Carl Sagan, the Moon & UFOs

In 1962 Sagan spoke on the possibility of discovering alien artifacts on the Moon
"Forthcoming photographic reconnaissance of the moon from space vehicles - particularly of the back - might bear these possibilities in mind."

For those of you who know, was Sagan talking about the Ranger IV rocket that American sent to moon? But we never got to see those pictures...

the main aim of the mission - to take television pictures of the lunar surface - was not achieved after all internal power on board the spacecraft failed two hours after launch.

Last year several articles had this to say about Sagan's beliefs on UFO's...

Renowned astronomer and astrophysicist Dr. Carl Sagan revealed to Dr. J. Allen Hynek that he believed UFOs were real but avoided any public statements to prevent the loss of academic research funding.

...this is, of course, contrary to statements he made in public..

“As I understand what the committee would like from me, is a discussion of the likelihood of intelligent extraterrestrial life… clearly it is the hypothesis that unidentified objects are of extraterrestrial origin which the committee must have in mind. I'm delighted to tell about contemporary scientific thinking along these lines, but let me begin by saying that I do not think the evidence is at all persuasive, that UFO's are of intelligent extraterrestrial origin...”

Sagan article

I've just recently started to read some of Dr. Sagan's material.

reply to post by Cosmic911


I suggest you read his approved biography,"Carl Sagan," by William Poundstone where it is revealed that in his early days before joining the so-called "Condon Report," he was virtually a fanatical UFO supporter. Then later he got into smoking weed and mellowed out, understanding what he could do to bring Americans and the world up to speed when looking out beyond their daily realities here on the surface. I frankly believe he has a bit of help in assuming that role.

It is highly suspected that he certainly believed that there was or had been life on Mars. Read between the lines in his "Cosmic Connection," knowing that he was a closet believer in UFOs.

Things have changed a lot since Sagan was young, and before his time.

Most mainstream scientist would never admit to the theoretical possibilities of things such as Time Travel, ET's, and other extraordinary things.

Times sure have changed. Talk to any scientist that is involved either in astronomy of some kind (astrophysics, stellar cartography, cosmology, etc), or any biologist, and if you ask them: "Do you think there is life out there?" and their answer today would be:

"Of course!" this includes "intelligent life".

Ask them if they think they are here already visiting us, or have been here, etc, and you'll get a lot of pauses, back peddling, or changing of subjects.

Considering many decades ago, any astronomer were to say "I believe there is intelligent life out in the universe." publicly, was a good way to loose grants (not get any more grants), and to be outcast.
That's changed now, even though no one has actually found any hard "proof" that their is life out there. It's just that it makes a lot of common sense to understand as huge and diverse as our universe is out there, that of COURSE there should be other life out there!

So I think we're making progress of sorts, with many younger generations of scientist being a lot more open minded. It's just hard for them to get serious grant money to do some really serious investigations into UFOs. Maybe if that were to change, we'd start seeing things better, and maybe even turn up hard core proof that no one could deny.

Me? I'm hoping for one to crash on the White House lawn, and have a Grey asking for directions! hehehe. Be kind of hard to deny that.........maybe one day!

She said that he said that He said...backstage at a Johnny Carson taping.

I wanna believe it, but...

Then there's Sagan's The Demon Haunted World

Originally posted by Aliensun
reply to post by Cosmic911

 

I suggest you read his approved biography,"Carl Sagan," by William Poundstone where it is revealed that in his early days before joining the so-called "Condon Report," he was virtually a fanatical UFO supporter. Then later he got into smoking weed and mellowed out, understanding what he could do to bring Americans and the world up to speed when looking out beyond their daily realities here on the surface. I frankly believe he has a bit of help in assuming that role.

It is highly suspected that he certainly believed that there was or had been life on Mars. Read between the lines in his "Cosmic Connection," knowing that he was a closet believer in UFOs.

Thanks for the suggestions. Its fascinating stuff. I'll def check it out. I just found out about him and smoking weed. Surprised me a little bit but no big deal.

Well yes the idea of ever smoking weed means one can never become President of the United States of America, oh wait, my bad...

Originally posted by Cosmic911

In 1962 Sagan spoke on the possibility of discovering alien artifacts on the Moon
"Forthcoming photographic reconnaissance of the moon from space vehicles - particularly of the back - might bear these possibilities in mind."

For those of you who know, was Sagan talking about the Ranger IV rocket that American sent to moon? But we never got to see those pictures...

the main aim of the mission - to take television pictures of the lunar surface - was not achieved after all internal power on board the spacecraft failed two hours after launch.

Last year several articles had this to say about Sagan's beliefs on UFO's...

Renowned astronomer and astrophysicist Dr. Carl Sagan revealed to Dr. J. Allen Hynek that he believed UFOs were real but avoided any public statements to prevent the loss of academic research funding.

...this is, of course, contrary to statements he made in public..

“As I understand what the committee would like from me, is a discussion of the likelihood of intelligent extraterrestrial life… clearly it is the hypothesis that unidentified objects are of extraterrestrial origin which the committee must have in mind. I'm delighted to tell about contemporary scientific thinking along these lines, but let me begin by saying that I do not think the evidence is at all persuasive, that UFO's are of intelligent extraterrestrial origin...”

Sagan article

I've just recently started to read some of Dr. Sagan's material.

Sagan had nothing special going for him. Like any scientist he guessed a lot and the guesses never hurt anyone so he was free to say whatever he wanted. He knew that he was either right or wrong. The Drake Equation says that X number of civilizations exist outside of earth but that X number was not dependent on evidence, just someone guessing. Guessing is a national pasttime.

Sagan expressed a belief that was not based on actual experience. When you have an experience, a sighting if you will, then belief is no longer in the picture it has been replaced. He did not want to accept the overwhelming evidence that has been gathered by the millions of films, photographs, and videotapes. You could say he was a hard head. But that is the nature of a skeptic. Doubt until personal experience.

I have had 5 or 6 serious, unquestionable sightings and I videotaped one in daylight. So to me the reality of UFOs is solid but at no time will I express anything about ET since we have no idea where UFOs originate from and what if anything is inside them piloting them. ET is just a romantic guess fueled by Hollywood and the media and a lot of wishers who have no evidence.

The linked article reads like a typical conspirator's writing leverage to blow out of proportion one single aside confidential comment made to a colleague that Carl believes in UFO''s, to be referenced in everything he did that would seem to be counter to what they say is (Carl's) personal belief, no less than 20 times in the article. Now that is getting a lot of milage out of one single unofficial comment. I believe a lot of creative writing is apparent here, so what if I believe my boss is a jerk, but yet I support the operational doctrine that he implemented religiously because I think it is working and valid. Would that make me hypocritical?

Some of you will take issue with my words that Sagan was a closeted UFO believer. I could have used stronger words and suggested that he was an active agent for governmental agencies. Certainly, he could have been in faVor of the existence of UFOs and never said a word about his inclinations in his regular work. But we know that he was asked (his words) to join the Condon Report group in 1968. It was a well-recognized whitewash of the phenomea and designed as such, and he did his part. In 1972 He co- edited "UFO's A Scientific Debate," which wasn't exactly that because UFOs lost to conventional scientific mindsets in the stacked deck.

That same year or perhaps '73, I was at a conference where Hynek gave a strong argument for UFOs and his experience as a turncoat from the Project Blue Book's unofficial postion to downplay and debunk UFOs. Hynek was followed at the lecturn by Sagan that gave a strictly conventional scientific argument that became his trademark: "Yes, they are out there, but, no, they can't get here." If he did later confess to Hynek about ten years later in 1984, I'm sure it was more of an apology than a confession.

Was he an unethical scoundrel scientist or a self-sacrificing saint leading the public into a better, safer understanding of the future?

You decide..

Originally posted by Cosmic911
I've just recently started to read some of Dr. Sagan's material.

Sagan... Carl... Hmmmm

Oh Yeah!!! That's the guy whose messages to the stars tells aliens that Earth is populated by tall white people and he wanted to nuke the moon to check for 'organic matter' in the debris

Yeah quite a character

reply to post by zorgon


I've been called a lot of things in my life but tall is not one of them! lol

I am one of those people that has a almost mythic view of Dr. Sagan. His words came to me in a time of my life where they were sorely needed.

He was a scientist of the highest calibre who really understood and accepted the poetry of reality. He did not need dragons in his garage...for he know dragons existed in our minds. He, and I sincerely believe this, had no internal doubt about the existence of life in this universe. One needs only read 'Contact' for an overview of his deepseated feelings on this topic.

I doubt that he would have remarked to anyone that he had saw any truth to most UFO cases...the 1% of unexplainable events will always exist, and as a scientist he could concede this point. I have a member of my family that studied under Dr. Sagan at both Cal Tech and Cornell. She has told me many fascinating and insightful stories of this remarkable human being. The underlying feature I detect is his humanity. Imperfect, mistaken in some things, but always genuine and full of life...pure vital energy.

As for the OP...Carl speculated as much as a young scientist of his time could. Flights of fancy exist in all people, Carl probably more than most.

As for the dude who accused him of wanting to nuke the moon...remember that Dr. Sagan became a central force in the nuclear disarmament movement. His voice still rings out in our time. His siren song still calls to us.

Do not fail to listen.

Originally posted by Aliensun
Hynek was followed at the lecturn by Sagan that gave a strictly conventional scientific argument that became his trademark: "Yes, they are out there, but, no, they can't get here." If he did later confess to Hynek about ten years later in 1984, I'm sure it was more of an apology than a confession.

Was he an unethical scoundrel scientist or a self-sacrificing saint leading the public into a better, safer understanding of the future? You decide..

That's not what Sagan said in 1966 when interviewed in this documentary about UFOs:

video.abovetopsecret.com...
Essentially he said that not all the UFOs we see are alien, which pretty much everyone including MUFON admits 95% of them aren't. The remaining 5% are unexplained/unknown.

He acknowledged that aliens could be thousands or millions of years more advanced than us and may have technology that we could hardly imagine, and therefore it's not implausible that they might make rare visits to the Earth. Sagan didn't say they couldn't get here, (though that's the conclusion Walter Cronkite implies as narrator of this documentary).

Sagan adds that there's no evidence for this, but he doesn't find it implausible. He certainly doesn't rule out aliens as being one possible source of UFOs, but he does make the point that a lot of people get way too excited about seeing things in the sky that they don't understand, and jump to the conclusion it's aliens. So it seems to me like he's an open-minded skeptic...he's just looking for some proof before he can confirm it's really aliens. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

I see numerous claims in this thread like yours about what Sagan said.... but I think you need to listen to Sagan's own words because I don't see your claim as an accurate reflection of what Sagan actually said.

Originally posted by NuminousCosmos
As for the dude who accused him of wanting to nuke the moon...remember that Dr. Sagan became a central force in the nuclear disarmament movement.

So what? von Braun was a NAZI that made rockets to kill us... he changed his mind later. Fact is its not an accusation, it is documented truth

Nice try though.. Deny ignorance

You deserve a star for that post Arbitrageur. We should have more writers like you in public forums. Like a ship with an even keel.

reply to post by zorgon


The first American rockets were from the US Army. There are no institutions named after Von Braun, now if we are talking Goddard, we are talking something more along the lines of discovery.

reply to post by zorgon


I know that Dr. Sagan was involved in very early planning in the plot to Nuke' the moon. What I am saying is that:

1. The moon is lifeless.

2. Spectral analysis of lunar debris cloud would have been, before manned exploration, of huge value to a young planetary scientist like Carl.

2. Von Braun was a Nazi. Dr. Sagan was not.

That is all.

Originally posted by Illustronic
reply to post by zorgon

 

The first American rockets were from the US Army. There are no institutions named after Von Braun, now if we are talking Goddard, we are talking something more along the lines of discovery.

Well I can tell you've never been to this lil' party-hut before.

www.vonbrauncenter.com...

or this

www.vbas.org...

I know they're not "institutions" per se, but just for the record.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

I see numerous claims in this thread like yours about what Sagan said.... but I think you need to listen to Sagan's own words because I don't see your claim as an accurate reflection of what Sagan actually said.

I understand what you're trying to say, however, I included more than view point in the OP regarding Sagan's views on UFOs. In fact, there was a question in the OP as well that no one has addressed. I was asking if anyone had any knowledge of that 1962 Ranger IV rocket mission to the moon.

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by Cosmic911
I've just recently started to read some of Dr. Sagan's material.

Sagan... Carl... Hmmmm

Oh Yeah!!! That's the guy whose messages to the stars tells aliens that Earth is populated by tall white people and he wanted to nuke the moon to check for 'organic matter' in the debris

Yeah quite a character

You have no right to criticize Sagan for your record speaks for itself as shown below. Whatever Sagan was or whatever he may have said that fell out of favor he contributed more to knowledge than you ever will.

Okay, ATS members have a laugh courtesy of Troll Meister Zorgon.

[Pegasus Research Consortium, featuring John Lear and Zorgon
It has been suggested by several people that Tsiolkovsky Crater hides the big spaceship that Norm Bergrun claims towed the Moon into Orbit.

Comments:
Considering the sheer size of this object, and the fact that it is not hidden, it is more likely that this is a very unusual natural phenomenon or "island", or it may be a cleverly disguised structure - Zorgon]