By Capt. Joe Hull
When historians compile their chronicles of the 20th century they will record an age of scientific progress unparalleled in the annals of mankind. Of the 2000 years since Christ, none will rate so much attention as that 100 years which brought the world the auto, the airplane, radio and television, wonder drugs, and atomic energy, with either its concomitant wars of dreadful devastation or a jittery world at “peace,” poised precariously on the brink of self-destruction.
But if the scribes are faithful, in their chores they will record six of the most utterly fantastic years — an incredible period for such a modern age — that fell during the exact middle of the century, during which a series of events transpired that will appear so unbelievable as to tax the credulity of the men commissioned to write of them. Little wonder if they hesitate to set down the account of this ludicrous period in world history when men of all nations — but notably America — were agog with excitement over an apparition as nonsensical as the witches of Salem in the 17th century.
The historians will mark 1947 as the year the “flying saucers” came, an event with such exciting implications that the imagination of the whole world was fired to fever pitch and intelligent human beings found themselves reduced almost to the emotional level of their superstitious colonial or aboriginal forefathers, so intense was their devotion to this provoking and popular puzzle. During the hectic heyday of the saucer’s mystical reign people discussed no other subject more, and on many occasions legitimate news was relegated to the second page of the daily journals. Nothing took precedence over the mysterious disks, which in spite of countless sightings by authoritative observers, successfully resisted all efforts at capture, either in body or upon photographic film.
The histories which our progeny will study should mark the year of 1953 as the end of the flying saucers. For it was in this year that the riddle which had plagued the world for seven breathless years was exposed for all to see by a man who steadfastly refused to allow fear, credulity, and superstition to overcome reason. His revelations restored some semblance of sanity to a society which had retrogressed shamefully backward along the path to the Dark Ages. America's gullibility has been an especial disgrace.
Dr. Donald H. Menzel is an eminent astronomer and scientist from Harvard University. His thousands of hours of searching the heavens by eye and by telescope, as well as his wealth of experience in the air, on the sea, and under the sea, provide him with ample qualifications to discuss the subject of flying saucers from the professional point as well as through the eyes of the layman. His new book, Flying Saucers, is an out-and-out masterpiece and it belongs in the library of every airline pilot, whether he has believed in the existence of these awe inspiring phenomena or not. Of all the books written on the subject, this is the first dealing in common sense.
It is right here I wish to confess that from the very first sighting of a saucer by Kenneth Arnold over Mt. Rainier in 1947 (not really the first according to Menzel) I have believed implicitly in the existence of these nebulous will-o-the-wisps, passionately defending my views against all the “heretical” attacks made upon them. The seemingly authoritative sightings by quite a few colleagues (dozens of airline pilots have reported strange objects in the sky) only added more strength to a preponderance of evidence already present that here indeed the world was seeing something new. I did tireless research on the subject for six years, interviewing other pilots, control tower operators, hundreds of passengers, as well as laymen from all walks of life. I devoured voraciously every printed word on the subject, newspaper and magazine artides by the score, and I bought each new book as fast as it hit the market. These ran the gamut from Frank Scully’s Behind the Flying Saucers (which was immediately branded as a hoax by thinking persons, True magazine verifying this last September) to Gerald Heard’s highly speculative Is Another World Watching? Mr. Heard postulates to the point where he has huge honey bees from Mars building the saucers (like earthly bees build honeycomb) and flying them at the space ship speeds attributed to them. Donald Keyhoe, aviation editor of True, was the first to speculate on the interplanetary origin of the disks, a postulation that found ever increasing support, until today it is the theory held most plausible by saucer devotees.
Dr. Menzel, once and for all, explodes all the silly notions I have shared with millions of other people. But paradoxically, he does not deny the existence of the saucers or the sightings. He readily admits the saucers are real but he proves they are not what the sighter thinks they are. He explains away scientifically each type all the way from the great saucer of 1882 down through Arnold’s 1947 saucers. Captain Mantell's Kentucky saucer, the New Mexico fireballs, the unknown lights of Japan are dealt with in painstaking detail. He saves until last the enigma of the Washington D. C. radar saucers which bid fair to put the Republican Convention off the front pages last year when the story broke. This chapter should prove wonderful reading to those who believe implicitly in the infallibility of radar images.
Only in recent weeks the CAA has accepted his refraction explanation for the “Martian” blips which had the radar operators nonplussed and aghast on more than one occasion. The have proved his theory is the correct answer.
Dr. Menzel’s presentation is dispassionate and methodical, his logic brilliant. His book reflects enormous research.
He proves by accepted standards that not one genuine, solid, material saucer has ever been photographed or proven by other means.
Most of the photographs of purported saucers have been absurdities. One of the best examples of this was the photo made by a Coast Guardsman in Massachusetts of three lenticular cumulus clouds, a type seen often by airline pilots. This photo fooled nobody but the gullible and sensation seeking saucer sectists, who comprise that curious minority who really want to believe in the occult. The humorous but factual discovery that a whitewashed stone in the parking lot in the foreground of the picture more nearly approximated the dimensions of what a flying saucer is supposed to look like than any of the three clouds did little to quell the foolish enthusiasm of the credulous followers of the disks. These fantasists really die hard.
Dr. Menzel has rendered a great service to his country and to the world. He has disproven hundreds of supposedly real flying disks by the simple expedient of thought process, consigning them forever to the limbo they deserve, along with witchcraft and sorcery, I am grateful to him for deliverance. From now on, my camera, which has been my constant cockpit companion for years, stays in the flight kit.
Project 1947
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