFO's only visit Earth when Mars is in
conjunction and when it is on the opposite side of the sun.
Obviously, the conjunction periodicity of Mars is not the final
answer. As it happens, there is an interesting possibility to
consider. Suppose Jupiter's conjunctions were used; they are
every 13.1 months. That would satisfy the observed periods
nicelly, except for every even data peak being of different
magnitude from every odd data peak. Perhaps a combination of
Martian, Jovian, and Saturnian (and even other planetary)
conjunctions will be necessary to match the frequency plot...if
it can be matched.
Further data correlation is quite difficult. There are a
large number of different saucer shapes but this may mean little.
For example, look at the number of different types of aircraft
which are in use in the U. S. Air Force alone.
In is obvious that intensive scientific study is needed in
this area; no such study has yet been undertaken at the necessary
levels of intensity needed. Something that must be guarded
against in any such study is the trap of implicity assuming that
our knowledge of Physics (or any other branch of science) is
complete. An example of one such trap is selecting a group of
physical laws which we now accept as valid, and assume that they
will never be superceded.
Five such laws might be:
1) Every action must have an opposite and equal reaction.
2) Every particle in the universe attracts every other particle
with a force proportional to the product of the masses and
inversely as the square of the distance.
3) Energy, mass and momentum are conserved.
4) No material body can have a speed as great as c, the speed of
light in free space.
5) The maximum energy, E, which can be obtained from a body at
rest is E=mc2, where m is the rest mass of the body.
Laws numbered 1 and 3 seem fairly safe, but let us hesitate
and take another look. Actually, law number 3 is only valid
(now) from a relativistic viewpoint; and for that matter so are
laws 4 and 5. But relativity completely revised these physical
concepts after 1915, before then Newtonian mechanics were
supreme. We should also note that general relativity has not yet
been verified. Thus we have the peculiar situation of five laws
which appear to deny the possibility of intelligent alien control
of UFO's, yet three of the laws are recent in concept and may not
even be valid. Also, law number 2 has not yet been tested under
conditions of large relative speeds or accelerations. We should
not deny the possibility of alien control of UFO's on the basis
of preconceived notions not established as related or relevant to
the UFO's.
33.6 CONCLUSION
From available information, the UFO phenomenon appears to
have been global in nature for almost 50,000 years. The majority
of known witnesses have been reliable people who have seen
easily-explained natural phenomena, and there appears to be no
overall possitive correlation with population density. The
entire phenomenon could be psychological in nature but that is
quite doubtful. However, psychological factors probably do enter
the data picture as "noise." The phenomenon could also be
entirely due to known and unknown phenomena (with some
psychological "noise" added in) but that too is questionable in
view of some of the available data.
This leaves us with the unpleasant possibility of alien
visitors to our planet, or at least of alien controlled UFO's.
However, the data are not well correlated, and what questionable
data there are suggest the existence of at least three and maybe
four differnet groups of aliens (possibly at different states of
development). This too is difficult to accept. It implies the
existence of intelligent life on a majority of the planets in our
solar system, or a surprisingly strong interest in Earth by
members of other solar systems.
A solution to the UFO problem may be obtained by the long
and diligent effort of a large group of well financed and
competent scientists, unfortunately there is no evidence
suggesting that such an effort is going to be made. However,
enen if such an effort were made, there is no guarantee of
success because of the isolated and sporatic nature of the
sightings. Also, there may be nothing to find, and that would
mean a long search with no profit at the end. The best thing to
do is to keep an open and skeptical mind, and not take an extreme
position on any side of the question.
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