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You have only to read or hear a few flying saucer reports to realize that aerodynamically something very interesting is involved. In both speed and maneuverability the UFO is remarkable. If it is a machine - and I think it is - it is surely a terrific one. It represents a level of scientific development far beyond anything dreamed by terrestrial science. This can best be demonstrated by quoting a few instances. When, for example, UFOs first came to public attention in the late 1940s, their superior performance was immediately apparent. The report of Kenneth Arnold, the Washington state businessman who saw, if not the first flying saucer in history, certainly the first one in which the world took an interest, illustrates the point. On June 24, 1947, Arnold was flying his private plane near the Cascade Mountains. To his astonishment, he observed a string of nine disc-shaped objects weaving in and out of the peaks. He estimated their speed at 1700 miles per hour. Four days after the famous Arnold sighting, four Air Force officers from Maxwell Air Force Base at Montgomery, Ala., noticed a bright light moving in the sky. Its performance was decidedly unusual. It zigzagged and suddenly accelerated to a high speed. At one point, it made a 90° turn and disappeared. Both the very high speeds of the UFOs, and their ability to maneuver in terms incomprehensible to conventional engineering, have been heavily documented. They have been reported to fly at 9000 miles per hour and more. Accelerations to very high speeds and decelerations from very high speeds to very low speeds or zero have been recorded. The right angle turn in flight at a high velocity is a typical feature of UFO reports. They have been observed by hundreds, if not thousands or tens of thousands, of people. A physicist knows that these stories "cannot be true." To him such velocities, and especially such maneuvers, are patently impossible. They violate, in an oft-used phrase, "the fundamental laws of nature." He would put it like this: "A solid object moving through the atmosphere strikes molecules of air, water vapor, and particles of dust. In doing so, friction, and hence heat, is produced. At very high speeds heat increases rapidly. If it is going fast enough, the solid object will burn up. This is why, in our very fast jets, cooling systems are necessary; it is why meteors, traveling at very high speeds, incandesce and usually disintegrate when they enter the atmosphere. They are literally burned up by friction." The conventional physicist continues along these lines: "Now, these so-called UFOs are frequently reported at speeds of thousands of miles per hour. If so, they would certainly be destroyed by heat." So much for velocity. The unimaginative scientist would then clinch his point on the matter of maneuver: "These so-called objects are said to put on almost instantaneous bursts of speed ranging up to several thousand miles per hour and to stop dead after going just as fast. They are said to make right-angle 1 - UFO: Theories Of Flight There are two extraordinary theoretical concepts that could explain the amazing speed and maneuverability of "flying saucers." Gordon Evans