INTRODUCTORY SPACE
SCIENCE - VOLUME II
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS - USAF
CHAPTER XIII - UNIDENTIFIED FLYING
OBJECTS
Edited by:
Major Donald G. Carpenter
Co-Editor:
Lt. Colonel Edward R. Therkelson
What is an
Unidentified Flying Object (UFO)? Well, according to United States
Air Force Regulation 80-17 (dated 19 September 1966), a UFO is "Any"
aerial Phenomenon or object which is unknown or appears to be out
of the ordinary to the observer." This is a very broad definition
which applies equally well to one individual seeing his first noctilucent
cloud at twilight as it does to another individual seeing his first
helicopter. However, at present most people consider the term UFO
to mean an object which behaves in a strange or erratic manner while
moving through the Earth's atmosphere. That strange phenomenon has
evoked strong emotions and great curiosity among a large segment
of our world's population. The average person is interested because
he loves a mystery, the professional military man is involved because
of the possible threat to national security, and some scientist
are interested because of the basic curiosity that led them into
becoming researchers.
The literature
on UFO's is so vast, and the stories so many and varied, that we
can only present a sketchy outline of the subject in this chapter.
That outline includes description classifications, operational domains
(temporal and spatial), some theories as to the nature of the UFO
phenomenon, human reactions, attempts to attack the problem scientifically,
and some tentative conclusions. If you wish to read further in this
area, the references provide an excellent starting point.
33.1 DESCRIPTIONS
One of the
greatest problems you encounter when attempting to catalog UFO sightings,
is selection of a system for cataloging. No effective system has
yet been devised, although a number of different systems have been
proposed. The net result is that almost all UFO data are either
treated in the form of individual cases, or in the forms of inadequate
callification systems. However, these systems do tend to have some
common factors, and a collection of these factors is as follows:
- Size
- Shape
(disc, ellipse, football, etc.)
- Luminosity
- Color
- Number
of UFOs
Behaviour:
- Location
(altitude, direction, etc.)
- Patterns
of paths (straight line, climbing, zig-zagging, etc.)
- Flight
Characteristics (wobbling, fluttering, etc.)
- Periodicity
of sightings
- Time
duration
- Curiosity
or inquisitiveness
- Avoidance
- Hostility
Associated
Effects:
- Electro-Magnetic
(compass, radio, ignition systems, etc.)
- Radiation
(burns, induced radioactivity, etc.)
- Ground
disturbance (dust stirred up, leaves moved, standing wave peaks
of surface of water, etc.)
- Sound
(none, hissing, humming, roaring, thunderclaps, etc.)
- Vibration
(weak, strong, slow, fast)
- Smell
(ozone or other odor)
- Flame
(how much, where, when, color)
- Smoke
or cloud (amount, color, persistence)
- Debris
(type, amount, color, persistence)
- Inhibition
of voluntary movement by observers
- Sighting
of "creatures" or "beings"
After
Effects:
- Burned
areas or animals
- depressed
or flattened areas
- Dead
or "missing animals"
- Mentally
disturbed people
- Missing
items
We make no
attempt here to present available data in terms of the foregoing
descriptors.
33.2 OPERATIONAL
DOMAINS - TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL
What we will
do here is to present evidence that UFO's are a global phenomenon
which may have persisted for many thousands of years. During this
discussion, please remember that the more ancient the reports the
less sophisticated the observer. Not only were the ancient observers
lacking the terminilogy necessary to describe complex devices (such
as present day helicopters) but they were also lacking the concepts
necessary to understand the true nature of such things as television,
spaceships, rockets, nuclear weapons and radiation effects. To some,
the most advanced technological concept was a war chariot with knife
blades attached to the wheels. By the same token, the very lack
of accurate terminolgy and descriptions leaves the more ancient
reports open to considerable misinterpretation, and it may well
be that present evaluations of individual reports are completely
wrong. Nevertheless, let us start with an intriguing story in one
of the oldest chronicles of India.... the Book of Dzyan.
The book is
a group of "story-teller" legends which were finally gathered in
manuscript form when man learned to write. One of the stories is
of a small group of beings who supposedly came to Earth many thousands
of years ago in a metal craft which orbited the Earth several times
before landing. As told in the Book "These beings lived to themselves
and were revered by the humans among whom they had settled. But
eventually differences arose among them and they divided their numbers,
several of the men and women and some children settled in another
city, where they were promptly installed as rulers by the awe-stricken
populace.
"Separation
did not bring peace to these people and finally their anger reached
a point where the ruler of the original city took with him a small
number of his warriors and they rose into the air in a huge shining
metal vessel. While they were many leagues from the city of their
enemies, they launched a great shining lance that rode on a beam
of light. It burst apart in the city of their enemies with a great
ball of flame that shot up to the heavens, almost to the stars.
All those who were in the city were horribly burned and even those
who were not in the city - but nearby - were burned also. Those
who looked upon the lance and the ball of fire were blinded forever
afterward. Those who entered the city on foot became ill and died.
Even the dust of the city was poisoned, as were the rivers that
flowed through it. Men dared not go near it, and it gradually crumbled
into dust and was forgotten by men."
"When the
leader saw what he had done to his own people he retired to his
palace and refused to see anyone. Then he gathered about him those
warriors who remained, and their wives and children, and they entered
their vessels and rose one by one into the sky and sailed away.
Nor did they return."
Could this
foregoing legend really be an account of an extraterrestrial colonization,
complete with guided missile, nuclear warhead and radiation effects?
It is difficult to assess the validity of that explanation...just
as it is difficult to explain why Greek, Roman and Nordic Mythology
all discuss wars and contacts among their "Gods." (Even the Bible
records conflict between the legions of God and Satan.) Could it
be that each group recorded their parochial view of what was actually
a global conflict among alien colonists or visitors? Or is it that
man has led such a violent existence that he tends to expect conflict
and violence among even his gods?
Evidence of
perhaps an even earlier possible contact was uncovered by Tschi
Pen Lao of the University of Peking. He discovered astonishing carvings
in granite on a mountain in Hunan Province and on an island in Lake
Tungting. These carvings have been evaluated as 47,000 years old,
and they show people with large trunks (breathing apparatus?...or
"elephant" heads shown on human bodies? Remember, the Egyptians
often represented their gods as animal heads on human bodies.)
Only 8,000
years ago, rocks were sculpted in the Tassili plateau of Sahara,
depicting what appeared to be human beings but with strange round
heads (helmets? or "sun" heads on human bodies?) And even more recently,
in the Bible, Genesis (6:4) tells of angels from the sky mating
with women of Earth, who bore them children. Genesis 19:3 tells
of Lot meeting two angels in desert and his later feeding them at
his house. The Bible also tells a rather unusual story of Ezekiel
who witnessed what has been interpreted by some to have been a spacecraft
or aircraft landing near the Chebar River in Chaldea (593 B.C.).
Even the Irish
have recorded strange visitations. In the Speculum Regali in Konungs
Skuggsa (and other accounts of the era about 956 A.D.) are numerous
stories of "demonships" in the skies. In one case a rope from one
such ship became entangled with part of a church. A man from the
ship climbed down the rope to free it, but was seized by the townspeople.
The Bishop made the people release the man, who climbed back to
the ship, where the crew cut the rope and the ship rose and sailed
out of sight.
In all of
his actions, the climbing man appeared as if he were swimming in
water. Stories such as this makes one wonder if the legends of the
"little people" of Ireland were based upon imagination alone.
About the
same time, in Lyons (France) three men and a women supposedly descended
from an airship or spaceship and were captured by a mob. These foreigners
admitted to being wizards, and were killed. (No mention is made
of the methods employed to extract the admissions.) Many documented
UFO sightings occurred throughout the Middle Ages, including an
especially startling one of a UFO over London on 16 December 1742.
However, we do not have room to include any more of the Middle Ages
sightings. Instead, two "more-recent" sightings are contained in
this section to bring us up to modern times.
In a sworn
statement dated 21 April 1897, a prosperous and prominent farmer
named Alexander Hamilton (Le Roy, Kansas, U.S.A.) told of an attack
upon his cattle at about 10:30 PM the previous Monday. He, his son,
and his tenant grabbed axes and ran some 700 feet from the house
to the cow lot where a great cigar-shaped ship about 300 feet long
floated some 30 feet above his cattle. It had a carriage underneath
which was brightly lighted within (dirigible and gondola?) and which
had numerous windows. Inside were six strange looking beings jabbering
in a foreign language. These beings suddenly became aware of Hamilton
and the others. They immediately turned a searchlight on the farmer,
and also turned on some power which sped up a turbine wheel (about
30 ft diameter) located under the craft. The ship rose, taking with
it a two-year old heifer which was roped about the neck by a cable
of one-half inch thick, red material. The next day a neighbor, Link
Thomas, found the animal's hide, legs and head in his field. He
was mystified at how the remains got to where they were because
of the lack of tracks in the soft soil. Alexander Hamilton's sworn
statement was accompanied by an affidavit as to his veracity. The
affidavit was signed by ten of the local leading citizens.
On the evening
of 4 November 1957 at Fort Itaipu, Brazil, two sentries noted a
"new star" in the sky. The "star" grew in size and within seconds
stopped over the fort. It drifted slowly downward, was as large
as a big aircraft, and was surrounded by a strong orange glow. A
distinct humming sound was heard, and then the heat struck. A Sentry
collapsed almost immediately, the other managed to slide to shelter
under the heavy cannons where his loud cries awoke the garrison.
While the troops were scrambling towards their battle stations,
complete electrical failure occurred. There was panic until the
lights came back on but a number of men still managed to see an
orange glow leaving the area at high speed. Both sentries were found
badly burned...one unconscious and the other incoherent, suffering
from deep shock.
Thus, UFO
sightings not only appear to extend back to 47,000 years through
time but also are global in nature. One has the feeling that this
phenomenon deserves some sort of valid scientific investigation,
even if it is a low level effort.
33.3 SOME
THEORIES AS TO THE NATURE OF THE UFO PHENOMENON
There are
very few cohesive theories as to the nature of UFO's. Those theories
that have been advanced can be collected in five groups:
- Mysticism
- Hoaxes,
and rantings due to unstable personalities
- Secret Weapons
- Natural
Phenomena
- Alien visitors
Mysticism
It is believed
by some cults that the mission of UFO's and their crews is a spiritual
one, and that all materialistic efforts to determine the UFO's nature
are doomed to failure.
Hoaxes and
Rantings due to Unstable Personalities
Some have
suggested that all UFO reports were the results of pranks and hoaxes,
or were made by people with unstable personalities. This attitude
was particularly prevalent during the time period when the Air Force
investigation was being operated under the code name of Project
Grudge. A few airlines even went as far as to ground every pilot
who reported seeing a "flying saucer." The only way for the pilot
to regain flight status was to undergo a psychiatric examination.
There was a noticeable decline in pilot reports during this time
interval, and a few interpreted this decline to prove that UFO's
were either hoaxes or the result of unstable personalities. It is
of interest that NICAP (The National Investigations Committee on
Aerial Phenomena) even today still receives reports from commercial
pilots who neglect to notify either the Air Force or their own airline.
There are
a number of cases which indicate that not all reports fall in the
hoax category. We will examine one such case now. It is the Socorro,
New Mexico sighting made by police Sergeant Lonnie Zamora. Sergeant
Zamora was patrolling the streets of Socorro on 24 April 1964 when
he saw a shiny object drift down into an area of gullies on the
edge of town. He also heard a loud roaring noise which sounded as
if an old dynamite shed located out that way had exploded. He immediately
radioed police headquarters, and drove out toward the shed. Zamora
was forced to stop about 150 yards away from a deep gully in which
there appeared to be an overturned car. He radioed that he was investigating
a possible wreck, and then worked his car up onto the mesa and over
toward the edge of the gully. He parked short, and when he walked
the final few feet to the edge, he was amazed to see that it was
not a car but instead was a weird eggshaped object about fifteen
feet long, white in color and resting on short, metal leg. Beside
it, unaware of his presence were two humanoids dressed in silvery
coveralls. They seemed to be working on a portion of the underside
of the object. Zamora was still standing there, surprised, when
they suddenly noticed him and dove out of sight around the object.
Zamora also headed the other way, back toward his car. He glanced
back at the object just as a bright blue flame shot down from the
underside. Within seconds the eggshaped thing rose out of the gully
with "an earsplitting roar." The object was out of sight over the
nearby mountains almost immediately, and Sergeant Zamora was moving
the opposite direction almost as fast when he met Sergeant Sam Chavez
who was responding to Zamora's earlier radio calls. Together they
investigated the gully and found the bushes charred and still smoking
where the blue flame had jetted down on them. About the charred
area were four deep marks where the metal legs had been. Each mark
was three and one half inches deep, and was circular in shape. The
sand in the gully was very hard packed so no sign of the humanoids'
footprints could be found. An official investigation was launched
that same day, and all data obtained supported the stories of Zamora
and Chavez. It is rather difficult to label this episode a hoax,
and it is also doubtful that both Zamora and Chavez shared portions
of the same hallucination.
Secret Weapons
A few individuals
have proposed that UFO's are actually advanced weapon systems, and
that their natures must not be revealed. Very few people accept
this as a credible suggestion.
Natural Phenomena
It has also
been suggested that at least some, and possibly all of the UFO cases
were just mis-interpreted manifestations of natural phenomena. Undoubtedly
this suggestion has some merit. People have reported, as UFO's,
objects which were conclusively proven to be balloons (weather and
skyhook), the planet Venus, man-made artificial satellites, normal
aircraft, unusual cloud formations, and lights from ceilometers
(equipment projecting light beams on cloud bases to determine the
height of the aircraft visual ceiling). It is also suspected that
people have reported mirages, optical illusions, swamp gas and ball
lightning (a poorly-understood discharge of electrical energy in
a spheroidal or ellipsoidal shape...some charges have lasted for
up to fifteen minutes but the ball is usually no bigger than a large
orange.) But it is difficult to tell a swamp dweller that the strange,
fast-moving light he saw in the sky was swamp gas; and it is just
as difficult to tell a farmer that a bright UFO in the sky is the
same ball lightning that he has seen rolling along his fence wires
in dry weather. Thus accidental mis-identification of what might
well be natural phenomena breeds mistrust and disbelief; it leads
to the hasty conclusion that the truth is deliberately not being
told. One last suggestion of interest has been made, that the UFO's
were plasmoids from space...concentrated blobs of solar wind that
succeeded in reaching the surface of the Earth. Somehow this last
suggestion does not seem to be very plausible; perhaps because it
ignores such things as penetration of Earth's magnetic field.
Alien Visitors
The most stimulating
theory for us is that the UFO's are material objects which are either
"Manned" or remote-controlled by beings who are alien to this planet.
There is some evidence supporting this viewpoint. In addition to
police Sergeant Lonnie Zamora's experience, let us consider the
case of Barney and Betty Hill. On a trip through New England they
lost two hours on the night of 19 September 1961 without even realizing
it. However, after that night both Barney and Betty began developing
psychological problems which eventually grew sufficiently severe
that they submitted themselves to psychiatric examination and treatment.
During the course of treatment hypnotherapy was used, and it yielded
remarkably detailed and similar stories from both Barney and Betty.
Essentially they had been hypnotically kidnapped, taken aboard a
UFO, submitted to two-hour physicals, and released with post-hypnotic
suggestions to forget the entire incident. The evidence is rather
strong that this is what the Hills, even in their subconscious,
believe happened to them. And it is of particular importance that
after the "post-hypnotic block" was removed, both of the Hills ceased
having their psychological problems.
The Hill's
description of the aliens was similar to descriptions provided in
other cases, but this particular type of alien appears to be in
the minority. The most commonly described alien is about three and
one half feet tall, has a round head (helmet?), arms reaching to
or below his knees, and is wearing a silvery space suit or coveralls.
Other aliens appear to be essentially the same as Earthmen, while
still others have particularily wide (wrap around) eyes and mouths
with very thin lips. And there is a rare group reported as about
four feet tall, weight of around 35 pounds, and covered with thick
hair or fur (clothing?). Members of this last group are described
as being extremely strong. If such beings are visiting Earth, two
questions arise: 1) why haven't they attempted to contact us officially?
The answer to the first question may exist partially in Sergeant
Lonnie Zamora's experience, and may exist partially in the Tunguska
meteor discussed in Chapter XXIX. In that chapter it was suggested
that the Tunguska meteor was actually a comet which exploded in
the atmosphere, the ices melted and the dust spread out. Hence,
no debris. However, it has also been suggested that the Tunguska
meteor was actually an alien spacecraft that entered the atmosphere
too rapidly, suffered mechanical failure, and lost its power supply
and/or weapons in a nuclear explosion. While that hypothesis may
seem far fetched, sample of tree rings from around the world reveal
that, immediately after the Tunguska meteor explosion, the level
of radioactivity in the world rose sharply for a short period of
time. It is difficult to find a natural explanation for that increase
in radioactivity, although the suggestion has been advanced that
enough of the meteor's great kinetic energy was converted into heat
(by atmospheric friction) that a fusion reaction occurred. This
still leaves us with no answer to the second question: why no contact?
That question is very easy to answer in several ways: 1) we may
be the object of intensive sociological and psychological study.
In such studies you usually avoid disturbing the test subjects'
environment; 2) you do not "contact" a colony of ants, and humans
may seem that way to any aliens (variation: a zoo is fun to visit,
but you don't "contact" the lizards); 3) such contact may have already
taken place secretly; and 4) such contact may have already taken
place on a different plane of awareness and we are not yet sensitive
to communications on such a plane. These are just a few of the reasons.
You may add to the list as you desire.
33.4 HUMAN
FEAR AND HOSTILITY
Besides the
foregoing reasons, contacting humans is downright dangerous. Think
about that for a moment! On the microscopic level our bodies reject
and fight (through production antibodies) any alien material; this
process helps us fight off disease but it also sometimes results
in allergic reactions to innocous materials. On the macroscopic
(psychological and sociological) level we are antagonistic to beings
that are "different". For proof of that, just watch how an odd child
is treated by other children, or how a minority group is socially
deprived, or how the Arabs feel about the Israelis (Chinese vs Japanese,
Turks vs Greeks, etc.) In case you are hesitant to extend that concept
to the treatment of aliens let me point out that in very ancient
times, possible extraterrestrials may have been treated as Gods
but in the last two thousand years, the evidence is that any possible
aliens have been ripped apart by mobs, shot and shot at, physically
assaulted, and in general treated with fear and aggression.
In Ireland
about 1,000 A.D., supposed airships were treated as "demonships."
In Lyons, France, "admitted" space travellers were killed. More
recently, on 24 July 1957 Russian anti-aircraft batteries on the
Kouril Islands opened fire on UFO's. Although all Soviet anti-aircraft
batteries on the Islands were in action, no hits were made. The
UFO's were luminous and moved very fast. We too have fired on UFO's.
About ten o'clock one morning, a radar site near a fighter base
picked up a UFO doing 700 mph. The UFO then slowed to 100 mph, and
two F-86's were scrambled to intercept. Eventually one F-86 closed
on the UFO at about 3,000 feet altitude. The UFO began to accelerate
away but the pilot still managed to get within 500 yards of the
target for a short period of time. It was definately saucer shaped.
As the pilot pushed the F-86 at top speed, the UFO began to pull
away. When the range reached 1,000 yards, the pilot armed his guns
and fired in an attempt to down the saucer. He failed, and the UFO
pulled away rapidly, vanishing in the distance. This same basic
situation may have happened on a more personal level. On Sunday
evening 21 August 1955, eight adults and three children were on
the Sutton Farm (one-half mile from Kelly, Kentucky) when, according
to them, one of the children saw a brightly glowing UFO settle behind
the barn, out of sight from where he stood. Other witnesses on nearby
farms also saw the object. However, the Suttons dismissed it as
a "shooting star", and did not investigate. Approximately thirty
minutes later (at 8:00 pm), the family dogs began barking so two
of the men went to the back door and looked out. Approximately 50
feet away and coming toward them was a creature wearing a glowing
silvery suit. It was about three and one-half feet tall with a large
round head and very long arms. It had large webbed hands which were
equipped with claws. The two Suttons grabbed a twelve gauge shotgun
and a .22 caliber pistol, and fired at close range. They could hear
the pellets and bullet ricochet as if off of metal. The creature
was knocked down, but jumped up and scrambled away. The Suttons
retreated into the house, turned off all inside lights, and turned
on the porch light. At that moment, one of the women who was peeking
out of the dining room window discovered that a creature with some
sort of helmet and wide slit eyes was peeking back at her. She screamed,
the men rushed in and started shooting. The creature was knocked
backwards but again scrambled away without apparent harm. More shooting
occurred (a total of about 50 rounds) over the next 20 minutes and
the creatures finally left (perhaps feeling unwelcome?) After about
a two hour wait (for safety), the Suttons left too.
By the time
the police got there, the aliens were gone but the Suttons would
not move back to the farm. They sold it and departed. This reported
incident does bear out the contention though that humans are dangerous.
At no time in the story did the supposed aliens shoot back, although
one is left with the impression that the described creatures were
having fun scaring humans.
33.5 ATTEMPTS
AT SCIENTIFIC APPROACHES
In any scientific
endeavor, the first step is to aquire data, the second step to classify
the data, and the third step to form hypothesis. The hypothesis
are tested by repeating the entire process, with each cycle resulting
in an increase in understanding (we hope). The UFO phenomenon does
not yield readily to this approach because the data taken so far
exhibits both excessive variety and vagueness. The vagueness is
caused in part by the lack of preparation of the observer...very
few people leave their house knowing that they are going to see
a UFO that evening. Photographs are overexposed or underexposed,
and rarely in color. Hardly anyone carries around a radiation counter
or magnetometer. And, in addition to this, there is a very high
level of "noise" in the data.
The noise
consists of mistaken reports of known natural phenomena, hoaxes,
reports by unstable individuals and mistaken removal of data regarding
possible unnatural or unknown natural phenomena (by overzealous
individuals who are trying to eliminate all data due to known natural
phenomena). In addition, those data, which do appear to be valid,
exhibit an excessive amount of variety relative to the statistical
samples which are available. This has led to very clumsy classification
systems, which in turn provide quite unfertile ground for formulation
of hypothesis.
One hypothesis
which looked promising for a time was that of ORTHOTENY (i.e., UFO
sightings fall on "great circle" routes). At first, plots of sightings
seemed to verify the concept of orthoteny but recent use of computers
has revealed that even random numbers yield "great circle" plots
as neatly as do UFO sightings.
There is one
solid advance that has been made though. Jacques and Janine Vallee
have taken a particular type of UFO - namely those that are lower
than tree-top level when sighted - and plotted the UFO's estimated
diameter versus the estimated distance from the observer. The result
yields an average diameter of 5 meters with a very characteristic
drop for short viewing distances. This behavior at the extremes
of the curve is well known to astronomers and psychologists as the
"moon illusion." The illusion only occurs when the object being
viewed is a real, physical object. Because this implies that the
observers have viewed a real object, it permits us to accept also
their statement that these particular UFO's had a rotational axis
of symmetry.
Another, less
solid, advance made by the Vallee's was their plotting of the total
number of sightings per week versus the date. They did this for
the time span from 1947 to 1962, and then attempted to match the
peaks of the curve (every 2 years 2 months) to the times of Earth-Mars
conjuction (every 2 years 1.4 months). The match was very good between
1950 and 1956 but was poor outside those limits. Also, the peaks
were not only at the times of Earth-Mars conjunction but also roughly
at the first harmonic (very loosely, every 13 months). This raises
the question why should UFO's only visit Earth when Mars is in conjunction
and when it is on the opposite side of the sun. Obviously, the conjunction
periodicity of Mars is not the final answer. As it happens, there
is an interesting possibility to consider. Suppose Jupiter's conjunctions
were used; they are every 13.1 months. That would satisfy the observed
periods nicelly, except for every even data peak being of different
magnitude from every odd data peak. Perhaps a combination of Martian,
Jovian, and Saturnian (and even other planetary) conjunctions will
be necessary to match the frequency plot...if it can be matched.
Further data
correlation is quite difficult. There are a large number of different
saucer shapes but this may mean little. For example, look at the
number of different types of aircraft which are in use in the U.
S. Air Force alone.
In is obvious
that intensive scientific study is needed in this area; no such
study has yet been undertaken at the necessary levels of intensity
needed. Something that must be guarded against in any such study
is the trap of implicity assuming that our knowledge of Physics
(or any other branch of science) is complete. An example of one
such trap is selecting a group of physical laws which we now accept
as valid, and assume that they will never be superceded.
Five such
laws might be:
- Every action
must have an opposite and equal reaction.
- Every particle
in the universe attracts every other particle with a force proportional
to the product of the masses and inversely as the square of the
distance.
- Energy,
mass and momentum are conserved.
- No material
body can have a speed as great as c, the speed of light in free
space.
- The maximum
energy, E, which can be obtained from a body at rest is E=mc²,
where m is the rest mass of the body.
Laws numbered
1 and 3 seem fairly safe, but let us hesitate and take another look.
Actually, law number 3 is only valid (now) from a relativistic viewpoint;
and for that matter so are laws 4 and 5. But relativity completely
revised these physical concepts after 1915, before then Newtonian
mechanics were supreme. We should also note that general relativity
has not yet been verified. Thus we have the peculiar situation of
five laws which appear to deny the possibility of intelligent alien
control of UFO's, yet three of the laws are recent in concept and
may not even be valid. Also, law number 2 has not yet been tested
under conditions of large relative speeds or accelerations. We should
not deny the possibility of alien control of UFO's on the basis
of preconceived notions not established as related or relevant to
the UFO's.
33.6 CONCLUSION
From available
information, the UFO phenomenon appears to have been global in nature
for almost 50,000 years. The majority of known witnesses have been
reliable people who have seen easily-explained natural phenomena,
and there appears to be no overall possitive correlation with population
density. The entire phenomenon could be psychological in nature
but that is quite doubtful. However, psychological factors probably
do enter the data picture as "noise." The phenomenon could also
be entirely due to known and unknown phenomena (with some psychological
"noise" added in) but that too is questionable in view of some of
the available data.
This leaves
us with the unpleasant possibility of alien visitors to our planet,
or at least of alien controlled UFO's. However, the data are not
well correlated, and what questionable data there are suggest the
existence of at least three and maybe four differnet groups of aliens
(possibly at different states of development). This too is difficult
to accept. It implies the existence of intelligent life on a majority
of the planets in our solar system, or a surprisingly strong interest
in Earth by members of other solar systems.
A solution
to the UFO problem may be obtained by the long and diligent effort
of a large group of well financed and competent scientists, unfortunately
there is no evidence suggesting that such an effort is going to
be made. However, even if such an effort were made, there is no
guarantee of success because of the isolated and sporatic nature
of the sightings. Also, there may be nothing to find, and that would
mean a long search with no profit at the end. The best thing to
do is to keep an open and skeptical mind, and not take an extreme
position on any side of the question.
This
document is taken verbatim from the United States Air Forces Academy
textbook, "Introductory Space Science, Volume II, Department
of Physics, USAF." This is the volume that was being used by
the Air Force Academy, at Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Air Force
Academy pulled this volume from the curriculum in the early 1970's,
because of the controversy it generated.
Transcribed
by: Don Ecker
reprinted with permission
came across it in another site & thought of posting it here.... a quick search found me this thread.... this is
some serious stuff.... i dont know if it has been discussed.... 
