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An armed forces' specialist would certainly not commit the layman's blunder of saying that a meteor was a "flying object." And a meteor is certainly not an "unidentified flying object." Meteors have been around for centuries. So, it appears, have UFO's. 5. Flying Saucers in Ancient Times At a meeting of the American Astronautical Society which took place in Washington, D.C. early in 1966, Dr. Carl Sagan of Harvard University suggested the possibility that superspacemen from far beyond "our tiny corner of the universe may have visited earth thousands of times in the past few billions of years. At least one of these visits may have occurred in historical times." Although such talk smacks of either pulp science-fiction writing or the irrational ravings which certain Air Force officials think symptomatic of all "saucer-nuts," Dr. Sagan enjoys a position of stature in the field of astronomy. It is interesting to note that the Harvard Professor was a confirmed skeptic of the existence of UFO's back in the 1950's. Writing in the Encyclopedia Americana, Sagan said that there was no "convincing evidence" that the saucers were of extra-terrestrial origin. The past decade, however, has done much to alter the views of many scientists, and most of the scoffers and skeptics of the Fifties now believe that there must be literally billions of planets in the universe enough like earth to sustain life. Whether technical civilizations superior to ours flourish on these planets or whether the stage of social development is anywhere from that of the cave dwellers to the Greece of Pericles, it seems obvious to most astronomers that we earthlings are not alone. Other scientists are suggesting that not only are we not alone, but that we may have been "planted" here a billion or so years ago by an extra-terrestrial expedition. Periodically, the celestial gardeners come back to see how their "seed beds" have been progressing.