PROJECT BLUE BOOK

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” we
-9-

stacks of newspaper clippings, which he had purchased at
his own expense, and his maps, and I, at least, am con-
vinced that the reports are real; that is, that the
reports do exist as such in various French newspapers on
those dates. I firmly believe that hoax and a deliberate
attempt to concoct a cock and bull story must be ruled out.
It would save us much bother and worryif we could take this
way out, namely to say that Michel manufactured the reports
out of thin air and wrote the book just to make money.
From the returns he has had, I might say in passing that
his labors must have been done at coolie wages.

In any event I feel reasonably certain that some stimulus
existed in France—whether political, scientific, extra-
terrestrial, meteorological, or psychological—that in the
space of two months generated several hundreds of reports,
reports which show a definite thread of pattern.

So, with this preamble, let us travel to France, in the
late summer, 1954. The curtain apparently went up on this
fantastic show on August 23, at 1:00 a.m., 40 miles north-
west of Paris. <A businessman had just put his car away,
and as he came out of the garage he was surprised to see
a pale light illuminating the town which had been in com-
plete darkness a little while before. The night was com-

pletely clear and the moon was at last quarter, and hence

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& i

atBe
was rising at about that time.

Looking at the sky, he saw a huge, silent, motionless
luminous mass, apparently suspended above the north bank
of the river some 300 yards away. "It looked," he said,
"like a gigantic cigar standing on end. I had been
watching this amazing spectacle for a couple of minutes
when suddenly from the bottom of the cigar came an object
like a horizontal disk, which dropped at first in free
fall, then slowed, and suddenly swayed and dived horizon-
tally across the river toward me, becoming very luminous,
For a very short time I could see the disk full-face; it
was surrounded by a halo of brilliant light."

A few minutes after it had disappeared behind him, going
southwest at prodigious speed, a similar object came from
the cigar and went through the same maneuvers. A third object,
and then a fourth—and finally a fifth detached itself from
the cigar which was still motionless. This last disk
dropped lower than the earlier ones, to the level of the
new bridge, where it remained still for an instant, swaying
Slightly. At that time he could see very clearly its
circular form and its red luminosity—more intense at the
center, fading out at the edzes—and the glowing halo
surrounding it. After a few second's pause, it wobbled
like the first four, and took off like a flash toward the
north, where it was lost in the distance as it gained alti-
tude. During this time the luming ity of the cigar had

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~ji~-
faded, and the gigantic object, which may have been 300
feet long, had sunk into darkness. The spectacle had lasted about

3/4 of an hour,
Unbeknown to him, this observer reportedly had witnesses.

Two policemen making their rounds at 1:00 a.m. also observed
the phenomenon, as had an army engineer southwest of the
town of Vernon.

Pid The ease was briefly described in the Paris newspaper,
LIBERATION. Nothing wore was done about it, except that
Michel conducted his own investigation.

Speaking of policemen: if those same two policemen
had reported that they had seen two thugs beat up a victim
and take to the woods, their testimony might be sufficient
to send someone to the chair; but when something violently
unusual comes up, like this, or if they had seen the angel
Gabriel riding along on a nine-legged octupus, no one would,
of course, believe them,

Oddly enough, policemen have figured in many sightings.
I remember back in 1947, a policeman in Oregon who was
feeding pigeons in back of the station house, observed some
flying disks. It was 1:00 p.m. on the Fourth of July, just
two weeks after Kemmeth Arnold had reported the first real
newspaper case in the U. S., on June 24, 1947—the classic
case from whence sprang the name flying saucer. He reported

having seen "saucer-like objects' flying over Mt. Rainier.

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1 De

To get back to France: How does one even begin to
explain the first of the remarkable series of French reports?
Well, if this case stood alone it would have little signi-
ficance. Science cannot deal with an individual case.

There must be repetition, and pattern.

Three weeks later, September 14, there was a repetition—
in broad daylight, and observed by hundreds of witnesses in
a half dozen villages in the general area 250 miles S.W. of
Paris. Only one newspaper mentioned it, and only by chance
did ‘it get investigated. Witnesses were mostly farmers and
a few priests and schoolteachers. One witness reported:

"It was about five in the afternoon. Emerging from the
thick layer of clouds that looked like a storm coming up, we
Saw a sort of luminous blue violet mist, of a regular shape
something like a cigar or a carrot. Actually the object
came out of the layer of clouds in an almost horizontal
position, slightly tilted toward the ground and pointing
forward, like a submerging submarine.

"Tis luminous cloud appeared rigid. Whenever it moved,
its movements had no connection with the movement of the
clouds, and it moved all of a piece, as if it were actually
some gigantic machine surrounded by mists. It came down
rather fast from the ceiling of clouds to an altitude which
we thought was perhaps a half a mile above us. Then it
stopped, and the point rose quickly until the object was

in a vertical position, where it became motionless.

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* ©

sits

"During this time the dark clouds went on scudding
across the sky, dimly lighted from underneath by the
violet luminosity of the object. It was an extraordinary
sight, and we watched it intently. All over the country-
side other farmers had also dropped their tools and were
staring up at the sky like us.

"All at once white smoke exactly like a vapor trail
came from the lower end of the cloud. At first it pointed
to the ground but finally rose up to describe around the vertical
object an ascending spiral. While the rear of the trail was
dissolving in the air and being carried off by the wind, the
source of the trail went up to the very top of the vertical
object and then started to come down again, turning in the
other direction. Only then, after the smoke trail had
vanished entirely, could we see the object that was sowing it—
a little metallic disk, reflecting in its rapid movements
flashes of light from the huge vertical object. The little
disk then stopped turning around the luminous cloud and
went down toward the ground again, this time moving awry.
Por quite a few minutes we could see it flying low over the
valley, darting here and there at great speed, sometimes
speeding up, then stopping for a few seconds, then going on
again, flying in every direction between the villages that
were four miles apart. Finally, when it was almost a mile
from the vertical object it made a final dash toward it at
headlong speed and disappeared like a shooting star into

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~14-
the lower part where it had first come out. Perhaps a minute
later the carrot leaned over as it began to move, accelerated
and disappeared into the clouds in the distance. The whole
thing lasted about a half an hour,"

It would take us too long to quote from the other wit-
nesses—about a hundred in all—but their stories were about
the same.

At this point are you probably saying to yourselves, "Is
this a serious scientist in front of us telling us a tall
tale just to be entertaining? Could it be that he possible
believes this stuff?" Well, certainly, if it is a tall tale,
it is not consciously twld as such. It is told, remember, as
far as we are concerned, as a report. We are all somewhat
in the fix, perhaps, of membersof an aboriginal tribe
attempting to evaluate the report of a fellow member who had,
in some unaccountable way, an encounter with a helicopter, a
device totally unknown to his fellow tribesmen. A tall tale,
or did he really see something? Our only basis of judgment
would be his past record of credibility, or the recorde of
all those who reported having seen the helicopter. There
would certainly be no scientific way of judging their story.
The easy way out, of course, would be simply to regard it
as just that—a story. It would absolve his fellow tribesmen
from the necessity of doing any serious thinking about it.

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|

In our own case, and in the cases shortly to be before
us, we can vouch only for the fact that the reports do exist,
and that whatever stimulus generated them, it generated them
for a number of observers rather than a single individual,

Let us go on with a few more French saucers and then
sample a few from this country and elsewhere. Let me
capsulate a few:

September 7 at Amiens, 7:15 a.m.: "...my eyes were caught
by a sort of mound, two hundred yards away ina field. It
looked something like an unfinished haystack, with an upside
down plate on top.

"That's a queer color for a haystack," I said to Yves," look
at it." All of a sudden I noticed that the haystack was
moving a little, with a slight swing back and forth, like an
oscillation. We both rushed toward the mysterious object.

When we got close the object took off on a slant, traveled
diagonally upward for about fifty feet, and then began to

go straight up. wWe watched it for three minutes. The object
was about 30 feet in diameter."

September 18: ".,.an object arrived at high speed over
the horizon, stood still several minutes over the town, and
then disappeared into the zenith."

September 19: "A circular object appeared suddenly in
the north. It was flat gray and appeared to be metallic;
it slowed, stopped, and remained motionless for about 30
seconds, during which time it swayed back and forth slightly.
After a half minute it went off again in a northwest direction.”

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* eh.

ai6u

Same day, night: "A bright light crossed the sky, slowed
down and landed, It seemed to be the size of a small bus,
After staying on the ground for about 40 seconds, the light
became reddish and rose vertically, and like a red ball, went
off toward the southeast."

September 22: Under the clouds a huge, luminous ball
hung motionless. Reddish and surrounded by a sort of moving

smoke, also luminous. Watched for half an hour. Then suddenly

from the lower part of the ball there emerged another, much
smaller luminous ball; after a few seconds of free fall it
slowed, turned obliquely and disappeared at high speed. A
moment later dropped and went off—and then a third, anda
fourth. Just then an airplane appeared in another part of
the sky; it seemed on a collision course with the ball. The
ball abruptly changed position and rose into the clouds and
disappeared, ‘The show was over.
September 26: The little dog began to bark and howl

miserably. She saw it standing in front of something that
looked like a scarecrow. But going closer she saw that the

scarecrow was some sort of a small diving suit, made of

translucent plastic material. Behind the blurred transparency

of the helmet, two large eyes were staring out at her; the
suit began moving toward her with a kind of quick, waddling

gait.
She uttered a cry of terror and took to the fields.

Looking back she saw a big metallic object, circular and

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in LF se
rather flat, rise up behind nearby trees, move off nearly
level with the wheat field, and then took off toward the
northeast with considerable speed, gaining altitude as it
did so.

Neighbors gathered quickly and at the spot where the
aircraft had risen, they found a circle, ten or so feet in
diameter where the shrubs had been crushed. Trees at the
edge of this imprint had some branches broken and the bark
rubbed off, and the wheat in the direction of take-off was
flattened out in radiating lines.

In this last cited report, the original witness was found
in a state of nervous collapse. She was put to bed where she
remained for two days with a high fever.

Likewise: September 28: A tramp locomotive was running
on a railway line from Nantes to Vannes. In the marsh close
to the tracks a circular, flat machine was in rapid flight
just above the ground. Luminous, dark red, tinged with violet.
It soon reached the locomotive, flying only a few yards above
it, and then followed it. Then it accelerated and disappeared
toward the west at a terrific speed. For a few seconds the
clouds continued to be illuminated by a violet light. The
fireman, bewildered, was trembling so much that his place
had to be taken until they reached the station. He had to
be helped to his bed and for several days he suffered from
nervous shock.

The climax of the French wave came on September 30 and
October 1, 1954, a wave which was over by October 18. But

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* .

-~18~-

on those two days, hundreds of reports flooded in. But
there was no mechanism whatever to handle them. No scientist
would touch this tricky subject, and their official Air Force
team began sorting reports by tossing out the "obviously
incredible reports." They latched onto those cases in which
they could foresee a natural explanation, a most human and
understandable reaction.

This French wave of stories is reminiscent of another
wave of strange stories that flooded France a century and
a half ago—stories of stones that fell from heaven. Persis-
tent stories came in, in waves, from time to time, of stones
that fell from the sky. Now, how credulous can one get—
stones falling from the sky, indeed!

But in due course the French Academy of Sciences appointed
a committee to study the subject, and after a full examination
of the stories, reported back to the Academy that there was
nothing to it—the stones in question had not fallen from the
sky but had been hit by lightning! This despite their much
greater density and obvious difference from surrounding stones.
When a group of people don't want to admit something, there's
nothing quite as hard headed as a scientific committee, on
which each man has his scientific reputation to protect and
going out on a limb is certainly not the way to do it.

The great irony of it—and I choose the word irony with
care—came just a few years later when the little town of

L'Aigle France was literally peppered with iron meteorites.

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—e

(A written version of the talk presente

to the Hypervelocity Impact Conference
Eglin Air Force Base, April 27, 1960)

I find it intriguing that at such
gathering as this I, an astronomer, shoulc
address you, not on the subject of satellite tracking—
my work for the past four years—nor on stellar spectro-
scopy, stellar evolution, nor on the expanding universe—
all topics to which I could do some manner of justice—
but on Unidentified Flying Objects. Not that I am not
qualified to speak on this topic. Perhaps, if I may be
permitted to say so without incurring the charge of
immodesty, I am uniquely qualified in all except one
way to speak to you—and that exception is simply that
T have never seen a UFO. But I have had as much experience,
I daresay, as perhaps almost anyone with UFO's on their
own plane of existence. And on that plane they are as real
as rain. That plane is that of reports—for as far as
any of us here are concerned—unless some of you in the

audience have had personal experience—they exist for you

and me simply as reports.

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INeEDNNT

~19-

This time the French scientist Biot alone undertook the
investigation, and in the face of incontrovertible evidence
he and his colleagues finally were convinced. Since the
year 1803 a meteorite can land in France with the full per-
mission of the French Academy of Sciences.

Lest you think that all the cases I have are French, I
will pass on to others, after just one more which bears some
resemblance to a case which was reported from Louisiana,
which, of course, was originally French territory.

It is October 4 and we are at Poncey. "It was about
8:00 p.m.," Mrs. Fourneret said, "and it had already been
dark for some time. About 20 yards from the house, in the
meadow, a luminous body was balancing itself lightly in the
air, to the right of the plum tree, as if preparing to land.
As well as I was able to judge, the object was about three
yards in diameter and seemed elongated, horizontal, and
orange colored. I was beside myself with fright and seized
the boy, running with him to Mme Boullier's house where we
closed the door tight."

The neighbors armed themselves, the report continues,
and went out to investigate. Nothing was there, but they
said they found an area over a yard and a half long, 27~-inches
wide at one end, 20 at the other, where the ground appeared to
have been sucked up. On the fresh soil of this hole they said
white worms wriggled, and the earth that had been torn out was

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~20-
seattered all around the hole in clods ten or twelve inches
across over a radius of about four yards. On the inner edge
of the hole similar clods hung down; the earth had been pulled
out in such a way that about half way down the hole was wider

than at ground level.
They reported further that the iittle roots and rootiets

in this fertile soil were intact everywhere on the inner sur
face of the hole and that not one had been cut, as would have
been the case if the excavation had been made in the normal
way. At the center of the hole, they said, lay a plant with
a long root, still attached by the end of the root to the
so11 at the bottom of the hole, with all its rootlets exposed
to the air, completely undamaged. In short, if we are to
accept this report made in concert by a small crowd and
investigated by Michel, it looked just as if the mass of
earth spread over the surrounding grass had been sucked out

by a gigantic vacuum.
The report stated further that while the villagers

still crowded around the edge of the hole, a lad arrived on

his bicycle, not knowing anything of what had been going on.
"What a fright I just had," he said, "I saw some kind of a

luminous object that was going toward the southeast and
climbing. It was like an airplane without any wings, nothing
but the fuselage. And the faster it went, the greener it was.”

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6 ”

~16-~

Same day, night: "A bright light crossed the sky, slowed
down and landed. It seemed to be the size of a small bus,
After staying on the ground for about 40 seconds, the light
became reddish and rose vertically, and like a red ball, went
off toward the southeast."

September 22: Under the clouds a huge, luminous ball
hung motionless, Reddish and surrounded by a sort of moving
smoke, also luminous. Watched for half an hour. Then suddenly
from the lower part of the ball there emerged another, much
smaller luminous ball; after a few seconds of free fall it
slowed, turned obliquely and disappeared at high speed. A
moment later dropped and went off—and then a third, anda
fourth. Just then an airplane appeared in another part of
the sky; it seemed on a collision course with the ball. The
ball abruptly changed position and rose into the clouds and
disappeared. ‘The show was over.

September 26: The little dog began to bark and howl
miserably. She saw it standing in front of something that
looked like a scarecrow. But going closer she saw that the
scarecrow was some sort of a small diving suit, made of
translucent plastic material, Behind the blurred transparency
of the helmet, two large eyes were staring out at her; the
suit began moving toward her with a kind of quick, waddling
gait.

She uttered a cry of terror and took to the fields.
Looking back she saw a big metallic object, circular and

-more -

7 *
i a
rather flat, rise up behind nearby trees, move off nearly
level with the wheat field, and then took off toward the
northeast with considerable speed, gaining altitude as it
did so.

Neighbors gathered quickly and at the spot where the
aircraft had risen, they found a circle, ten or so feet in
diameter where the shrubs had been crushed. Trees at the
edge of this imprint had some branches broken and the bark
rubbed off, and the wheat in the direction of take-off was
flattened out in radiating lines.

In this last cited report, the original witness was found
in a state of nervous collapse. She was put to bed where she
remained for two days with a high fever.

Likewise: September 28: A tramp locomotive was running
on a railway line from Nantes to Vannes. In the marsh close
to the tracks a circular, flat machine was in rapid flight
just above the ground. Luminous, dark red, tinged with violet.
It soon reached the locomotive, flying only a few yards above
it, and then followed it. Then it accelerated and disappeared
toward the west at a terrific speed, For a few seconds the
clouds continued to be illuminated by a violet light. ‘The
fireman, bewildered, was trembling so much that his place
had to be taken until they reached the station. He had to
be helped to his bed and for several days he suffered from
nervous shock.

The climax of the French wave came on September 30 and
October 1, 1954, a wave which was over by October 18. But

-MORE-

* *

=,

on those two days, hundreds of reports flooded in. But
there was no mechanism whatever to handle them. No scientist
would touch this tricky subject, and their official Air Force
team began sorting reports by tossing out the "obviously
incredible reports.” They latched onto those cases in which
they could foresee a natural explanation, a most human and
understandable reaction.

This French wave of stories is reminiscent of another
wave of strange stories that flooded France a century and
a half ago—stories of stones that fell from heaven. Persis-
tent stories came in, in waves, from time to time, of stones
that fell from the sky. Now, how credulous can one get—
stones falling from the sky, indeed!

But in due course the French Academy of Sciences appointed
a committee to study the subject, and after a full examination
of the stories, reported back to the Academy that there was
nothing to it—the stones in question had not fallen from the
sky but had been hit by lightning! ‘This despite their much
greater density and obvious difference from surrounding stones.
When a group of people don't want to admit something, there's
nothing quite as hard headed as a scientific committee, on
which each man has his scientific reputation to protect and
going out on a limb is certainly not the way to do it.

The great irony of it—and I choose the word irony with
care—came just a few years later when the little town of

L'Aigle France was literally peppered with iron meteorites.

-MORE-~

-19-

This time the French scientist Blot alone undertook the
investigation, and in the face of incontrovertible evidence
he and his colleagues finally were convinced, Since the
year 1803 a meteorite can land in France with the full per-
mission of the French Academy of Sciences.

Lest you think that all the cases I have are French, I
will pass on to others, after just one more which bears some
resemblance to a case which was reported from Louisiana,
which, of course, was originally French territory.

It is October 4 and we are at Poncey. "It was about
8:00 p.m.," Mrs. Fourneret said, "and it had already been
dark for some time. About 20 yards from the house, in the
meadow, a luminous body was balancing itself lightly in the
air, to the right of the plum tree, as if preparing to land.
As well as I was able to judge, the object was about three
yards in diameter and seemed elongated, horizontal, and
orange colored. I was beside myself with fright and seized
the boy, running with him to Mme Boullier's house where we
closed the door tight."

The neighbors armed themselves, the report continues,
and went out to investigate. Nothing was there, but they
said they found an area over a yard and a half long, 27-inches
wide at one end, 20 at the other, where the ground appeared to
have been sucked up. On the fresh soil of this hole they said
white worms wriggled, and the earth that had been torn out was

-MORE-

-20-
scattered all around the hole in clods ten or twelve inches
across over a radius of about four yards. On the inner edge
of the hole similar clods hung down; the earth had been pulled
out in such a way that about half way down the hole was wider
than at ground level.

They reported further that the little roots and rootlets
in this fertile soil were intact everywhere on the inner sur
face of the hole and that not one had been cut, as would have
been the case if the excavation had been made in the normal
way. At the center of the hole, they said, lay a plant with
a long root, still attached by the end of the root to the
soil at the bottom of the hole, with all its rootlets exposed
to the air, completely undamaged. In short, if we are to
accept this report made in concert by a small crowd and
investigated by Michel, it looked just as if the mass of
earth spread over the surrounding grass had been sucked out
by a gigantic vacuum,

The report stated further that while the villagers
still crowded around the edge of the hole, a lad arrived on
his bicycle, not knowing anything of what had been going on.
"What a fright I just had," he said, "I saw some kind of a
luminous object that was going toward the southeast and
climbing. It was like an airplane without any wings, nothing
but the fuselage. And the faster it went, the greener it was."

-MORE-

”
-21-

Time does not permit me to continue these tales. There
were also a number of cases during this interval involving en-
counters with occupants of the craft that had landed.
Descriptions from all over France were remarkably alike,
Small men, in diving suit-like costumes—all non-hostile
but ready to protect themselves. Frequently it was reported
that automobile motors and lights went out when the object
was nearby, and promptly came back into normal operation when
the object had left.

This brings to mind the famous Hopkinsville case in
Kentucky, investigated by a chap who was, quite inadvertently
and unbeknown to me at the time of his hiring, employed by
me in the satellite tracking project. As time went on I got
the full story from him and indeed I could have spent the
entire hour tonight telling this talge, a tale so incredible
that no sober scientist would care to be caught within ten
feet of it. Yet it is one of the reports-and I stress again,
reports, because my friend saw nothing himself, but merely
interrogated, he having been at that time the announcer at
their local radio station.

I have here some drawings that my friend composed from
the descriptions given to him, independently, by the highly
untutored people who reported they had had this outlandish
experience. This brings to mind the report of Father Gill
in New Guinea in which he stated that he waved to some

creatures in a flying saucer and that they waved back!

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ee ee

” i.

-22.

By luck I seem to have known a number of people who
were directly concerned with UFO cases, though unfortunately
(or perhaps I should say fortunately!) I have never had any
personal experience with a UFO. There was the dozing pas-
senger in the famous Chiles-wWhitted case in Alabama about
10 years ago, and there is the balloonist, Charles Moore,
who recently took the observations that established the
presence of water on Venus. Speaking of balloonists, I
happen also to know personally the man who launched the
first Sky Hook balloon, in the days when these thingswere
supersecret, and which particular balloon happened to cause
Captain Mantell's death when on that fateful day he blacked
out in attempting to identify it.

The Charles Moore case is of some interest in itself
because of the high technical qualifications of the observer.
He was preparing a site for the launching of a large test
balloon at white Sands on April 24, 1949. He was checking on
cross-winds in the valley between two mountain ranges and had
launched a small weather balloon, watching it in a theodolite,
keeping it on the cross-hairs. He had a new chap on the team
who wanted experience in tracking balloons; and so Moore

‘turned the theodolite to him, cautioning him to keep it on

and not lose it, because Moore didn't want to waste a balloon,

Shortly after, Moore looked up to check the balloon by unaided

eye and thought he saw it moving off to the east. He yelled

at the chap that he had lost the balloon, but the chap said,
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* ¢
~22.

By luck I seem to have known a number of people who
were directly concerned with UFO cases, though unfortunately
(or perhaps I should say fortunately!) I have never had any
personal experience with a UFO. ‘There was the dozing pas-~
senger in the famous Chiles-Wwhitted case in Alabama about
10 years ago, and there is the balloonist, Charles Moore,
who recently took the observations that established the
presence of water on Venus. Speaking of balloonists, I
happen also to know personally the man who launched the
first Sky Hook balloon, in the days when these thingswere
supersecret, and which particular balloon happened to cause
Captain Mantelil's death when on that fateful day he blacked
out in attempting to identify it.

The Charles Moore case is of some interest in itself
because of the high technical qualifications of the observer.
He was preparing a site for the launching of a large test
balloon at White Sands on April 24, 1949, He was checking on
cross-winds in the valley between two mountain ranges and had
launched a small weather balloon, watching it in a theodolite,
keeping it on the cross-hairs. He had a new chap on the team
who wanted experience in tracking balloons; and so Moore
turned the theodolite to him, cautioning him to keep it on
and not lose it, because Moore didn't want to waste a balloon.
Shortly after, Moore looked up to check the balloon by unaided
eye and thought he saw it moving off to the east. He yelled
at the chap that he had lost the balloon, but the chap said,

~MORE~

-2.

Some years ago the Air Force did me the honor of
adopting--at least semi-officially—my definition of
Flying Saucers. "A Flying Saucer is any aerial sighting
or phenomenon that remains unexplained long enough for
someone to write a report about it.”

My acquaintance with Flying Saucers, as reports,
goes back twelve years when, as an astronomer at Ohio
State, and hence quite close to Wright Field and the
Air Technical Intelligence Center—I was asked to review
some 200 reports to see how many could be explained on an
astronomical basis. Most unfortunately, the really inter-
esting ones could not he. ‘There were many meteors and
fireballs, and occasionally the planets, as in one case
where Jupiter and its four bright satellites was reported
as a mother space ship and its brood of small craft. But
the real lulus, silver disks that sped across the sky,
lights that wandered about the sky at night, luminous
objects that landed and from which emerged little men,
or as in the case of two FBI operatives I interviewed
(quite a switch—usually they interview me) who were
seared witless (the word is witless) by a large version
of a child's Christmas toy top that buzzed them on a
lonely road in South Carolina at 4:00 a.m.—none of these
reports had, at least in my mind, a ready explanation.

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* &
~23- f

“Nope--it's still on the cross-wires." Moore looked and
confirmed this, and then rapidly switched the theodolite
to the strange object, catching it after it had "passed
through" the sun. It was elliptical, two or three times
as long as it was wide, moving along its major axis, and
covered the entire sky from the southwest to the northeast
in 60 seconds. Five others saw it and confirmed Moore's
sighting. Moore checked his refocus of the theodolite and
found it had been focused for infinity. In my talks with
him, he has completely ruled out the possibility of aircraft,
particularly since it covered the sky in 60 seconds. It
went down to an elevation of 25 degrees and then just before
it disappeared, which it seemed to do quickly, it rose in
elevation by 5 degrees, as checked by the theodolite.

This sighting has been classified as a mirage by some
"experts" but the physics in this case certainly escapes me.
Moore then launched another balloon and tracked it throughout
its course to 90,000 feet. At no level were the winds from
the southwest, so a balloon is ruled out.

I like to talk with and size-up reporters of reports. I
have talked with Adamski, and find him an out-and-out fraud,
despite the fact that Queen Wilhelmina gave him a special
audience, He is the gentleman who professes to have regular
consort with saucers and their inhabitants, and even to have
taken a trip ina saucer. Long years of experience with

people who come to the observatory, or write in about their

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* °

2h.
theories—which I file in my file called novel ideas to avoid
the possible libel implications of crackpot—have taught me
how a typical fraud or crackpot chooses his words and phrases.
Among other things, he cannot conduct a rational discussion,
but resorts to constant repetition; he won't listen to the
other pereen and cannot answer questions rationally or
intelligently.

I have never, however, attended a saucerian convention.
The Sixth Interplanetary Spacecraft Convention was held in
Yucca Valley, California, on last May 31 and June 1, with
10,000 in attendance. It was here that one newsman was
wandering, bewildered, trying to find someone sane to talk
to, and entered into conversation with one young woman who
appeared to have sense; and so he discussed with her his
interest in Mars, pointing out that he had a small telescope
and often observed Mars. The young lady listened intently,
making an intelligent comment occasionally, but the budding
friendship ended most abruptly when she said, "How interesting—
and when did you last visit Mars?"

At another convention, a saucer enthusiast distributed
packets of hair clipped from a 385-pound Venusian dog. It's
things like this that give saucers a bad name!! Scarce wonder
that the whole subject—which undoubtedly has some scientific
paydirt in it—is so easily tossed aside by responsible people.
And, oh yes, at another convention one could buy a book

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«25-
entitled, "My Saturnian Lover," photographs of saucers,

the moon seen from an approaching saucer, moon scenery, and
could buy a record of Saturnian music; and, if they stayed
up late enough, the conventioneers would see mysterious
blue lights at play and observe a balloon-shaped saucer
that rose opportunely from behind the barn.

We have gone from the sincerely attested reports, made
by people highly respected in their communities, to sheer
charlatanism—but one must take care to step carefully to
distinguish the daisies from the cow dung.

I have three more items to place before you, the jury.

"Tast Monday night, about 10:30," Hamilton said, " we

were awakened by a noise among the cattle. I arose, thinking

that perhaps my bulldog was performing some of his pranks, but

upon going to the door saw to my utter astonishment an air-
ship slowly descending over my cow lot, about 40 rods from
the house. Calling my tenant, Gid Heslip, and my son Wall,
we seized some axes and ran to the corral. Meanwhile, the
ship had been gently descending until it was not more than
30 feet above the ground, and we came within 50 yards of it.
It consisted of a great cigar—shaped portion, possibly 300
feet long, with a carriage underneath. The carriage was
made of glass or some other transparent substance alternating
with a narrow strip of some material. It was brilliantly
lighted within and everything was plainly visible—it was
occupied by six of the strangest beings I ever saw. ‘They

were jabbering together, but we could not understand 2 word
-MORE-

=

they said.

"Every part of the vessel which was not transparent was
of a dark reddish color. We stood mute with wonder and
fright, when some noise attracted their attention and they
turned a light directly upon us. Immediately on catching
sight of us they turned on some unknown power, and a great
turbine wheel, about 30 feet in diameter, which was slowly
revolving below the craft began to buzz and the vessel rose
lightly as a bird, when about 300 feet above us it seemed
to pause and hover directly over a two-year old heifer, which
was bawling and jumping, apparently fast in the fence, Going
to her we found a cable about a half-inch in thickness made
of the same red material, fastened in a slip knot around her
neck, oreend passing up to the vessel, and the heifer tangled
in the wire fence. We tried to get it off but could not, so we
cut the wire loose and stood in amazement to see the ship,
heifer and all rise slowly, disappearing in the northwest.

We went home, but I was so frightened I couldn't sleep.

Rising early Tuesday I started out by horse, hoping to find

some trace of my cow. This I failed to do but coming back

in the evening found that Link Thomas, about three or four

miles west of Leroy, had found the hide, legs and head in

his field that day. He, thinking someone had butchered a

stolen beast, had brought the hide to town for identification,

but was greatly mystified in not being able to find any tracks

in the soft ground. After identifying the hide by my brand,

I went home; but every time I would drop to sleep I would
~MORE-

«Gf.
see the cursed thing, with its big lights and hideous people.
I don't know whether they are devils or angels, or what; but
we all saw them, and my whole family saw the ship, and I
don't want any more to do with them,"

Hamilton has long been a resident of Kansas and is known
all over Woodson, Allen, Coffey and Anderson counties. He
was a member of the House of Representatives. He staked his
sacred honor upon the truth of his story. An affadavit
follows: As there are now, always have been and always will
be skeptics and unbelievers whenever the truth of anything
bordering on the improbable is presented, and knowing that
some ignorant or suspicious people will doubt the truthful-
ness of the above statement, now, therefore we, the under-
signed, do hereby make the following affadavit: That we
have known Alexander Hamilton from one to thirty years,
and that for truth and veracity we have never heard his
word questioned, and that we do verily believe his statement
to be true and correct.

Ssigned--E. V. Wharton, state o11 inspector; M. E. Hunt,
Sheriff; wW. Lauber, Deputy Sheriff; H. H. Winter, Banker;

H. S. Johnson, Pharmacist; J. H. Stitcher, Attorney;
Alexander Stewart, Justice of the Peace; F. W. Butler,
Druggist; James W. Martin, Registrar of Deeds; and H. C.
Rollins, Postmaster.

SUBSCRIBED AND SWORN TO BEFORE ME THIS 21st DAY OF APRIL, 1897

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~28.

This sighting was but one of a great many that took
Place during the great airship episode of 1897—the ship
that was sighted and its progress watched all the way from
San Francisco to Virginia. A look at the newspaper files
of that day will recount the events.

Let us come to more recent times: Again—let me remind
you that as before we are dealing at the level of reports.
These are nothing but reports I bring before you—and on
their level of existence, they are real--that is--real
reports.

November 2, 1957, Levelland, Texas: At 10:50 the police
station received a call from a local farmhand and part-time
barber, Pedro Sanseds {a symbolic name), and his companion
Joe Salaz. The story: We first saw a flash of light in the
field to our right, and we didn't think much about it—then it
rose up out of the field and started toward us, picking up
speed. When it got nearer, the lights of my truck went out
and the motor died. I jumped out and hit the deck as the
thing passed directly over the truck with a great sound and
a rush of wind. It sounded like thunder, and my truck rocked
from the blast. I felt a lot of heat. Then I got up and
watched it go out of sight toward Levelland,

Saucedo said the object was torpedo shaped—like a rocket—
and estimated it as 200 feet long. Afraid to return to Tevelland
for fear of encountering it again, the two men drove on to
Whiteface, ten miles west of Levelland, where they phoned
in their report. Although Saucedo sounded terrified, the

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* a

-29-
officer on duty did not at that time take the report
seriously.

But an hour later the police got another telephone report.
Jim Wheeler, about four miles east of [evelland, had seen a
blazing 200-foot egg-shaped object sitting on the road ahead
of him. At the same time, his car lights went out and his
motor died. The object rose and disappeared. A few minutes
later came a call from Witharral, ten miles north-northeast
of Levelland; Jose Alvarez reported that his lights and motor
had gone dead as he drove near a bright, egg-shaped object on
the road. At 12:15 a.m. Frank Williams of Kermit, Texas,
reported a similar encounter in the same area. While the
officials were out investigating—and, incidentally, reporting
strange lights themselves—the police station received a call
from James Long, who reported that at 1:15 a.m. he had been
driving on a farm road five miles N.W. of Levelland when he
came upon a 200-foot-long, egg-shaped mass that glowed like
a neon sign. His engine coughed and died, and his lights
went out. As he got out and approached the object, which
was less than a hundred yards away, it suddenly took off
straight upwards. After the object was gone, his engine
started easily.

These engine stoppings, we remember, also occured in the
French incidents. The next day two more witnesses reported
to the police that they had encountered a UFO. Texas Freshman
was approaching Levelland at 12:05 a.m. when he noticed his
ammeter jump to discharge and back—then his motor auit as if

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«30>

it were out of gas—and the lights went out. He got out and
looked under the hood but could find nothing wrong. Turning
around he saw on the road ahead an egg-shaped object with a
flattened bottom—like a loaf of bread and glowing not as
bright as neon. No portholes or propellers were visible.
Frightened, Wright got back into his car and tried to start
it, but without success. After a few minutes, the egg rose
almost straight up, veered slightly to the north and dis-
appeared from view in a "split instant." After it was gone,
the car started normally.

And now, let us come up almost to the present. This
month (April at LaCamp, Louisiana, there was a sighting
which bears some relation to those in France, There was,

unfortunately, only one visual witness but several auditory

witnesses, The object or object—but witness says one object— came

Silently out of the north, and the attention of the witness
was first attracted by loud explosions and a bright firey
red light at ground level about two or three hundred yards
away. Witness stated that the object and light combined had

the size of a nickel held at arm's length and that it appeared
to circle, bounce,then turned and went off into space after it
had made a number of momentary contacts with the earth. The
entire phenomenon lasted only two or three seconds, but when
daylight was available again pictures were taken of the

impact points. On five of these, paint or metallic sub-

stance had scraped off but no other physical evidence

-MORE-

was found, The area was searched by helicopter and on foot
for a quarter of @ mile radixs, but no hardware was Cound.
Five craterlets were formed, each about 10 inches deep,
18 inches wide, and 30 inches long, which were fresh,
Although the territory of impact was uninproved, ‘the evidence
seons clear that the marks were actually made at the tine of
the explosion, Giese to ene of the inpaat ertie, the bark had
been scraped off a tree, one branch ol
by the objectaand leaves were tor off the tap portion ef the
tree,

The investigating completed so far ieidaaneie that there
was no aireraft whatever in the area and further that there
had been no sounds previous to the time ef contact. We «frarsrt

——— -

- ee SS eS

oe a ao ee

ruthernore, ® been noted on the night omthe sighting.
Evaluation of this report must await further investigation -
but it does appear that for a space of some 120 yards some
obfect traveled nearly horizontally, made contact with the
earth, produced a considerable luminous phenomenon, and
then disappeared to the extent that no tangible evidence

of it other than that already mentioned was found in the
area. No gadiation readings were obtained because of lack
of equipment, |

‘One would like to wipe this case off the books, so to
Speak, by proving definitely that it was a misfired rocket
from some aircraft. This its about the only logical, normal
explanation, since it was traveling far beyond terminal
velocity for a freely falling dody, and ite path fm was far
more Sorizontal than vertical. Tre lack of tangible harda-
ware is itkewise hard to explain on this hypothesis,
Purthermore, mma there was no indication of any land-based
or air-desed recket firing not ongy on that night but on
any night ” that season,
One might like to explain this as a meteorite, but almost
brilliantly —

certainly a meteorite would have been/visible temexbefore %*
actual landing and would have fallen much more vertically
than horizentally. Indeed, after terminal védlocity takes
hold of a meteorite, it simply falls to the ground as though

it had been released from some high point in the vicinity of
the landing place.

If we wish to be fanc! ful @P-perhaps-we-shouid-not-say
Fanekfuk-bes fanoiful wea in the sensemx not that it doesn't
fit all the Pactag-but because our minds are completely
unused to such concepts, we might say that just as we plan

* ib

ae

Now mind you. I'm not saying that these things
happened. I'm saying that they were reported to have
happened—a very, very great difference. And the central
problem to which I address myself tonight, and on which
tT want you to be the judge and jury, is simply—what on
earth (or perhaps I should say, what not on earth) could
be the stimuli that gave rise to these reports.

This is the problem which concerns me—largely as
a matter of curiosity—because in our times there has been
no more bizarre phenomenon, that attracted the attention
of so many, than that of the waves of flying saucer reports
that have from time to time occurred in the U. 8., in
France, in Brazil, Italy and lately, I hear also, in the
USSR. It chills me to think that our Russian colleagues,
if they address themselves to this problem, might come up
with an answer before we do—that is, an answer to the pro-
blem of report generation.

In what field of human endeavor might the answer lie?

In physics, in psychology, in meteorology, in optics, in

ESP, or finally in astronomy, or in the province of astronomy?
Tt must lie somewhere—perhaps in many of these fields. (I
mean the answer to where the stimuli for the reports lie. )

The reports are real, and their cause must be real—even if

the cause is mass hallucination, it is still a@ real cause.

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+ | *
In some years hence to spmad send a probe to some other planet
to take a sample of the surface and return, so this might
have been an interplanetary probe from elsewhere, which
picked up its sample and went off! There is nothing in the
fects that would contradict it, but I am sure that none of
us here would accept that explanation without a great deal
more corroborative evidence,

Herein the scientific investigator must airrer from the-
UFO enthusidst who jumps te one Iie tone /latee ly because he
wishes a thing to be sc, he automatically adopts it as being
5°,

We still must address Gaeieie ts the task of evaluating
what were fhe stimuip that gave rfse to the typical examples
I have Gusrinid be you. I showld say, the typical “WNKTO wn 8,
since of sourse the most frequent etimuli for UFO reports
are indeed perfectly familiar cbjects or phenomena that have
been misidentified by the person making the report. we must
remind ourselves again that a UFO ie nothing more than any
serial etghting or phenomenon that remaina unexplained long
enough for someone to write a report about 1¢. We have been
dealing with the reports that continue to remain unexplained.

Wiat can we say of such reporte in genepal’ De-they-fail
in-Ghe-prevines-e- Does the problem of the stimuli that
generated such reports fall in the proviM@ece of science’ we
must deny ourselves that science oan progress only when

phenomenekxeyex yepubkatele,-exhiblt repeatable, exhibit a

pattern, and, partioularly, when numbers oan be assigned to

a: ‘ y

' Dhenomena in the sense, for inatance, of precise angular velocities
precise spectroscopic analysis of the light, detailed photo-
frapnic evidence, and all of the many things that we have
learned to asgociate with the progress of science. Science
gannot logically be concerned with, for instance, religious
miracle or indeed with any phenomena which are heterogeneous
or singular. Let us suppose, for instance, that once every
100 years the earth were indeed visited, without fanfare,
by interplanetary or interstellar beings. Unless 411 the
pareuGiaiia of science were around at the time of the rare
visit, that is, motion picture cameras, fleod lights, spectro-
scopes, geiger counters, tape recerders, and at least 100
scientists who could cress-check on each other, the incident
would be sure to be passed off on fon figment of the leagina-
tion, an hallucination.mass hallucination if you wish_a
hoax, or what have you. My point is that the visitation
would have to be documented as no other human experience
in order to be accepted, |

and this quite rightfully se. If such visitations
occurred much more frequently, say once @ week in various
parts of the earth, but occurred at random and without the
presence of scientists and their apparatus, a thing like
that ceuld go on for dozens of years before e sufficient
body of avidence and a sufficient pattern of axutitux
behavior could be accumulated to be intreduced into the
court of selence, We need remind ourselves oniy of the
case of the meteorttes to see that this is so. And the
more “noise” in the background, the longer it az would

take to sift cout a meaningful pattern. In.the case of

+ .

ure ! 5 we certetniy do have ou "signal" almost entirely

SUbmergec in "neise: It is well knewn to a1] how tricky it

is to get a meaningful residue out of resorded “hash.“ The
from

case of the radar reflections gf Venus is the case in point:
& formidable series of autocordée lation checks run on electronic
sift out

computers was necessary te/mathematically the fact that in the
total noise signal from Venus there wag indeed very deep within
it the faint radar echo. |

We are faced with a similar problem, except that of course
radar 18 an accepted phenomenon, Venus i# known to be there,
and the people in charge of the project were all highly
reputable scientists of enviable past records, None of these
conditions Whtethed-ay prevail in the matter of the UFro.
we have not the slightest netion that “Venus” is there in
our case, ot it seems highly unprefitable to expend fast
amounts of energy and the time of scientists anc engineers
who night Vaore prefitably esployed otherwise, in atteupting
to find an anawer te the question ‘Wuet wan the stiouili
that gave rise te these reports?" i

And &k yet when this “neisy signal” has been coming at
us for the past dozen years at least and occasionally there
seems to be a “blip” which rises well above the noise level,
as in the case of some of the French sightings, one does
indeed wonder whether the time has come to pay some attention
to it. The role of the Air Force in the problem of the UFO
in the past dozen years has been in line with ite avowed
mission, namely that of determining the potential hostility
of any action in the air that cannot be Da explained.

Their verdict te date has been that w

the unknown ae may be, there is b oe of
hoatility. And since the great preponderance of the reports
are easily explainable as misidentifications of common objects,
it seems almost justifiable to extrapolate a bit and cover the
remaining two or three per cent and say that if sufficient
data had been available, those cases too,would have fallen into
the category of basic wiaidentification,

Tie seems a sighty safe thing te do, and might turn out
to be correct; but from my own personal etandpoint, as one
who has had a fair amount of experience in these things, I
will not be satisfied until wuffictent investigation shows

that this is indeed the proper explanation. I think you will
auree that many of the reporta would be wost difficult te
4xplain em misidentification, Yet to continue such researcie:
places one on what General Chassin, @eneral Air Defense Co-

E. ordinator, Allied Air Foroes, Central Europe, NATO, has

called "the airricult path of research that is temporarily

| in dlarepute." He has further stated that “true, the reported
sightings inelude observations of meteorites and balloons, anc

ever: lies and dreams; that is why Sigorous exp examination of

reporte ts essential, But after all the examination and
sormeening is finished, we still have @ percentage of observa-
tions that stubbernly resist every conventional explanation.
We can, therefore, categorically say that serious disecss have
indeed appeared and continue to appear in the sky that surrounds
us.”

His sonélusion would be correct if he were dealing with
phenomena that ocour in any other field of—am~-

en ha rr “=

aa

4 | ’

« - as Ym states 1 Tre Da aT that t} ¢€
j ps & "aV De, if nonethelaes *F a pre » Leg
*.8toons and that 1t presents to us an unparalleled exaupie

7
i

oppertunity to give soience a bogst in the popylar mindz
rmoviding the opportunity fer the demonstration of the
Sppiteoation of the gctentific method in action. A purelt:

Aa
S.e@nting ecours:s what better service could we do to the
he
pubilec or to ecienceTby showing how the sefentists, in dete
itke Tasitton, go about ratnering their ¢lues and drawing tt.
Mucraitratble conclusiona I would like to peint out that 1
& net in the spirit of solence for an investigator either to

oo 8 aioppy Job or to, apriorl, jump to a conclusion. He may

ne Gead right, but in sclence conelusiona are not arrived at

Ds

tani Jumping; they are arrived at by a careful step-by-step
analvets,

. O

would Jike to recommend, in cone luding, that since the
UFO predlam has been with us fer the past dézen years and ia
likely to remain for some vine Ware ,certain selected reports
fand at the risk of great repetition, let us remind ourselves
that we are still talking solely about. reports) be carefilly
“Kosen by & panel consisting not only of qualified/acientists.
hut of «a psychologistax, & psychiatrist, a lawyer, and perhaps. |
& prosecuting atterney, plua' ‘educator, Aabite relations chapic.
and ep man of the cloth. Such a panel, operating without

s‘lgma or implied ridiowle, could address itself to the task o7
the problems of report generation--not in a study of flying

nauiocers, (Appeals tee cuRS tbe —werht—pert TNT etre
_ Leverett.

ie a

ax It appears to me that this would put things in e different

light. I do not believe that anyone can deubt the importance

to the armed services of an uriderstanding of how reperte

Wiid reporte" get cenerated. For example, someday a report
may get generated which will cause an ICHM to go f

hhe ocean prematurely, Likewise, space surveillance on the

| part of the armed services is a rapidly growing concept.
Certainly such surveillance crews must be informed on how
reports of strange objects get generated, and,too, they must
| he aware of eee of natural phenomena,.astronomica!,
meteorological, /biological.ethat in themselves can give rise
SO Such reports. I emphasize again that such a panel would
not concern itself with the UFO problem in general, but only
with a few selected instances, and then entirely from the
atandpotnt of a serious and cale atudy of the ganner in wmioh
‘he report was generated. Such a study might well yield
valuable data not only in psychelogy and public relations,
du® in adding to our knowledge of atmospheric optics, stra

unusual meteorological occurrences, and the many facets of
physics,

~ *
ats.

What generated these reports? Here are a few things.
(At this point in the talk slides of fireballs, illuminated
cirrus clouds, balloons, artificial earth satellites were
shown along with a number of cartoons from the popular press. )

What generated the others? what others?

Let us now grant that the great majority of reports are
generated because people are simply not good observers,
because they are easily mistaken in what they see, because
they do not understand mirages, meteors, and strange
meteorological phenomena. And also let us grant that
some are generated because many people are downright
superstitious, and what is more, because a great many people
are wishful thinkers and, if the truth be known, lonesome,
It might surprise us to realize how many people desperately
went there to be other life in the universe and to be able
to communicate with it. And hence these people will swallow
any cock and bull story that by the remotest chance might
be credible.

The universe of the astronomer today is a vast and
frightening place. It was one thing when man had reason
to believe that he was the king-pin in the universe and
that he and the earth were the center of creation. But
teday, in his most uncertain world, frought with ICBM's
and the threat of annihilation, there are many of us who
would like to think that we are not alone, that we can be

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* wo

«Be
friends with someone in the cold outside universe, and
that perhaps through them make rapid strides in our science
and even in our politics. There are some who believe
that if we could turn our attention to something absorbing
away from the earth perhaps our fears of nuclear warfare
among ourselves would diminish, and perhaps that this
new focus of attention might even lead to the solution
of all of our hard problems as inhabitants of this tiny
earth. For it is tiny. May I digress for a moment and
speak as an astronomer rather than as a UFO investigator,
to summarize for you the astronomical situation, for it
is a very necessary backdrop to our story.

The world's largest telescope is the 200~-inch Hale
telescope on Mt. Palomar; it can see out into space several
billion light years. The light year in itself is hard to
visualize, but perhaps it can be attempted if one imagines
a string going around the earth's equator 236 million times.
The length of that string would be one light year. It is
important to remember that the nearest star to the sun is
four and one half light years away.

The distances are so vast that it is only natural
that we try to condense them and make a model of things
to aid our own thinking. Suppose we were to try to make
a model, to scale, of everything that is visible through
the world's largest telescopes. Let us give our imagination

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-6-
full play and assume that we could use the entire area
of the United States on which to construct our model—
a sort of supercosmic Disneyland. If we did this we
should discover to our amazement that even in such a
stupendous model the earth would be completely invisible,
even through a microscope. Yes, indeed, even through an
electron microscope. Faced with such a universe in which
to live, it is no wonder that man as a sub submicroscopic
speck feels isolated and alone, and afraid of the Russians,
and perhaps it is understandable that he might be desirous
of seeking out and finding some understanding intelligence
elsewhere. Indeed, there are few scientists, and particu-
larly astronomers, who would not welcome bonafide evidence
that intelligent beings did exist elsewhere and that there was
a possibility of communication with them. (Think of the
increased appropriations for scientists--and for UFO inves-
tigators!) Only our military friends, justly cautious,
warn us, if this be the case, not to try to communicate
first, lest our “friends” in space prove hostile and
annihilate or at least exploit us. Perhaps we should be
content to be alone in space!

(At this point in the talk a number of representative
Slides were shown depicting objects in the solar system, in
our galaxy, The Milky Way, and clusters of galaxies out to
the limit of the visible universe. )

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am ‘*
Pa
Now we are through with our cosmic digression. [I
leave it for you to figure out for yourself how grossly
probable it is that other life exists in the universe—
somewhere in the countless other solar systems that, it

would seem, statistically must exist—yet how improbable

it is for such life to travel to us, and to communicate

with us, unless it originates somewhere in our own solar
system, or at very best, around some of the very nearest

stars to us. There is, of course, always the outside
possibility that other beings have invented means of
extremely rapid transport, allowing them to travel with

nearly the velocity of light. In this case, relativity

points out that their time scale would be so short relative to
een, Bhat to them it would appear as though they made a jour-
ney of many light years in just a few years. Although
theoretically possible, this is yet too much in the realm

of science fiction for us to consider seriously.

And now, with this stage setting, let us examine the
reporty—-and again I emphasize that we shall be examining
just reports, reports whose generating stimuli many of us
would most dearly like to discover, for there may indeed
be some very good physica hidden in them, Something caused
these reports to be made. What was it? Were the causes
related, or did one set of things generate one set of
reports, say in France, and another in Brazil? Do Italian
flying saucers bear the same stamp as those of the U. S. or

of France? Let us examine the evidence.
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s Me
ae

I would now like to describe for you some French flying
saucers. It appears that for about two months in France,
from the middle of August to the middle of October, 1954,
France was peppered with a barrage of UFO reports. Like
mushrooms they spouted all over France and likewise some
in Italy and some in Germany. The reports of these, how-
ever, came in largely through the medium of French provin-
cial newspapers. And it was only through the work of
Aime Michel, an enthusiastic investigator in France, that
these reports were collated, plotted, and compared. ‘The
compilation of these reports appears in a book by Michel,
"Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mystery." The
"Straight-Line Mystery" in the title refers to the fact
that when Michel plotted the reports for any one day on
a very large-scale map, the reports had a devastating
way of forming straight-line patterns on the map, most
difficult to explain by chance,

I would not, of course, accept anything I read in a
book without knowing something of the author. It chanced
that I happened to be in Paris on other business and took
two days off on my own to seek out Michel and talk with
him. He lives with his wife and small son in a small
modest Paris suburb apartment. He is a radio engineer
and, what I was particularly anxious to find out of calm,
rational deportment, quite unlike the typical enthusiast
or crackpot with whom it has been my lot to come in contact
from time to time. I went over with Michel many of his

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