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The UFO Controversy I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud. Darrah alacint nel Terral For centuries, ordinary people reported stones falling from the sky. Scien- tific authorities rejected such claims as preposterous. Rocks could not fall out of the sky, as there were no rocks in the sky. In what may be the first documented case, people in fields near Luce, France, saw a stone mass drop from the sky after a violent thunderclap in 1765. Seven years later, the French Academy appointed an investigating committee including Antoine Lavoisier, now regarded as the father of modern chemistry. In his report to the Academy of Science, Lavoisier stated that his analysis “absolutely proved” that the stone had not fallen; it had been heated when struck by lightning. Those who reported the fall must have been mistaken. The academy went on record, denying that meteorites had an origin outside the atmosphere. Reports of witnesses were altered to conform with accepted theories. Museum keepers threw away meteorites lest they be accused of clinging to foolish superstitions. Not until 1803 did the French Academy of Science accept the reality of meteorites, and then only after the fall of over 2000 stones at L’Aigle made it impossible to deny.’ Astronomer J. Allen Hynek described the UFO phenomenon as a paral- lel case. Tens of thousands of people have reported unexplained objects in our skies. The numbers of sightings may be far greater than the numbers on record; the U.S. Air Force estimated in the early 1950s that only 1 out of 10 people who had seen UFOs actually reported their experiences.* Those who did recount sightings included scientists, professors, air-traffic controllers, engineers, pilots, military personnel, and police officers— people who would be considered credible if they reported more familiar phenomena. Yet, there remains a vast credibility gap. Most scientists either 143 —Psychologist Carl Jung! Rocks from the Sky