Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Something Mediocre about UFOs

Hello folks, from Wheeling West Virginia. I've pieced together a rudimentary system and an even more rudimentary thought, but I felt I should share this small information since it's all I have acquired to date. [the time and transformation hassle has been pretty intense]. What I have to offer is about as bad as the movie featured above, so caveat emptor. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I have to tell comes from reading the first two copies of the Flying Saucer Review, published in 1955. [as some of you know, I'm going to try to get through about 30 years of it, logging as I go]. What I found was a magazine just getting started--big surprise, eh? That meant that it wasn't as exciting as what it became--but I'll give you the highlights. The best case [probably] was in Vol.1 #2. A Swiss Lady of Peseux saw, at about 8am, an oval, colored like gray steel, only 400-to-500 yards away. There was an extremely bright "neon" beam of light at one end. She had her senses and called several witnesses, even telephoning her husband, a Swiss army officer. All these people saw what she saw, with her husband watching through binoculars from a different location. He telephoned the Neuchatel Observatory which said that they thought it might have been a balloon. None of the observers bought that. From both ends of the oval came jets of smoke, and, becoming brighter as it went, it shot away into space. The husband estimated the size of the object at between 350 and 500 feet in length. Something about the "force" which emanated from the object affected the lady for three days. [details of that aspect of this were not mentioned]. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Also in this early FSR was a short article by Dr. Hermann Oberth, pictured in the front middle, above, with his most famous student, Werner von Braun, over his left shoulder. [the other gentlemen were the leaders of the early US rocket experiments in the 1950s.]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oberth's article isn't attributed but FSR printed it anyway. In the text, he remarks about alleged ancient sightings, the claims of thousands of sightings in modern times [made by British air Marshall Dowding], the claims of Adamski [not believed] and the claims of Keyhoe [believed]. Oberth was obviously VERY interested and well read. He said that although some claims are false, each one should be reviewed with an open mind. He specifically applied that mantra to photographs. He runs down through the gamut of IFO explanations, and finds that even as a group they are insufficient to explain the cases. He felt that perhaps 9% of the case pile was Unknown. Because in his view the saucers seem to be able to counteract gravity AND because they are too error-free to be a recent invention, they must be the product of an extraterrestrial technology. He nick-named the ETH the "Uraniden hypothesis" after the gods of the skies ["Uranos"]. Asked why the drivers didn't stop to say hello, he replied that we were probably not worth their time. ---------The picture above shows Oberth immediately thereafter with von Braun for an advisory stint with the US rocket research group at Huntsville. We don't really know what Werner thought of all this, but we do know that many at Huntsville were interested in the UFOs.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another story in these first two FSRs was the mention of the British media star, Hughie Green's, mention that in 1947 he was driving across the US, when [250 miles out of Philadelphia] he heard a radio report that a saucer had crashed in New Mexico and that the Army Air Force was investigating. for a while several mentions of the story were made. A soon-to-follow bulletin was promised, and then the news went silent on the story. Several Philadelphia newspapers were purchased but none covered it. The radio stations would give him no information. This was one of the early Roswell leaky mysteries and Green never forgot it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Another article was by Carl Jung.[pictured with this part of the post]. This was a translation from the Swiss journal, Courier Interplanetaire, by the same group who had investigated the Peseux case above. In the article Jung reveals that he has been collecting UFO reports for years. He is certain that UFOs are a real anomalous [i.e. unexplained] phenomenon. The first thing that he rejects is that these experiences are some psychological abnormality in people. He states that the cases point to a "natural" [i.e. not only "mental"] phenomenon, and quite physical. He blasts Menzel's technique of "explaining" things by dropping out that which doesn't fit the explanation. He does wonder about the cases where things emerge from the sea or even the ground, and whether these might be novel natural forces or cousins of ball-lightning, but comes down most positively on the possibility of extraterrestrials. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jung is not sanguine about the ETH however. He goes on to make his famous analysis about superior civilizations essentially ending the self-motivated progress of the inferior one---the "stealing of one's dreams". Our science and technology would be "consigned to the scrap heap" and the impact of this "on the moral plane" could not be predicted. He felt that the only thing that authorities could do "if we wish to avoid such a catastrophe [would be that] the authorities in possession of important information should not hesitate to enlighten the public as soon and as completely as possible and should, above all, stop these ridiculous antics of mysteries and vague allusions." The Air Force's policy of secrecy which left the dragging out of information to the press, was the worst policy imaginable in Jung's view. ---------------------What was of most interest to me about all this was that two of our great independent thinkers [Oberth and Jung] had gotten so interested in UFOs that they had made big efforts to study what they could about them, and came to the same conclusions from their widely different trainings: the UFOs are real, and they are not made by "us". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Best I can do at the moment, folks. Things here are confused yet and very tiring. I'll get back to you when I can.

6 comments:

  1. Hello, prof.

    Is it possible to identify the magazine at which the dozen scientists are guffawing?

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  2. To Richard: I don't know what it is.The picture is a 1955 photo. At the time von Braun himself was engaged in several media adventures and it could be something he himself was involved in. The picture says "book" for the object Oberth is holding, though that need not overly limit your exploration.

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  3. Thanks Prof. A good post methinks.
    I'm at a point where I'm only reading/processing/researching or trying to understand this topic by looking at the "old stuff". It seems easier to adjust the signal to noise ratio and find some meaning (Ok, meaning is probably way too strong a word) for this. Your blogs are a breath of fresh air.
    You should definitely write that book.....

    ReplyDelete
  4. 'Something about the "force" which emanated from the object affected the lady for three days.'

    As you relate, Prof, 'details of that aspect of this were not mentioned', and yet those details're are probably the key to this particular case, given how she was the only witness so severely affected.

    And of course 'three days' only refers to the overt effects the force had on her, when her bewilderment the world was no longer the place she thought it was made her temporarily incapable of pretending she was back to normal.

    I'm with MnDoc in that what you're doing here isn't mere rehashing or even recycling, but somewhat akin to a farmer turning over soil.

    For instance, last night I was reading a Live Science thing about researchers finding out the current model for the molecular structure of water may not be accurate but that earlier supposedly discredited ones may turn out after all to've been correct.

    Well, you're function in part is to say, "Hey, everyone, don't forget this stuff, it may actually contain solutions to some of the dead ends people seem to be running into."

    p.s. I'm rootin' for y'u, mate, an' sendin' you an' yours positive life enhancing vibes from the heart of Liverpool, UK, and while it's unlikely you may start mooin' like a cow, you might just suddenly get the urge to jump up an' roar, "Torres is King! LFC footy club forever! GOOOAAALLLLLL!!!"

    alanborky

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  5. If Oberth is the man holding the magazine, von Braun is seated to his left, not standing behind his left shoulder.

    ReplyDelete
  6. To Borky: thanks for the vibes. I like the 'turning the soil" image. ----------------------------------------------------------------Now, to Nick Jones: now why would you be motivated to write what you did? For the first part, the over the left shoulder thing refers to the other picture--obviously, I might add. But more importantly: what in the h___ motivates a person to throw out a comment with such coldness? Especially when one hasn't even taken time to accurately read the post? It has a bad feeling to it, and I would suggest beginning to interact with this blog as would a friend--correct things yes--rush to criticize, no. We're not in the beat-on-people mode here.

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