by Manly Palmer Hall (33°)
July 2, 1950
from
GreyLodge Website
Following is a rare historical gem. Quite probably the only copy
extant, it is a 12-page set of typed notes from a 1950 lecture on
the subject of UFOs by one Manly Palmer Hall, 33° Mason and prolific
author on such esoteric subjects as magick, alchemy, occultism,
secret societies, comparative religions, etc. Although we had
expected a decidedly less Prosaic Perspective to have emerged from
the Magickal Masonic Mind of The Manly One, the document is
nonetheless of great value in an historical sense and may or may
not reflect either the genuine views or tactical obfuscations of
such secretive fraternal organizations as the Scottish Rite or the
Dark Brotherhood of the Langley Lodge. |
This morning our purpose is to analyze certain aspects of the human
mind in connection with the mysterious case of the Flying Saucers.
First of all I would like to create a little parallel, something
that will help folks to see just what we are up against in a matter
of this kind. Quite a number of years ago a famous stage magician by
the name of Harry Keller created a strange illusion, he perfected in
stage magic the Illusion of levitation.
Keller, who was a very able
exponent of the art of
conjuring, worked out a method by the means
of which the human body could be suspended in the middle of a well
lighted stage without any visible means of support. He was able to
so project it that a committee, honestly chosen from the audience
could walk around the stage and even could walk under the floating
body.
Of course, in those days legerdemain was one of the principal
forms of entertainment. It has failed in popularity because folks of
our generation are insulted rather than amused when they are fooled.
Keller gave his professional secret, the mystery of the floating
lady, to Howard Thurston, who exhibited it to the public throughout
his life.
In order to add glamour to the spectacle, the scene was
decked in Oriental splendor, like the Arabian Nights, which brought
to the mind of the beholder the wonderful story of the magic of the
East, all of which contributed to the disorientation of his
judgment, which was the necessary ingredient of such entertainment.
After watching this illusion a number of times from the audience, I
used to listen to the explanations that were given. Those present
knew in their common mind that it was a trick of some kind. The
majority of these audiences assumed that and were not profoundly
shaken in their judgment even though completely deceived by their
eyes, which proved definitely that you cannot always believe what
you see.
There were, however, in such groups several classes of
people, and there was always that little group interested in Eastern
mysticism, which would have been willing to die to defend the belief
that the lady actually floated, that it was done by a secret formula
right out of the Arabian Nights. Nothing could have convinced them
to the contrary.
Then there was another group semantically addicted to the belief
that conjurers and mirrors were always associated. When you do not
know how it is done, it is done by mirrors. So another group was
very smug, happy and wise and knew all about it, it was done with
mirrors. Having decided that, they gained proper distinction in
their own eyes and among their associates and they were ready to
enjoy the performance. There was another group with a more
scientific type of mind. This group would gather in the corner of
the lobby and explain in detail how it was all done with magnets.
Magnets were the mysterious thing you could do anything with. It
never occurred to these people to have it done by magnets would be
more difficult than to have the lady actually float.
I listened to these groups explaining the wonder and it was only on
rare occasions that anyone ever suggested anything that was close to
the facts. In the first place, facts were too simple and in the
second place, the mind was conditioned away from the prosaic
understanding of the matter. It was very amusing because I happened
to know how it was done having been present on a number of occasions
when the device was assembled. They did not realize how perfectly,
how simply and how completely the human mind can be misdirected. Of
course, incidentally, we may say there was the lunacy fringe that
had decided the whole audience had been hypnotized. But the real
answer was very simple, but very cleverly and intelligently worked
out.
Also when I was younger than I am now, considerably, I lived in a
small town where circuses went by. One year before these more recent
devices, such as the radio, but not before the party line on the
telephones which was the great method of communication at the turn
of the century, everybody listened to everybody else, the deepest
rut in the linoleum was in front of the phone. On this occasion an
old, decrepit, dying, mangy lioness disappeared from one of the
cages.
In the following week the lioness was sighted in an area of
over five hundred miles. It was seen anywhere from three to ten
places at the same time. It frightened dozens of reputable, honest,
God-fearing citizens, all of then solid citizens. Then the lioness
showed up dead two hundred yards from the circus tent. It had ambled
over there and fallen dead. Yet all of those who reported having
seen it were honest, God-fearing people, which brings us to a simple
fact that has been studied and analyzed for centuries, that is the
delusion of masses.
Once a story starts it is almost impossible to determine how far it
will go and how many variations it will assume before the journey is
ended. Like interesting fragments of gossip it develops jet
propulsion and also passes through innumerable transformations, so
the final account has little resemblance to the original story.
Knowing these tendencies of the human mind, these tendencies that
are present in perfectly honest and honorable people, we have to
approach all remarkable accounts, not in an effort to demonstrate
how remarkable they are, but to discover, if possible some simple,
natural, normal explanation, clinging to that until that explanation
itself obviously falls. There are always levels of explanations
ascending from the simple to the complex. We should carefully wear
out every level, exhausting its most reasonable probabilities before
we ascend to more rarefied strata of opinions.
Not long ago I was talking to a gentleman who had had a very bad
moment, he had nearly killed a friend while out deer hunting. He
told me the happiest moment of his life was the moment he realized
he had missed him. But he said while he was aiming, while he was
attempting to shoot what he believed to be the deer, which, of
course, was obscured in the thicket, he would have taken an oath on
any Bible and swear before God as a witness, that he actually
believed he saw the deer. He saw movement, he saw movement in the
underbrush, twig and branches took the actual appearance of antlers,
and he was perfectly willing to swear that he saw the deer.
Now such visualization along lines of expectancy is not a new
experience, and after a number of reports are circulated we have to
recognize the possibility of such delusions. We must, however, bear
in mind that the elements of delusion may not disprove the entire
structure, but may account for certain difficulties which arrive
later. I read an article recently on the flying saucers in which one
researcher in the field was attempting to reconcile all the
differences in the accounts, and trying to find an explanation large
enough to include all the details of the various authentic
statements.
This was to my mind a mistake. These authentic details
will probably never be completely reconciled when all the facts are
known. It is not necessary for us to verify every tiny thread of the
report. It is impossible. These very threads may be so tangled and
so exaggerated and enlarged in the retelling, that they obscure
rather than contribute to a general statement of facts. The facts
will probably show that a great many honest reports were untrue and
that many very simple and factual elements were completely
overlooked.
I do not believe there is any use in attempting to explain away the
existence of these flying saucers. Even had we not the most recent
reports, such as that which appeared in the last issue of the
Readers Digest, and even before that, probably a year ago when
Winchell mentioned the flying saucers in his column, telling the
people not to worry, it was a government secret, even without these
statements that have never been disputed there is still evidence
enough that there is something, or several somethings, that has been
seen.
Thus we may assume without any great exaggeration that
something not previously generally considered is happening, and that
there are basic truths under the stories of the flying saucers, that
these truths like the levitation of the lady, have been explained
very badly is also pretty evident, inasmuch as explanation utterly
irreconcilable cannot all be right. Conversely, we can say they
cannot all be wrong. That may also be possible, then again the truth
may be a little different from all the reports, because it is hard
to formulate reports where the necessary facts are not available.
But assuming for the moment that which I think we are entitled to
assume without too much allowance for imagination, that something
has been seen, and that the various reports about it like those
matters in which they are in common agreement may have some
validity, we are then confronted with the question of what we have
seen. Nearly all accounts report several different things seen.
Naturally, some of these accounts, including the flying cucumber,
and the report of a great space ship that took fifteen minutes to
float across the horizon, and reached from side to side of the
visual heavens, might be suspected of exaggeration. These things get
larger the longer we think about them, and like the famous fish
story, they improve with the telling and with the enthusiasm of the
narrator.
The various things seen and described can be classified into various
groups; one group consisting of the flying saucer which is round,
almost round, oblong, concave and convex. That various sizes have
been noted, we know, some being of no great size, and others being
of considerable proportion. Then something resembling the jet
propulsion machine, either without wings, or with exceedingly thin,
fin-like extensions, propelled by a tremendous power from what
appeared to be gills on the sides, the whole structure shaped
roughly like a cigar, have also been described by several persons.
Detached floating lights that are seemingly under control have also
been noted. Rays, beams and lights, and such phenomena,
disassociated from any visible structure have been reported. These
might, theoretically, represent the distortion due to the pressure
of the excitement of seeing something, but as the reports gather and
fall naturally into several classifications they are worthy of being
given consideration in those classifications.
But we must consider the type of person testifying. Several
witnesses have been of more than common integrity, they have been
specialists in various fields, they have been experts in aerial
physics, and things of that nature. We must also take into
consideration the pressure of an enlarged legend and how this legend
can bring with it a tendency toward the fulfillment of expectancy.
No sooner had the mysterious missiles, or whatever they were, begun
to accumulate as stories, then we began to have the same type of
thing that we had in the story of the floating lady.
We had a number
of well-authenticated, well-documented forms of hysteria. Of course
the milleniumists moved in immediately. This was a new indication of
the end of the world and the Second Coming. I think that can be
somewhat discounted. I do not believe the next Avatar will arrive on
a flying saucer. In spite of the delinquencies of humanity I am also
loath to believe we are apt to be wiped out by the wrath of the
Almighty, or something of that nature. Not the wrath of the
Almighty, but the stupidity of man, is causing most of the trouble.
So those who used the flying saucer as a "Repent ye, the day is at
hand" made quite a stir at the time and worked upon the level of
thinking that has been so tormented in the past by such procedures
as to be rather receptive to the most incredible beliefs. This would
be equivalent to tying the floating lady to the Arabian Nights, and
making it appear it could be justified that the magician is a fakir
of India, or some other equally wonderful explanation.
The next question that arose was the possibility that the so- called
flying saucers were a guided or propelled weapon, and that they were
the result of experimental research in military armament. I imagine
that if at any time since the flurry began Mr. Gallup had conducted
a poll on public opinion, he would have found the idea that they
were experimental research in arms was held by the majority of
people, end to a degree this rather matter of fact attitude toward
the subject would indicate that the mass mind is more calm and
collected than any of the individual elements which compose it. If
the flying saucer, the floating cigar, and the very highly
stratified will-o'-the-wisp, if these were indications of armament
projects, then naturally it would be difficult for the average
citizen to pierce the protective wall which the government has
placed around such research under prevailing world conditions.
I remember very well the flurry in Santa Fe and that area during the
development of the atom bomb. Santa Fe is only a short distance from
Los Alamos where so much of the research was carried on, and of
course the cracker barrel congress was held in the lobby of the
Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe. It was there the great physicists brushed
elbows with the agents of espionage from various countries. It was
there that detectives and secret service men were breathing down
each other's necks all the time. It was here also we had a factory
for rumors that was almost out of this world. Everyone had the
inside of it. Everyone had a friend who had a friend who was in the
know. The stories, when the facts became known, were all of them
wrong, but each one was strongly defended by a group of champions
who are now ready to defend something else equally uncertain.
I remember one day while I was down there in that mountain country,
something happened that almost belongs in the department, projects
flying saucers. Out on a ranch there of several thousand acres, and
standing on the side of a hill with the view extending from ten,
twenty or thirty miles, I noticed one afternoon an extraordinary
roar. It was far stronger and more powerful than the sound of any
ordinary airplane motor, even a large transport or passenger plane.
Suddenly without any warning whatever, this roaring took on the
proportions of a definite vibration and some thing moved at an
incredible rate passing almost directly over the place where I was
standing. That it was moving very close to the ground was evidenced
from the fact that pinion trees not more than ten feet high were
bent half way to the ground. The thing passed in a fraction of a
second, but I saw absolutely nothing although there was ample
visibility for miles in the direction in which the sound seemed to
fade out. What it was I have not the slightest idea, but I am quite
certain it was not the Second Coming.
The thought that came to mind
was that it was a jet-propelled instrument of some kind, moving more
rapidly than the human perception could follow, and by the time I
could organize myself to look for it, it was gone. That almost
certainly was the answer. It is also quite possible that the sound
of the instrument, or whatever it was, was such that it actually was
moving in the opposite direction from that which the sound seemed to
be traveling, and in looking in one direction I failed to see it
because it moved in the opposite direction.
Anyway, nothing was
visible, it left no track of any kind, no smoke or gas, there was a
terrific roar as it moved over the ground, bending the trees and it
was gone. Well, at that time what was going on in these research
laboratories was not known to us, but it seemed almost certain that
it was a high powered, possibly jet-propelled plane. I thought no
more of it and said nothing about it until it came to my mind in
connection with the project saucer. Almost certainly these things
have an explanation in terms of the incredible advancements that
have been made in scientific research in recent years.
Considering the next problem we have to bear in mind also the
association between the concept of the flying saucer and the rapidly
intensifying scientific-fiction literature which is getting more and
more attention in the popular mind each year. This is like tying the
story of the floating lady to the Mahatmas of India. It is a
fortuitous circumstance that reality and fiction should exist at the
same time which would incline thousands, possibly millions of
people, to enlarge their sense of the possible and cause them
confusion when trying to estimate the probabilities.
We have become
comparatively immune to such abstracts as interplanetary travel, we
have become immune to the fantastic fortunes of Buck Rogers and
Flash Gordon. We would not be surprised to see Superman float in our
window at any minute; there might be a slight shook but nothing
serious. We are being constantly conditioned by the pressure on one
hand of a scientific fiction concept, and on the other hand by the
quiet but intense findings of our great geophysicists and
astrophysicists, and persons of that caliber. These groups seem to
melt together and defend each other, but this defense is more of
appearance than reality.
If we go beyond the second theory of the possibility of
international armament, which we will come back to later, we come
into the most delightful phase of the whole problem, and that is the
problem of interplanetary or interworld communication. The
reasonable and inevitable conclusion held by some as being
demonstrable and the only adequate explanation is that the flying
saucer is a space ship.
Back to our illusion, there is no doubt in
the world that the lady floats because of magnets. Obviously, there
is no other explanation except the scientific theory. Now the
space-ship idea appeals to a great many people but it has been my
observation during the two and a half years I have been watching it,
that it appeals to the wrong people; that is, it has appealed to a
group of people who represent a level of worry, a group that is
always present and always ready to be involved in such problems.
One of the interesting phases has been to draw Charles Fort and some
of his opinions into it in an effort to prove that mysterious
atmospheric visitors have been reported for more than two hundred
years. Now, if that can be proved then we have a new equation to
consider, but before we consider it seriously let us remember that
not only were the aeronautical sciences inferior two hundred years
ago to anything we have today -- in fact unknown except to men like
Leonardo -- but the general approach to any phenomena was
exceedingly inadequate. We have in the history of periods back to
the beginning of time, reports of various things.
Let us consider,
for example, the accounts of comets. Scientific books, and books of
pseudo-scientific interest, borderline theories, very often include
tables of comets, in which the shape, form and appearance of comets
are distinctly described. Some of them show as many as twenty forms
of comets, each type in the form or shape of some familiar object, a
comet exactly the shape of a sword with hilt and decoration, a comet
exactly the shape of a snake with two eyes and a forked tongue, a
comet exactly the shape of a crown with jewels set around it. These
comets were claimed to have been seen, and one was reported in the
form of a sword hanging over Jerusalem at the time of its fall, and
a similar one was seen hanging over Mexico City at the time of
Cortez.
Now I think we can safely say that in the experience of astronomy in
the last two hundred years there have been no comets that exactly
resembled swords. There are no comets that can be seen writhing away
through the sky like snakes, and there are no comets that resemble
physical articles so closely that the article itself seems to be
floating there. So we must assume a considerable degree of
interpretation. We can also find well authenticated accounts of
sea-serpents, lake monsters, and within the last two hundred years
quite a collection of very justifiable, authentic and conscientious
descriptions of mermaids.
These are not due to the desire to
deceive, but it is believed that a certain type of penguin was
mistaken at a distance for a mermaid. That is quite possible,
although to me they look more like a groom at a wedding, but a dozen
penguins standing an a piece of ice, just barely within the actual
vision range of some old salt of the Seven Seas, suddenly developed
long golden curls and started playing harps gesticulating wildly.
These stories are not intentional fabrications, they are the result
of the human mind looking for that which it expects, and taking a
dim and uncertain form and clothing it in those expectations.
The problem of space navigation around this planet is one which
remains as yet in the position of remote probability, nothing is
impossible. We should be wise enough to realize that, and we should
also be modest enough to recognize that other planets might have
very well developed arts and sciences, far beyond our own
accomplishments. At the same time we have incredible time factors.
We have to begin to think of man or creature built machines that can
go at the speed of light. We have to think of cosmic energy already
controlled as a means of fuel.
We have to further assume that the
production of space ships on other planets, or other suns, or other
planets revolving around other suns, would present innumerable
difficulties. We have incredible difficulties, difficulties as to
whether creatures of other worlds could even exist in the atmosphere
of the earth, which would make it necessary for them to be protected
by some special kind of device. We have already so completely
embraced the concept of a trip to the moon that the first two or
three journeys are already sold out and it will not be long until
they will be subdividing with a slight additional charge for
frontage facing the earth.
Some three, four or five years ago people believed so certainly that
lost Lemuria was coming up near the coast of California that they
even bought land that has not shown up yet. There is always someone
to believe everything, but the problem of the space ship as a
solution to the present dilemma should be held, it seems to me, as a
last recourse to be considered only when every other explanation
fails. It involves too much that is imponderable to us, too large an
explanation for what we see and for what we have seen. It makes the
tail of the kite much longer than the kite and gives us such a
tremendous disorientation that we should consider it carefully.
The
concept, in fact, as far as can be discerned, landed on the public
mind with a dull thud. It would be impossible to assume that we
would have the present sense of complacency in the matter if we
really believed that these ships navigated by intelligent creatures
capable of building them were approaching and sailing around in good
military formation, not alone entirely, but in bunches and clusters,
without a definite reaction from the only group that could really
estimate what it means, and that is, your scientific body.
The only person able to mentally envision even twenty-five per cent
of the implication would be your physicists, astrophysicists and
your researcher in the fields of cosmic energy and atomic power.
These particular people are not apparently suffering from
unnervement. They are not collapsing on street corners, they are not
wandering around their homes absent-mindedly as though the sword of
Damocles was hanging over their heads, they are not breaking up and
falling to pieces under the nerve tension of it. In fact, from these
distant, austere ivory towers there is a thundering silence.
The
wrong people are talking about space navigation. If there were a
reasonable probability of these mysterious things actually being the
spearhead of a possible "project earth" being carried on from
elsewhere, this fact in itself would almost inevitably unite the
earth in a common determination to devote every possible research of
every nation to determining the aims, purposes and means available
for such contact between this planet and another. We would have no
more right to assume that such space visitors were friendly than we
would have a right to assume they were unfriendly. If they exist and
are capable of such methods of transportation they must be accepted
as at least equal and possibly superior to ourselves in scientific
accomplishment, because if they exist they got to us well before we
had the means to get to them, which would indicate a very high
degree of scientific knowledge.
That these strangers for some reason might scout the outer
atmosphere of the planet is fantastic but conceivable, but that they
should suddenly take such an interest in these matters, gives us
time for pause. Either those in the best position to know do not
believe that these mysterious projectiles come from the outer
atmosphere, they do not believe they are space ships, or the whole
group of them is the most idiotic combination ever recorded.
They
are stupid beyond concept if they believe or have any scientific
evidence of penetration of our earth's atmosphere from the outside
and are still worrying about China, Korea, India, Russia, America,
England or any other nation on the earth. If our experts are still
pondering how to raise taxes, or lower the budget, or the
politicians and statesmen of the world are still trying to cheat
each other, in the presence of such a situation, then their
imbecility is beyond calculation.
The least we should expect from those like Einstein, or other
leaders In these fields, although they might be able to explain
something created by another culture, is that they shall not be
indifferent to its imponderables. If these people have information
which they are not passing on to other leaders of the world,
information that would unite the planet against a possible threat,
if such things do not happen we must assume that those in a position
to make them happen either know a great deal, or else are incapable
of knowing anything. While there might be exceptions to both
extremes it seems unlikely that we have a complete breakdown among
all the leaders of our higher scientific and diplomatic life.
It would therefore appear that unless we see more interest in
preparing the planet on the basis of a global concept that we are
not much concerned about this possibility. You will remember the
result at the beginning of the second world war of the actions and
intentions of Hitler when his planes flew over France without
dropping a bomb, until the people hardly expected anything to
happen, then suddenly without warning a terrific bombardment began.
The possibility that space ships floating in the earth's atmosphere
might be cruising about indefinitely for no reason is no better a
possibility than that these are the spearhead of a project of some
kind, and the earth, its people, its leaders and scientists, should
either be unrolling the red carpet for friendly visitors, or else
getting into a position for taking care of unfriendly ones. Neither
procedure has been followed. Therefore, we can only assume that the
space ship theory is interesting people who are interested in the
scientific-fiction approach to life, but not those deeply concerned
with the salvation of the planet. There seems to be no reason for
the assumption, and no actual-proof, that these mysterious flying
saucers and their retinues of other factors have to be explained as
belonging to some other universe, or coming to us from out of space.
There is an ingenious belief that the explosion of the atom bomb
here and the recent report of something that happened in the flash
of an instant, purported to be an explosion on Mars, might be tied
together, and that the investigation of the planet is due to the
reports of such atomic phenomena which has been noted by the
astronomers and physicists on another planet, but this again more or
less undermines the idea that scientific-fiction writers have
advanced, that this touring around the earth's atmosphere has been
going on long before the atomic bomb. The whole issue is a little
too confused on these matters to require much further consideration
along those lines.
I think it is possible that some day there will
be communication between planets, but we will have to make several
very marked advances beyond even what we know as our atomic project
before we will be ready to launch ourselves into the incredible
vicissitudes of space, where we know with the highest concept of
energy and power we possess today, that even presuming we had all
the equipment necessary, the human being would not live long enough
to make the trip there and back, even with very old age.
That such
things might happen on other planets where life might be different,
where life may be longer and the problem of the rejuvenation of life
has been accomplished, all this is possible, but where it means
fifteen, twenty or twenty-five years of travel through space at an
incredible speed, with fuel problems almost beyond estimation,
traveling at a speed almost as great as that of light, we might be
wise and look for something simpler, and only depend upon such a
concept in an emergency. Where everything else fails we are forced
to fall back on the miraculous as an explanation of the problem we
face.
Now let us consider the problem that was originally advanced. and
which has been more or less sustained by documentation and recent
reports. We know that on various continents in secluded areas very
elaborate experimental laboratories have been functioning for a
number of years. We know that prior to the collapse of Germany the
Germans were already pondering a number of ideas in relationship to
the development of atomic armament, and fantastic, scientific dreams
about the earth's outer atmosphere.
Many of these scientists
survived the disastrous collapse of Hitler's regime, and have
disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. It is known with reasonable
certainty at least a few of these scientist are now cooperating with
the Russian atomic project. We also have every reason to believe
that that project is situated in the great Mongoliain area in a
little community called the State of Tanna-Tuva, where many of these
laboratories are underground and where research in atomic missiles
and in the delivery of these missiles is under consideration. There
are almost certainly other such centers of this research which will
account for the reports of jet- propelled rockets, or something of
that nature that were seen in a considerable number over Sweden and
other Scandinavian countries several years ago.
There are other
reports that Britain has experimental projects in Australia and
Canada. There is every reason to believe that even France may be
carrying on moderate work in one of her lesser known colonial
possessions. We do not know exactly where, but we can well imagine
they could do a lot of private work in Madagascar, where the
inhabitants seldom leave their own country, and very few people go
there. That the United States has an elaborate research project we
know too well to even question it, because the reports that come
out, little by little, are backed up by every indication that we
actually lead the world in that type of research.
That all these nations are searching for certain means which include
both missiles and the delivery of missiles, and undoubtedly include
a number of other problems relating to matters of which we have no
knowledge -- and probably it is not good that we necessarily have
knowledge if that knowledge can be of any comfort or assistance to a
real or potential enemy -- cannot be questioned. We know, for
example, that we hear very little about the development of
bacteriological warfare, yet there have been hints of research in
that field, and from material that has come to my hands I do not
think all of it is imagination.
There has been a hint of pollutional
warfare in which sources of, water can be so rapidly and definitely
contaminated as to completely wipe out huge areas of civilian
population. These things in themselves are very terrible to think
about, very horrible to contemplate, but are still, apparently, the
inevitable consequence of the materialistic trend of our way of
life. We are dooming a great part of our own race to destruction by
our own ingenuity. We have enough strength and resourcefulness to do
this but we have not as yet sufficient greatness of heart and
goodness of spirit to find constructive solutions to world problems.
With the situation as it is we must realistically recognize a
tremendous rise in atomic armament, a tremendous determination for
one people to excel or exceed all others in the accomplishment of
the instrument of offensive warfare.
There seems to be very good grounds for believing flying saucers are
an experimental project in such warfare research. There has been
some question as to where they came from. A recent opportunist film
indicated they originated in Russia. I think probably that would
cause Uncle Joe to have a broad smile under his mustache. I do not
believe that is true. I think again it is the field of the unknown
dramatized by the mystery of the Iron Curtain. We always wonder what
someone is doing who is off in a corner where we cannot see him. It
seldom interests us sufficiently to go over and explore, we simply
sit down and wonder. The chances are if we go over we find him doing
something just as useless as we would be doing under the same
circumstances, probably nothing.
But with the conviction of Russia's broad militaristic program, and
the great chart or map of the Communist revolution dangling before
our eyes, we are quite certain that with the various scientific
minds that have been commandeered from other countries, the Russians
could be well on their way toward the development of atomic science,
and through spies, espionage and treason have most of our knowledge
on the subject. Therefore it would seem possible to some that these
missiles might be of Russian origin.
This presents us, however, with another problem. Problems multiply
when we contemplate them. One is, what would cause the massing of
these missiles over certain areas of our own country where they
would be extremely remote from their source or origin. If these
missiles were developed within the boundaries of the Soviet Union,
even in Mongolia, they would have to cross Japan, or at least the
great Pacific wastes, and finally come here, almost half way around
the world.
That such missiles traveling at such distances should be
so completely controlled as to be able to move a little to the right
or left when some airplane approaches them would be a little hard to
believe in terms of guided missiles. That guided missiles might be
brought within a reasonable scope of their objective, yes, but most
of the reports of these projects indicate that the instrument was
exceedingly sensitive in its reaction to almost any contact.
Well, we have again the dear old magnetic theories and other things
to fall back on, but the fact seems to beg if the missiles were
guided and came from another nation there would be a larger report
of these disabled in various ways, disintegrated in mid air, or
things of that nature. It at least offers an interesting thought,
but it seems unlikely as a first choice that if these missiles
contained living persons and are guided by crews, which might be
possible with the larger ones, that they would be used
experimentally by one nation on the opposite side of the earth from
its own laboratory and expose them to a number of accidents which
might dump them and their entire secret right into the lap of the
enemy.
Of course, there is the possibility of detonation equipment
intended to destroy the instrument in case of disability. The
possibility of such instruments themselves being destroyed when they
become disabled brings up the problem of a crew that would have to
bail out or die with it, and even if the crew died with it, there
would be wreckage of some kind, so it would seem such an experiment
would be carried on over an isolated area. That it should be so
secret and so wonderful that no one is allowed to know anything
about it, and yet to have the testing field on the opposite side of
the earth presents too many technical difficulties to me.
Another consideration we have to face is, that for whatever
espionage we have operating in countries dominated by the Soviet
policy to have no way of determining the work going on there, this
seems a little strange, and it also seems a little strange that
absolutely no effort has been made by any of our equipped military
forces to shoot down or attack any of them. Nothing has been done to
pursue and investigate them.
Where any effort has been made to
contact them, it was instinctively on the part of some individual
pilot who thought for a moment of trying to ram the disk or
something of that nature. There is no program, as might be expected
for those in authority being ordered to get hold of one of these
disks. Even traveling at high speed over various areas a few
potshots should have been taken at them. An alert could have been
created, and still could be, by which some military emplacement
would get a visible opportunity to turn anti-aircrafts on them, but
no such thing has been done.
Certainly a foreign country sending
such instruments without our knowledge could not complain if we
attacked and destroyed them. In some instances they have been
reported as low as one thousand feet, in other instances as high as
fifty, or twenty thousand feet, and at other places have been
reported to be stationary for a considerable time. These reports
indicate efforts could be made to bring them down if anyone wanted
to do it.
There has gradually drifted out from the same sources a report that
the facts about the saucers are known and those who apparently have
the facts are not worried. I met one individual who has the facts,
who was not talking. He did not tell me anything, but he was not
collapsing from worries, in fact, he was playing bridge. Now with so
heavy a cosmic secret as some folks would like to maintain, it does
seem like he would have trumped his partner's ace, but he was in
good form. He was undoubtedly a member of the air intelligence and
knew the answer.
The only conclusion that seems to be reasonable and carries a larger
part of the story is that which is now beginning to drift to our
contemplation, and that is that the flying saucers and the floating
cigars are the products of our own research equipment, that the
flying saucer is some type of research device, an experimental
device for either defensive or offensive armament. It is the only
practical explanation that exists. This explanation violates none of
the essential facts of the matter. So prosaic an explanation should
not immediately discourage us.
There is every indication that the
secret of the flying saucer will come to the public in the
relatively near future, that the time of useful secrecy is nearly
passed. Whatever it is we will know, and whatever knowledge we
receive will be received with mixed emotions by those who have
already thought about it. Some will accept it when the explanation
comes, other will insist that the explanation is only a blind to
cover up the fact that Venus, or Mars, or a Fixed Star has
frightened us out of our wits. Actually, almost certainly the
explanation will be the correct one.
Upon the point of explanation we can all speculate. Certainly I have
no further enlightenment on it than anyone else has. If anyone
really knows it would be his duty to refrain from any factual
statement as long as the government or intelligence service desires
that it should be that way, but without any prior knowledge,
therefore without any restrictions of secrecy we can speculate
within the bounds of the reasonable.
Our speculations may be as
false as any other, but there are things that apparently are
necessary in armament today, and we may be right to assume that that
which is necessary to the balancing of the efficiency of our modern
defense program would be the logical direction in which research
would be carried on. We would be plugging weaknesses in our defense
structure and also plugging weaknesses in our offensive program if
we have to carry a program of offense into another nation's
territory.
The one thing that seems to me to have been a weakness, up to the
moment, in nearly all the defense programs, and the offensive
programs of other nations, is in the ingenuity for the discovery of
such incredible instruments as the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb,
the bacteriological bomb and the pollutional bomb, the difficulty
with all of them is delivery. The only way we have of delivering
them at the moment is the old traditional forms.
We can deliver them
by controlled rockets, which, however, as was proved in the blitz on
England was not effective directly and against which various
defenses could be created. We can deliver them in high-powered,
high-flying airplanes, in which one plane in a large convoy of
planes carries the bomb, but against this we will find a rising tide
of defense. No matter how far we extend the ceiling for
anti-aircraft, the enemy can extend the anti-aircraft defense. We
have the problem of trying to reach a destination with various kinds
of material.
We also have another problem which relates to protection against
types of armament, which we can well imagine will be developed in
other countries, but about which our public knows nothing. This
interval of efficiency between available means of accomplishing
certain projects, and the more desirable means, could explain the
problem of saucers. It could well represent a guided missile or an
instrument with a living crew, capable of certain advantages in the
delivery of armament, in the delivery of bombs, or the delivery of
some forms of material.
They could also definitely be useful in
development of observation in the discovery and checking of the
activities of an enemy. But their construction, their formation, the
way they operate suggest they have one of several possibilities,
either they are going to be used for the distribution of rays or
some natural force that could be the focal point, possibly some
means of short- circuiting motors, or affecting or attacking various
mechanized devices. or they could be used for the delivery of bombs,
they could control or pilot robots, and function upon larger
instruments and give the nation that has them complete control over
the air.
That this type of thinking should be consistent with the projects as
we know them, and with the temper and thought of our times, would
seem to suggest that this is the general direction. There is always
a possibility they may represent an entirely new dimension of cosmic
rays or the penetration of some principle of energy by which we
could have very definite advantages. There is a discussion as to the
possibility of these devices being radioactive. That situation has
not been satisfactorily solved. There is the report that some are
luminous, according to others, they appear to be either a silver
light or white disk. Whatever they may be they are most certainly
instruments for the defense of a land, or for the extending of the
power of the military into the land of the occupied, and there is
much to indicate the experimental work is being carried on in the
United States.
The question as to why such experiments are permitted in areas with
considerable habitation, where there is the possibility of one of
these huge disks, some being two hundred and fifty feet in diameter,
falling to the earth, injuring individuals, or destroying property,
has caused a number of speculations against it being developed here.
It seems we would be endangering our population in experimental
research. Yet most accounts report these devices contain some means
for their own annihilation. What this means is we are not aware. As
far as I know no one has seen one of them disintegrate and break up.
There has been no wreckage to speak of, although one or two have
reported it.
That the project may be in experimental stage and
completely harmless is also a possibility. That it is extremely
light, having the appearance of mass, but actually consisting of a
small amount of any heavy material is suggested by the type of
research. We have thought of it as containing motors and things of
that type, but no report has been made that any such motor power has
been used. It is possible the entire device in its experimental
stage is completely harmless, and even if it should fall in a
community would cause no more damage then a little consternation. We
must therefore assume it is in an experimental stage and not
equipped with whatever is intended to be used as a device of offense
or defense.
That some of them are comparatively small might indicate they are
involved in a new principle, either of motion or focus of energy of
some kind. That they have practical utility is certain or else they
would not be developed as a military project. These things have to
pass very extreme groups of critics, scientists and research men
before the army or navy would adopt them, and their utility must be
demonstrated, or else a good probability of it, before the project
begins. The project seems to have been running for several years,
but is gradually emerging. The public mind does not seem to be
unnecessarily anxious, and from everything indicated, the secret
will soon be out.
But up to that time it is a very good example for those persons who
wish to be thoughtful to assume the attributes, attitudes and
policies of mature thinking, and show how intelligent human beings
can approach the unknown, and also give those of a less stable and
substantial type of mind an opportunity to control their own
thinking and escape from a tendency toward the fantastic. If we
approach these things reasonably we shall generally be right;
whereas, if we approach them too dramatically we shall be wrong.
The device in all probability is some highly specialized scientific
structure intended to advance research. The device itself may not be
the project, but some means of testing for something else, but
whether it is a means to an end, or is the end itself, it is almost
certainly humanly guided, humanly devised, and is being advanced in
the unfoldment of necessary research into the great and powerful
potentials of the planet. Beyond that I think we shall simply have
to wait until Uncle Sam decides to talk, and anyone who talks before
that would be doing every one concerned a great unkindness.
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