65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_007

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Other elements of tht:
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were studied by such men as Dr. George
Valley, a nuclear physicist at the Massa­
chusetts Institute of T echnology; staff
members of the research firm of Rand
Corporation; an assortment of physicists
and aerodynamicists who specialize in
the study of the stratosphere and the
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space beyond it; and the electronics ex­
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perts attached to the Cambridge Field
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Station. T hese men were all searching
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for physical rather than psychological
explanations, and some fairly strange
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theories occurred to them-the possibil­
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ity that extraterrestrial animals were
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Aying into our atmosphere, for example.
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( o data turned up to support that ar­
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resting idea.) The theory that the sau­
cers were hostile aircraft was carefully
studied and rejected. "The perform­
ances of these saucers not only surpass
the development of present science but
the development of present fiction-sci­
ence writers," one scientist noted. The
specialists also considered and rejected
the concept of discs capable of riding the
air on beams or rays of some kind. They
even speculated on whether the anti­
gravity shield that H. G. \Velis thought
up for his novel "The First Men in the
Moon" would work; it wouldn't, they
decided. T he supposition that interplan­
etnry craft were whizzing in at us was
also discredited, despite its popularity
with laymen. Space ships, the scientists
thought, would have to be so large and
un wieldy that they couldn't possibly zig­
zag as frivolously as the reported saucers
did. Besides, a space ship, regardless of its
size, could not, in the opinion of these
men, carry sufficient fuel to remain for
any length of time in the earth's dense
atmosphere. The scientists noted, too,
that the supposed spacemen showed a re­
markable lack of interest in the rest of
the world, being, it would seem, almost
unanimous in their desire to see America
first. "The small area covered by the
disc barrage points strongly to the belief
that the flying objects are of earthly
origin, be they physical or psycholog­
ical," one of the scientists reported.
From the report turned in by the
astronomers, I learned that they, in ad­
dition to seining out comets, meteors,
bolides, and achondrites from the
stream of objects people were seeing in
the skies, had also thoughtfully con­
sidered our planetary neighbors. The
old question of the possibility of life on
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Mars took on a new urgency, and a new
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corollary: If there arc living creatures
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on Mars, would they be capable of
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building space ships? The astronomers