Flying Saucers - Myth or Fact?
November 1964 Radio-Electronics

November 1964 Radio-Electronics [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio-Electronics, published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

Here is a very timely article entitled, "Flying Saucers - Myth or Fact?," which appeared in a 1964 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine. The recent rash of unidentified flying objects over parts of New Jersey, Wright-Patterson AFB, and a few other key locations has resurrected an interest in whether "UFOs" exist. Despite hundreds of reports of what appear to be large drones, the government insists they are not U.S. or foreign military equipment. They specifically do not deny that they belong to some U.S. government agency - like Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, etc. Conjecture that they are "nuke-sniffing" drones searching for missing fissionable material. Regarding UFO video recordings, have you noticed how with all the high tech cameras out there that there has never been a clear, up-close picture of one? Those glimmering "orbs" in videos is clearly the planet Venus in the evening sky right now, which is obvious in the ones where the person begins with a wide field view, then zooms in. By the time the magnification is somewhere around 50x, the phase of Venus is very apparent. Venus, being an inferior planet, exhibits phases similar to our moon. Most people have no idea how to spot any planet even at night, much less in a lit sky. Contrary to the popular saying ignorance is not always bliss.

Flying Saucers - Myth or Fact?

... Why the Recently Increased Belief in Unproved Phenomena? ...

Since the airplane has become universal-and long before that-people all over the world have been exceedingly interested in atmospheric and optical sky phenomena. An unbelievable, almost religious, fervor has arisen on the controversial subject of flying saucers.

One would think that only the credulous would be caught in such a trap. Not so. Many semiprofessionals, highly intelligent students, airplane pilots on oversea runs, ministers, amateur scientists, newspaper columnists and

cores of others have "observed" and even photographed - _ se phenomena regularly and reported on them in depth a the press all over the world with increasing frequency. For 20 years, we have never given a talk without being questioned about the possibility of flying saucers.

In spite of the protests of serious scientists about their existence, the subject of flying saucers is very much in the public mind and interest seems to be increasing.

Even the Air Force keeps track of most of the reported aucer sightings, and usually has very good explanations for all but 2.09%, which are admittedly unexplained, accord­ing to a Newsweek report of March last year.

These are usually called UFO's-Unidentified Flying Objects. The abbreviation is now even a good dictionary term.

There are scores of UFO associations and clubs all over the map, such as the British UFO Association. One New York magazine editor who publishes a flying-saucer monthly even wants a world UFO association.

Then there is a rabid believer in England who never gives up-Antoni Szachnowsky, erstwhile from the 2nd Polish Corps in 1945, who organized a 300-member Anglo­Polish UFO Research Club. It was he, also, who founded the British UFO Association.

How many people have been initiated into the Flying Saucer Club? While no trustworthy statistics exist, from all the evidence we have gathered from many sources, there certainly must be millions.

One sure evidence can be found in the hundreds of books on flying saucers, particularly in Europe, behind the Iron Curtain and in the United States.

There is little point in contradicting the gullible and overcredulous. This world-wide literature is too easy and too good a money-maker for a certain type of unprincipled publisher, motivated oniy by fast trash sales.

Why do people believe in this extraordinary, unscien­tific cult? On both sides of the Iron Curtain the fixed belief is that "the Enemy" is the greatest culprit. Both sides are convinced that we spy on each other continuously via the flying saucers.

Those a little more sophisticated-or more romantic­feel certain that the UFO's are extraterrestrial, come from our own solar system or originate from neighboring stars.

Now let us for a minute apply ordinary science logic

NOVEMBER, 1964

to these arguments, and reason why, despite its long history and its cult following of millions the flying saucer just won't stand up.

1. While thousands of airplanes have been shot up and brought down, while hundreds of others have been wrecked in accidents and destroyed and the evidence found-not a single flying saucer has ever been shot down, nor has one accidentally been destroyed, grounded or ever been found. These facts are significant.

2. In these days of electronic progress, no verifiable radar echo has ever been recorded against a flying saucer. Yet in many of these so-called sightings the objects were reported as being certainly much less than a hundred miles distant. But we have no difficulty in getting radar echoes from the moon, 238,000 miles away, or even from Venus, more than 40 million miles distant.

3. Some people insist that UFO's have indeed been re­corded, and cite as evidence the unexplained blips on radar screens that used to be-called "angels." But there has been no report of "angels" being coincident with sightings : of UFO's-indeed there was such a lack of obvious visible cause that for a time it was believed that angels were pro­duced by discontinuities between cold and warm layers of air. More recently, the discovery that "angels" are produced by flocks of migrating birds pulled the carpet entirely out from under the proponents of the flying-saucer theory.

Another significant point: If a flying saucer from any point in the solar system were to visit the vicinity of the earth, the pilots or operators would necessarily have to keep in contact with their own world. Let us assume, too, that these creatures are far ahead of us. They would have to use some sort of electromagnetic communication-radio, optics (such as lasers), etc. Yet we have never yet intercepted such signals, despite our advanced search radios, our radio-astron­omy observatories and our sensitive optical observatories. Why? Because flying saucers are a myth; they just do not exist-so far.

Instead of reading romantic nonsense or fantastic sci­ence fiction, people might well read the outstanding scien­tific book on this controversial matter: Flying Saucers, by Dr. Donald H. Menzel, of Harvard College Observatory, Harvard University. Says its foreword:

" ... of the natural origins of flying saucers from mirages and sundogs all the way back to Ezekiel's wheels in the Bible.

"In this book a top-flight scientist who has seen many a so-called flying saucer himself explodes everyone of the cur­rent myths about their nature and origin. People who like to be scared or mystified may not want to agree with what Dr. Menzel has to say-but everyone who wants to know the real answer will find it in these pages. And the answer ban­ishes forever the 'little men,' the foreign power's guided mis-

Forty-nine years ago the magazine The Electrical Experimenter published a science fiction story; Baron Miinchhausen's New Scien­tific Adventures, which ran serially for many months. The No­vember 1915 installment pictured three flying saucers which an interplanetary space flyer held captive by the Martians. The yellow Martian rays also held the humans captive by paralyzing them.

siles, the space ships, and all the other highly-colored scare stories.

"But truth is stranger than fiction, and Dr. Menzel does far more than debunk. Flying saucers are real, he says, as real as rainbows-and just as hard to catch. Moreover there is nothing new about them: from the famous air-ship of 1897, similar sights (and similar scares) have been known through­out history. These optical ghosts in all their variety of size and shape and color and motion are about for anyone to see: what is new, in our supposedly more rational society, is the air age-more people look at the sky, from below and from above, than ever before." * -H.G .

• Flying Saucers, published by Harvard University Press, has been out of print for several years. It can be Iound in most large libraries, or possibly in the following book stores: American Library Service, 353 West 48 St., New York, N. Y.; Barnes & Noble, 105 Fifth Ave., New York, N. Y.; Stechert-Hafner, Inc., 31 East 10 St., New York, N. Y.; Superbooks, PO Box 34, Gedney Station. White Plains, N. Y.; Book Bargains by Mail, 516 Sherman Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa.