From
dona@bilver.uucp Wed Apr 10 15:17:03 1991
From: dona@bilver.uucp (Don
Allen)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.conspiracy
Subject:
INFO:CHAPTER XIII - UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS
Keywords: USAF Chapter in
Training Textbook, long since censored.
Date: 10 Apr 91 02:50:20 GMT
Organization:
W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
This is considered a *classic*
among various UFO text files.
Read and make up your own mind :-)
-------Begin
included text -----------------------------------
CUFON -
UFO Information Service Seattle, Washington
_______________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTORY SPACE SCIENCE - VOLUME II - DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS -
USAF
Edited by:
Major Donald G.
Carpenter
Co-Editor:
Lt. Colonel Edward R.
Therkelson
CHAPTER XIII
UNIDENTIFIED FLYING
OBJECTS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
scientists 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
classification systems.
However, these systems do tend to have some common
factors, and a collection of these factors is
as follows:
a. Size
b. Shape (disc, ellipse, football, etc.)
c. Luminosity
d. Color
e. Number of UFO's
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( Page Two )
CUFON - UFO Information Service Seattle,
Washington
________________________________________________________________
Behavior:
a. Location (altitude, direction,
etc.)
b. Patterns of paths
(straight line, climbing, zig-zagging, etc.)
c. Flight Characteristics (wobbling, fluttering, etc.)
d. Periodicity of sightings
e. Time duration
f. Curiosity or inquisitiveness
g. Avoidance
h. Hostility
Associated Effects:
a.
Electro-Magnetic (compass, radio, ignition systems, etc.)
b. Radiation (burns, induced
radioactivity, etc.)
c. Ground
disturbance (dust stirred up, leaves moved, standing wave
d. Sound (none, hissing, humming,
roaring, thunderclaps, etc.)
e. Vibration (weak, strong, slow, fast)
f. Smell (ozone or other odor)
g. Flame (how much, where, when, color)
h. Smoke or cloud (amount, color,
persistence)
i. Debris (type,
amount, color, persistence)
j.
Inhibition of voluntary movement by observers
k. Sighting of "creatures" or
"beings"
After Effects:
a. Burned areas or animals
b. Depressed or flattened areas
c. Dead or missing animals
d. Mentally disturbed people
e. Missing items
We make no attempt
here to present available data in terms of the foregoing
descriptors.
( Page Three )
CUFON - UFO Information Service
Seattle, Washington
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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 terminology 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 terminology
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."
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Continued -
( Page Four )
CUFON -
UFO Information Service Seattle, Washington
________________________________________________________________
Could this foregoing legend really be an account of an
extraterrestrial
colonization, complete
with guided missle, 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 the 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.
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Continued -
( Page Five
)
CUFON - UFO Information Service Seattle,
Washington
________________________________________________________________
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 p.m. 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 the 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 surround
by a strong orange glow. A distinct
humming
sound was heard, and then
the heat struck. One 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:
a.
Mysticism
b. Hoaxes, and
rantings due to unstable personalities
c. Secret Weapons
d. Natural Phenomena
e.
Alien visitors
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Continued -
PAGE SIX
________________________________________________________________
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 legs. 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 ear-
-splitting 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.
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PAGE SEVEN
________________________________________________________________
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
deliberatly 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 sufficienty 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 posthypnotic 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 "posthypnotic block" was removed,
both
of the Hills ceased having
their psychological problems.
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PAGE EIGHT
________________________________________________________________
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 there been any accidents
which have revealed their presence, and 2) 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 Tonguska 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 to 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 innocuous 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.
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PAGE
NINE
________________________________________________________________
In Ireland about 1,000 A.D., supposed airships were treated as
"demon-
ships." 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 p.m.), 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 guage 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 clasify 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.
PAGE TEN
________________________________________________________________
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,
and rise for long 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 nicely, 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.
It is obvious
that intensive scientific study is needed in this area;
no such study has yet been undertaken at the
necessary levels of intensity
and
support. One thing 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.
PAGE
ELEVEN
________________________________________________________________
Five such laws might be:
1) Every action
must have an opposite and equal reaction.
2) Every particle
in the univers attracts every other particle with a
force proportional to the product of the
masses and inversely as the
square of the distance.
3) Energy, mass and momentum are
conserved.
4) No material body can have a speed as
great as c, the speed of light
in free space.
5) 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 relativisti
c
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 relativ
e
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 positive
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 different groups of
aliens
(possibly at different
stages 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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAGE TWELVE
________________________________________________________________
A solution to the UFO problem may be obtained by the long and
diligent
effort of a large group
of well financed and competant 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 proff 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 available through the Ufo Info Service.
For more information write to:
CUFON C/O UFO INFORMATION
SERVICE
P.O. Box 832
MERCER ISLAND, WA 98040 - 0219
OR CALL (206) 721-5035
This is the original
Air Force Document.
Thank You
NOTE: Although obviously
well written and comphrensive in its treatment
of the UFO phenomenon, it is the opinion of ParaNet Pi that
this repute
d
U.S.A.F.
Chapter is in fact a cleverly planted hoax, and did not appear
in any Air Force Training Manual as claimed. However, we do not
have
any hard proof to
support this assessment of its authenticity.
-Tom
Mickus 04/24/88
EOF
--
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