65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_006

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luminous by night. They may appear singly,·
in clusters or fly in precise geometrical forma­
tion. The best-defined patterns of this type
have been called the Lubbock Lights, since
their best-known appearance was in Lubbock,
Texas. They have, however, appeared else­
where. Next, we have the mysterious balls of
green fire. Are they or are they not related to
the luminous "Foo Fighters'' that occasionally
seem to accompany a plane or even engage it
in a mysterious sort of shadowboxing? Finally,
there are the "ghost" saucers that seem to
hover suspiciously around a freshly launched
balloon, and rush off at some unprecedented
speed-presumably to report their findings. At
least four , ..ich ghosts have been reliably re­
ported.
Many of the records refer to some tre­
mendous distance or speed. And here I ask this
question: How can an observer on the ground,
from a single station and with his eyes alone,
give a reliable estimate of all three figures:
distance, size and speed? If you think that this
is easy, try it sometime-on the moon, for ex­
ample.
The reported saucers move at varied a1t­
gtdar speeds, either sideways or vertical. Their
unknown actual speed depends on how far
away they actually arc. They may "veer"
sharply at any given moment. At times, the
images arc extremely brilliant. Sometimes,
they show a trace of structure, which some
observers have associated with "windows" or
"portholes" of a space craft.
They move without sound and hence seem
to be controlled without any normal forces of
power that we would ascribe to a craft on
earth. The objects are generally round or oval
and bear no 1·esemblance to any known air­
craft already built or being built on earth.
But are we justified in , versing these
arguments and saying that, since no terrestrial
craft could have such properties and since no
human beings could withstand the tremendous
buffeting that the flying saucers seem to get,
the objects mLtst perforce be space ships
manned by beings of decidedly nonhuman
characteristics? I ask again: Is this sweeping
FLYING SAUCERS continued
Wherever certain well-known ai:
conclusion justified'? Or shall we accept tem­
porarily what seems to be a much more rea­
sonable alternative: that the flying saucers are
not material objects at all?
The one thing that can rcspoBd instan­
taneously to fo1·ce is a light beam. You can
stand at the foot of a high mountain and with
a hand mirror flash a signal from base to peak
and back again, a distance of more than 10
miles, in a tenth of a second or less. But, if we
see something fla~hing over cliff and forest
with a speed of 100 miles a second or accelerat­
ing with a force 1000 times greater than that
of gravity, must we conclude that it is a
manned craft?
An Optical Phenomenon?
Let us, then, accept as a working hypoth­
esis the idea that saucers may be an optical
phenomenon- though nonetheless real.
To me as a scientist, this was the only
course along which to proceed. And the hypoth­
esis that these were optical phenomena, tak­
ing place primarily in desert regions, inevit­
ably brought the next logical consideration to
my mind.
In the science of atmospherics. there is a
well-known condition known as "temperature
inversion." It is simple enough. Normally, the
air grows colder as one goes farther up from
the surface of the ea1·th. But sometimes the
reverse is true, a.nd a layer of warm air over­
lies laye1s of colder air.
During the war, I was a member and later
chairman of the Wave Propagation Committee
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which conducted a
series of tests on the desert. We were studying
radar images: but light behaves, in many ways,
like radar. What we learned about the desert
applies as much to light as to radar.
We learned that temperature inversions
were, as we had expected, extremely common
on the desert. During the day, the desert is ex­
tremely hot. At night (or even during the day
under certain cloud conditions), the ground
rapidly cools olT. But the air cools more slowly.
Thus, the air cools more quickly where it actu­
ally is in contact with the ground, but for some
distance continues to get wa,·mer wilh h ·ght.
Then, well away from the ground, it begins to
become cooler again.
Scientists have long known that regions
of the atmosphere wherein the temperature
changes rapidly with height can cause a mi­
rage.
Mirage. That is the key to the whole prob­
lem of saucers. And, working on that assump­
tion. I have been able to reproduce in the labo­
ratory- most of the essential features of the
saucers. Much more study, both theoretical and
experimental, is necessary before we shall un­
derstand this complicated problem in all its
details. I am confident, however, that we can
eventually pl'Oduce and observe the phenom­
enon at about any time we wish to.
Mirage. A mirage is fundamentally an
image caused by a lens of air. Since air lenses
are almost never perfect, the world we sec
tht·ough them is distorted and unreal. Like
seeing through spectacles that no not fit your
eyes. Or looking in one of those highly curved
minors in an amusement park.
And yet you see mirages every day, with­
out really knowing it. As you drive along a
h ighway on a hot day, the dark asphalt in the
distance seems to be covered with water-a
:film that evaporates as the car advances. This
is the ordinary mirage we familiarly associate
with the desert: the thirsty traveler, the vision
of a receding lake, and only sand. The water,
of course, is an image of the sky, projected
against the distant landscape. The light rays
that produce the illusion traverse a path that
is concave upward.
But give us a cool layer of air at the
ground, as in the desert at night, and light rays
will cmve in the reverse direction, following
along the smface of the earth.
City Lights Become "Saucers"
Where the daytime mirage projects the
image of the sky against the earth. the night­
time desert variety projects the image of the
earth against the sky. And hence, if we have
distant lights- such as those of a city-these
lights will appear to float in lhc sky. Moreover,
if the intervening air contains waves or is tur­
bulent to any degree, the lights will appear to
move, riding in on the crest of a wave, like
l'ipples of moonlight on the ocean. If the source
is a line of distant street lamps, the images
appear to fly in formation- the Lubbock Light
phenomenon.
One further property of these temperature
invors:iom, ~.,,·vcs to emphasize the effect and
undoubtedly contributes to the daytime sau­
cers. Daytime inversions are fairly common,
but they usually lie higher than the ones that
occur at night on the desert. You can often see
them- or at least recognize their existence.
A column of smoke from a distantchimney
will sometimes rise smoothly upward and then
The clear air of the desert, and the lack of buildings or of hills, make it
In the city, the angle of vision is small and the sky is full of smoke and dust. Thus,
possible to see long distances; increase the number of observed events.
even if conditions were perfect for "saucers,'' fewer would be observed over cities.
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