◆ SpookStack

2 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Monday, December 13, 1965 | New ‘Fireball’ Raises || || An Old’Question: Do | Flying Saucers Exist? | Californian, Who “Talks’ to Men From the Stars, Says ‘Yes’; Scientists Assail Air Force | | er By ELLIOT CARLSON | Staff Reporter of Tus Wat Street JournNaL | | They’se back. The latest was sighted a few | nights ago by residents and pilots in the north- | ern tier of states and Canada. They described | it as an orange fireball. The Air Force’at first | called it an unidentified flying object, but now | thinks it was a meteor. Some other people } called it a flying saucer. Several people say they saw the firebal] land Thursday night. An li-year-old boy in Lorain, | Ohio, says he watched it drop into the woods near his home. A woman in Elyria, Ohio, 10 miles away, claims she saw it plunge into a vacant lot across the street from her home. Others say they saw it streak into Lake Michi- }gan. Scientists and police combed a 75-acre area near Pittsburgh after a woman there saw | the object crash to earth ‘‘smoldering.’’ Despite these witnesses and search efforts, | however, the thing has yet to be found. In this regard, it is like all other unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, which are mysterious be- cause they are-seen but never found. | Whatever it turns out to be—meteor, satel- Htepart, hoax, weather oddity or man from Mars—it appeared in a banner year Yor such objects, which almost disappeared from public | consciousness following & rash of. reports of | flying saucers in the mid-1950s: ‘“‘We've had more reports this year.than in any year since | | 1957, when we had more than a thousand,” says | a spokesman -for Project Blue Book, the Air Force program set up in 1948 to evaluate re- | ports of the phenomena. | Visitors From Outer Space Nobody knows what the objects are or where | they come from, but there is no lack of theories | —or of controversy. The Amalgamated Flying }Saucer Clubs of America, Inc., is sure the “saucers” come from outer space. How do jthey know? The “space people” have told them. | Not only that, says Gabriel Green, who heads the California group, ‘‘space people give }contactees information about life on other | | planets and solutions to insurmountable prob- lems on our planet.” One suggestion allegedly | made to Mr. Green in 1960 by a visit from Al- pha Centauri, ‘a nearby star: Run for Presi- | dent as a write-in candidate. (He campaigned | briefly, then. decided not to run.) | The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), a private re- search organization in Washington, doesn’t | hold with that theory. “We reject reports of| |moble beings landing on earth to solve all our | problems,’ says a spokesman. So men from| Mars are a lot of bunk? Not necessarily, says | the committee. It believes 4 Congressional in- | vestigation would prove that UFOs “are real | physical objects . . . under the control of living | beings."’" As an afterthought, the spokesman | says: ‘There are a tremendous number of ego- {maniacs who have been able to appoint them- | selves experts in this field because it’s so con- | - One man who's not confused at all is Charles |A. Maney, professor emeritus of physics and mathematics at Defiance, College in Ohio. Says | |the professor: ‘‘These objects are unquestion- ably from outer space."’ He bases his reason- | | with local electrical circuits, indicating to him they have “‘a means of propulsion associated j with magnetic fields." “There's Nothing To It” Such notions are scoffed at by astronomers, | however. “All this is imagination outside the | realm of science,"’ says Donald H. Menzel, di- | rector of the observatory at Harvard. “I have } examined Air Force cases and discovered that UFOs all have simple explanations in terms | | of well-known natural phenomena. There's not } one cause, but hundreds. Some are quite spec-|| 4 | tacular, such as reflections from ice crystals or |. | bright stars, searchlights on clouds or high- |! flying spider webs. But to some people the xin | tence of flying saucers is a matter of religious fanaticism,"’ he says. But Mr. Menzel reads more into the Air Force data than does the Air Force itself. Ot | the 9,786 UFO reports made to the Air Force since 1947, 673 remain claSsified as “unidenti- | fied," a spokesman says. He defines this cate- |} gory as containing sightings whose pertinent | | data can't be correlated with any known object or phenomena. | The spokesman quickly adds: “We have nei- ther received nor discovered any evidence that proves the existence of intraspace mobility or | extraterrestrial life and we continue to extend | | an open invitation to anyone who feels he pos- | sesses any evidence of such vehicles operating in our atmosphere.’’ And he states: ‘No UFO report evaluated by the Air Force has ever given ary indication of a threat to our national security."’ The Air Force's approach disturbs some people, however. ‘“‘The Air Force should admit} there are natural phenomena taking place un-| der our noses of which we know nothing,"’ says I. M. Levitt, director of Fels Planetarium at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. He adds: “The Air Force is trying to explain something that isn't susceptible to explanation.” Robert Risser, director of the Oklahoma Scl- ence and Art Foundation planetarium at Okla- homa City, believes ‘the Air Force must have had its star-finder upside down during Aug- ust,"’ when. several reports of flying saucers were ascribed by the Air Force to sightings of | stars, ‘The constellations of Taurus and Orion weren't yisible at the time the Air Force said the sightings were made. I think they made an error." The whole problem, says J. Allen Hyntek, chairman of the department of astronomy at Northwestern University and a consultant to the Air Force, is that the matter should be| studied more thoroughly. “Pressures to conformity in academic cir- | cles and fear of ridicule have slowed the study,"’ according to Robert Hall, a sociology | professor at the University of Illinois in Chi- cago. “The possibility of life on Mars is an un- popular thing to consider these days,” says Frank B. Salisbury, a professor of plant phy-} siology at Colorado State University. At the| risk of being unpopular, Mr. Salisbury told the | fifth annual Space Conference this year that| “there may be some natural explanation of | these things, but a tentative possibility to be considered is that UFOs are spaceships from Mars." . Fueling the flying-saucer controversy has| been the large number of reports from what many people consider reliable witnesses—pilots with technical backgrounds. Since 1947, more| than 100 private, military and commercial pilots | have reported spotting strange objects in the | sky, according to one study. Pinning down such reports is difficult, how- ever. “Some of the boys did report things they couldn't identify a few years ago," says a spokesman for American Airlines. ut our pilots haven't made a report for years." Nevertheless, ‘we have on file a great num- ber of reports from pilots who don't want their names used but still want to tell somebody what they’ve seen, claims J, B. Hartanft, Jr., president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots As- sociation, And he says: ‘‘I haven't drawn any conclusions myself, but I think we've certainly got.a good mystery on our hands.’’ ew Tk raid Tae me j ing on the fact that the objects often interfere | ——— ia 4-18-66 _ This was not the same,” London, LOR OA apy ae Ontario Free Press 3-26-66 100 Watch UFO Disc-Like Object Hovers,. Rises For Two Hours East of Kettle Point By JIM ETHERINGTON Free Press Sarnia Bureau SARNIA — A revolving ob- ject, sighted in the sky east of Kettle Point last night, was watched for more than two hours by about 100 persons. Lawrence Bressette, who op- erates a store on the Kettle Point Indian Reserve, said a motorist brought the object*to his attention about 8 p.m. He said he looked at it through binoculars and could see red, blue, green and white lights flashing from the disc-shaped object. Mr. Bressette said it re- mained motionless for about an hour flashing lights, then slowly began to rise. Cloud cover rolled in about 10 p.m., allowing only periodic sight- ings. “‘T've never seen anything like this,” he said. “We all saw it. It was low — about 200 or 300 feet off the ground to the east. Then it slowly began to move up.” Mr. Bressette said it could not have been swamp gas which was suggested was the cause of unidentified ‘flying object sightings in the Detroit area last week. “T’'ve seen swamp gas lights. he said. “Besides there hasn't been any swamp gas lights around here since before the war.” ‘ \Mr. Bressette said his breth- er, Jeffery, also reported see- ing an object over Sarnia. This one stayed stationary for a short time then shot across the aky at a very high speed. An officer in control opera- tions at Selfridge Air Force Base, Mount Clemens, Mich., said the Canadian sighting was the fourth reported to him last night. The other three were from the Detroit area, . He said no radar reports had been obtained on any of the sightings. Mr. .Bressette reported jet planes in the area at .one point while the group watched along the Lake Huron shore. But there was no possibility the object he saw was a jet. In Michigan new reports of ‘Report Them. .. Forget It— I Have Enough Credibility Problems As It Is’ UFO sightings were received Saturday night as far north as the tip of the “Thumb” in Lake Huron. Odd lights were reported in the sky over Oakland County and the neighboring Detroit area. Others were reported westward in the Lansing area. Dr. J. Allen Hynek of North- western University, scientific consultant to the U.S. Air Forte said phenomena seen at Dexter and Hillsdale on the night of March 20 probably were the result of | swamp gases. Sheriff Douglas Harvey of Washtenaw County and civil defence director William Van Horn of Hillsdale County criti- eized. Dr. Hynek’s report. Van Horn said the swamp gas explanation was an attempt to “explain it away arbitrar- bls Anta Flying Saucers Gain Propéfent N.Y. Daity News Dispetch NEW YORK — The nephew of the late Dag Hammarskjold has startled America’s top science writers by telling them he believes ,that’ flying saucers exist and that they come from outer space. Knut Hammarskjold, whose late uncle was secretary gener- al of the United Nations, spoke to a convention here of the avi- ation-space writers associa- tion. Hammarskjold also suggested that our space neighbors are becoming more and more inter- ested in what people are doing on earth. “The possible existence of reighbors in space will, if con- firmed, create problems of le- zal, political and technical Hong Kong China Mail Flying saucers mystery 2-3-66 EOPLE in North Queens- land are mystified & three separate reports Flying Saucers. The first report came from a 27-year-old banana grower, Mr G Pedley, who while driving @ tractor through a neighbouring property on his way to his own farm, heard a loud hissing noise above the noise of the tractor. Suddenly about 25 yards ahead of him, a blue-grey saucer shaped craft about 25 ft across, and 9ft high, rose vertically to about 60ft and travelling at @ terrific speed headed off in a pouth-westerly direction. On investigation, a nest of flattened reeds was found, the circle being about 30ft in diameter and since then four other nests have been found close by, some of them newly made. - During the last eight months, mo_tless thar been reported Queensland press. Hundreds. of sightseers - have flocked to the Horseshoe Lagoon in the Tully District during the seven different sightings of Fiying Saucers have in the North last few days to view the circles which are partly hidden by dense scrub. Los legal Bla tsatine 966 characteristics,” he said. | UN Watch For Saucers Urged UNITED NATIONS, N.Y., Feb. 7 (AP)}—Colman Von- keviezky, an employe in the U.N. Office of Public Infor- mation, proposed to Secre- tary-General U Thant today that members of the United Nations establish a network to observe flying saucers. Vonkeviczky, who , says | he believes someone in out- A-11 er space is sending flying saucers regularly on test flights to earth, | He told Thant only the | United Nations could be ex- | pected to have sufficient authority to establish con- | tact or represent mankind | in a_ face-to-face meeting | with extraterrestrial visi- | tors. STRANGE “OVER A-2 \ss Angeles Heral There was something over f Mount Wilson early today but hit didn’t catch the entire city napping. (1) Police and newspaper switchboards were flooded with calls describing the object variously as a “puff,” a “greenish ball,” a “flat oval green object with a long tail and a light at the end.” 4 a.m. and remained in view for about half an hour. A ‘similar fireball was sighted about the same time from Sacramento and from Vanderberg Air Force Base, it was reported. Vandenberg reported no launches during the preceding 24 hours which might account for the phe- nomenon and said radar It was first sighted about OBJECT | there picked up “no unust- al activity” during the peri- od. An Air Force spokesman at Vandenberg said the Air Force's “Project Blue Book” office in Washington was investigating. An. observer at Mather Air Force Base near Sacra- mentotheorized that the ob- ject may have been gas res idue left from Nevada missile firings which re- | flected light. Sgt. David Tellotson, of Hollywood division, said the object here appeared to be over Griffith Park. “It was a bright green splotch, elon- gated, and not blinking,” he said. The only solid fact emerg- ing: A lot of people.are up at 4 am. SS