Flying Saucers and Science: A Scientist Investigates the Mysteries of UFOs
320
Flying Saucers and Science: A Scientist Investigates the Mysteries of UFOs
320eBook
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Overview
In this comprehensive look at the scientific data concerning flying saucers, nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman distills more than forty years of research and explains it all in layman’s terms. He shows how travel to nearby stars is possible without violating the laws of physics, and examines data from a number of scientific UFO studies that nearly no one else has discussed in detail. Photographs of little-known advanced propulsion systems—some of which he worked on himself—are included as well.
Beyond his presentation of the scientific data, Friedman demonstrates that the United States government’s disinformation policy regarding UFOs amounts to nothing less than a Cosmic Watergate. He reveals the reasons for this cover-up, possible reasons for aliens to come to Earth, and their reasons for not landing on the White House lawn.
In this book, readers will discover:
- What type of energy and technologies could provide travel between the stars.
- The most likely regions of the universe to cultivate alien life.
- Why the aliens have come to Earth.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781601639790 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 04/17/2020 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| Sales rank: | 502,567 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Case for the ET Origin of Flying Saucers
One of the standard claims of UFO debunkers is that there is no evidence that any unidentified flying saucers (UFOs) are intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft. After all, they say, we have only anecdotes, usually from uneducated people looking for publicity. No scientists have seen UFOs; there are no radar cases; there is no physical evidence; governments can't keep secrets; all that crash landed at Roswell was an array of Mogul balloons; so on and so forth. As it happens, all of these claims are false. This chapter will replace these myths with the facts.
I start all of my "Flying Saucers ARE Real" lectures with these four conclusions, which I've reached after more than 50 years of study and investigation:
1. The evidence that planet Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft is overwhelming. In other words, some UFOs are ET spacecraft. Most are not — I don't care about them.
2. The subject of flying saucers represents a kind of Cosmic Watergate. That means that some few people in our government have known since at least 1947, when at least two crashed flying saucers and several alien bodies were recovered in New Mexico, that indeed some UFOs were alien spacecraft. This does not mean that everybody in the government knows. The way to keep secrets is to restrict their distribution to as few people as possible and stick by a strong need-to-know policy. (In Chapter 5 I will prove that there has been a cover-up.)
3. There are no good arguments against conclusions number 1 and 2, despite the very vocal claims of a small group of noisy negativists such as the late Carl Sagan, a classmate of mine for three years at the University of Chicago. The debunking claims sound great. However, once one examines the data, they collapse, because of an absence of evidence to support them, and the presence of evidence that contradicts them.
4. Flying saucers are the biggest story of the millennium: visits to planet Earth by alien spacecraft and the successful cover-up of the best data, bodies, and wreckage, for more than 60 years.
I will be focusing on evidence. I seldom use the term proof. Some people have insisted that if I can't provide a piece of a saucer or an alien body, there is nothing to support my claims. I was quite surprised during my last visit with Carl Sagan in December 1992, when he claimed that the essence of the scientific method was reproducibility. In actuality, as I wrote Sagan later on, there are at least four different kinds of science:
1. Yes, there is a lot of excellent science done by people who set up an experiment in which they can control all the variables and equipment. They make measurements and then publish their results, after peer review, and describe their equipment, instruments, and activity in detail so that others can duplicate the work and, presumably, come to the same conclusions. Such science can be very satisfying, and certainly can contribute to the advancement of knowledge. However, it is not the only kind of science.
2. A second kind of science involves situations in which one cannot control all the variables, but can predict some. For example, I cannot prove that on occasion the moon comes directly between the sun and the Earth and casts a shadow of darkness on the Earth, because I cannot control the positions of the Earth, moon, or sun. What can be done is predicting the times when such eclipses will happen and being ready to make observations when they occur. Hopefully the weather where I have my instruments will allow me to make lots of measurements.
3. A third kind of science involves events that can neither be predicted nor controlled, but one can be ready to make measurements if something does happen. For example, an array of seismographs can be established to allow measurements to be made at several locations in the event of an earthquake. When I was at the University of Chicago, a block of nuclear emulsion was attached to a large balloon that would be released when a radiation detector indicated that a solar storm had occurred (something we could neither produce nor predict). Somebody would rush to Stagg Field and release the balloon. When the balloon was retrieved, the emulsion would be carefully examined to measure the number, direction, velocity, and mass characteristics of particles unleashed by the sun.
4. Finally, there is a fourth kind of science, still using the rules to attack difficult problems. These are the events that involve intelligence, such as airplane crashes, murders, rapes, and automobile accidents. We do not know when or where they will occur, but we do know they will. In a typical year more than 40,000 Americans will be killed in automobile accidents. We don't know where or when, so rarely are TV cameras whirling when these events take place. But we can, after the fact, collect and evaluate evidence. We can determine if the driver had high levels of alcohol in his or her blood, whether the brakes failed, whether the visibility was poor, where a skid started, and so on. Observations of strange phenomena in the sky come under this last category.
In all the category-4 events, we must obtain as much testimony from witnesses as possible. Some testimony is worth more than other testimony, perhaps because of the duration of observation, the nearness of the witnesses to the event, the specialized training of the observer, the availability of corroborative evidence such as videos and still photos, or the consistency of evidence when there is testimony from more than one witness. Our entire legal system is based on testimony — rarely is there conclusive proof such as DNA matching. Judges and juries must decide, with appropriate cross-examination, who is telling the truth. In some states, testimony from one witness can lead to the death penalty for the accused.
We should take note of the fact that even instrument data is dependent on testimony from the observer of the instruments, and on appropriate calibration and validation under standardized circumstances. Also, our courts place limits on requirements for testimony, such as that against one spouse by the other. Furthermore, there are rules about hearsay testimony, and rules regarding legal evidence are complex and detailed.
When it comes to flying saucers, we must remember that the reason most sightings can be determined to be relatively conventional phenomena, often seen under unusual circumstances, is that most people are relatively good observers. The problem comes with the interpretation of what was observed. People watching the sky late at night may get excited about a very bright light that moved very slowly. Checking on the position of the planets at that time may reveal that that light was Venus, because we have good information as to the angle of observation, the direction of the light from the observer, the relatively slow rate of motion, the location of Venus at that time, and so on. On three occasions, when living in Southern California, I was called by people who described an unusual object moving rapidly. I tried to make sure that I analyzed their observations, such as, what time was it? In what direction were you looking? In what direction did it seem to be moving? Was there any sound? What was its apparent size, say, as compared to the moon (just covered by an aspirin held at arm's length)?
Two of the people wanted to tell me that the object was just over the next hill. I stressed that this was an interpretation, because even huge objects far away can seem to be small objects nearby. In all three cases, I felt that what was being described sounded similar to a rocket launched down the California Coast when the sun had gone down, but while the object was high enough to still be in sunlight. I had seen such a spectacular case once myself. I checked, in all three cases, with Vandenberg Air Force Base, which launches many rockets down the U.S. West Coast. Indeed, there had been a launch at the right time in each case. One case was especially intriguing, because several witnesses were looking out across the ocean from a beach area and described the thing they saw as similar to a string of popcorn. It turned out to be the launch of a special weather satellite with extra solid boosters being dropped off multiple times.
The people were good observers. To say the least, it would be irrational to say that people are good observers when their input allows us to identify the object being observed, and yet poor observers if we can't identify the UFO as something conventional.
Categories
Every UFO sighting can be placed in one of three groups:
A. Those reports of UFOs that eventually, after careful investigation, turn out to be identified flying objects (IFOs). This is by far the largest category. Subcategories include astronomical phenomena, aircraft, balloons, advertising planes, experimental aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, flocks of birds, and hoaxes.
B. Those reports of UFOs that provide insufficient data on which to base a conclusion. Sometimes for old reports, people aren't sure of the exact date and time, for example, or can't recall the direction of motion, or the color, and so on. Not much one can do with these.
C. The UNKNOWNS. These are reports by competent observers of strange objects in the sky or on the ground, which cannot be identified by the witness, and which remain unidentified after investigation by competent investigators, and whose appearance indicates that they were manufactured (this rules out most lights), and whose flight behavior indicates that they were made somewhere other than Earth. We Earthlings can't build things that look and act that way. If we could, we would, because of the military applications of such craft.
Remember that the question is not Are all UFOs alien spacecraft? The question is, Are any? As shall be seen, my answer is definitely yes. If you were to ask me, "Are any UFOs secret, government-sponsored research-and-development vehicles?" my answer would again be yes.
There are some logical traps awaiting the unwary here. Some people want to claim: "Isn't it reasonable to say that, if most UFOs can eventually be identified, all can be?" Think about that for a minute. Would it be reasonable to say that because most people are not 7 feet tall, no one is? Because most isotopes aren't fissionable, none are; because most people don't have AIDS, no one does; because most chemicals will not cure any diseases, none do? Obviously we learn, early on, to focus on the data relevant to the question at hand. The basketball coach is well aware that there are far more people shorter than 7 feet than those taller than 7 feet. But he knows there are some of the latter. When I was at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Dr. Selman Waksman of the microbiology department collected soil samples from all around the world seeking chemicals with anti-disease properties. One of his major discoveries, after checking on many thousands of soil cultures, was streptomycin, the first cure for tuberculosis.
He won the Nobel Prize in 1952 for that work. Other antibiotics were later found; most of the cultures were worthless. Gold miners know that ore is worth mining if there is a half-ounce of gold per ton of ore; that's less than .001 percent of the ore.
I learned early on, when working on designing and testing radiation shielding for aircraft nuclear propulsion systems and other compact nuclear reactors, that by far the majority of gamma rays and neutrons produced in the reactor get absorbed in the surrounding shielding material. But it is the tiny percentage that penetrates the shield that had to be my focus, if I wanted to protect crewmembers. It is the category-C cases that matter: The UNKNOWNS.
The problem then becomes finding the UNKNOWNS. Many books talk about individual cases; how can a reader evaluate them? There are tens of thousands of newspaper articles and videos about UFO cases, YouTube has loads of videos — the Internet is chock full of UFO-related material — much of which is worthless. But how can one evaluate this mass of uneven and usually uninvestigated cases? I think that, in general, the best place to search involves the several large-scale scientific studies ... almost never mentioned by the UFO debunkers.
Project Blue Book Special Report Number 14
The largest official scientific study of UFOs performed for the United States government was reported in Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14. The work was done by professional engineers and scientists at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. BMI is a highly respected research and development organization that does contract research for private and government groups. This study was the result of a contract with Project Blue Book, a USAF group at the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
The contracting agency has had many names throughout the years, including Air Technical Intelligence Center and Aerospace Technical Intelligence Center, and is now known as the National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC). Blue Book, in turn, was the continuation of Projects Sign and Grudge that had preceded it. At that time (mid-1950s) Project Blue Book was the only publicly acknowledged government group concerned with UFOs. We now know that there were others.
It was BMI's job to review all the UFO sightings in the Blue Book files for the period 1948 through 1953. Exactly 3,201 sighting reports were eventually categorized as something such as Astronomical, Balloon, Aircraft ... and UNKNOWN. Every report was also evaluated for quality: Excellent, Good, Doubtful, or Poor. Presumably, a sighting by a priest, a physicist, and a pilot, of something observed for 10 minutes from 50 feet away in daylight would have been considered a higher quality observation than a 4-second observation by the town drunk at 4 a.m. of a light zipping by in the sky. Obviously these are subjective judgments, but they are certainly meaningful. All sorts of data about each case (duration, speed, color, shape, and the like) was stored on punch cards so it could be sorted with the primitive computer systems then available.
The professionals who worked on the project established a number of sensible ground rules and definitions. For example, no sighting could be listed as an UNKNOWN unless all four Final Report evaluators agreed it was an UNKNOWN. Any two could label it as anything else.
The BBSR 14 definition for UNKNOWN (My category C) is: "This designation in the identification code was assigned to those reports of sightings wherein the description of the object and its maneuvers could not be fitted to the pattern of any known object or phenomenon."
Their definition of Insufficient Information (My category B) is: "This identification category was assigned to a report when, upon final consideration, there was some essential item of information missing, or there was enough doubt about what data were available to disallow identification as a common object or some natural phenomenon. It is emphasized that this category of identification was not used as a convenient way to dispose of what might be called 'poor unknowns,' but as a category for reports that, perhaps, could have been one of several known objects or natural phenomenon."
Psychological Manifestations: "This identification category was assigned to a report when, although it was well established that the observer had seen something, it was also obvious that the description of the sighting had been overdrawn. Religious fanaticism, a desire for publicity, or an overactive imagination were the most common mental aberrations causing this type of report." This includes the crackpot reports that so fascinate debunkers.
It is worthwhile to note that, before tabulating their findings, UFO debunkers have often made negative statements about UFO evidence, such as the following:
"The reliable cases are uninteresting and the interesting cases are unreliable. Unfortunately there are no cases that are both reliable and interesting."
— Dr. Carl Sagan, astronomer, Cornell University, Other Worlds
"Almost every sighting is either a mistake or a hoax. These reports are so riddled with hoaxes, and the flying saucer enthusiasts have so many cranks, freaks, and nuts among them that Hynek is constantly running the risk of innocently damaging his reputation by being confused with them."
— Dr. Isaac Asimov, author, "The Rocketing Dutchman," Fantasy and Science Fiction
"All non-explained sightings are from poor observers."
— Dr. Donald Menzel, astronomer, Harvard University, Physics Today
"The Unexplained sightings are simply those for which there is too little information to provide a solid factual basis for an explanation."
— Ben Bova, writer, editor, Analog
"The number of people believing in flying saucers remains at about 6 percent of the adult population, according to Gallup Polls."
— Science
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Flying Saucers and Science"
by .
Copyright © 2008 Stanton T. Friedman.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Forewords by Dr. Edgar Mitchell, ScD, and Dr. Bruce MacCabee, PhD,
Introduction,
Chapter 1: The Case for the ET Origin of Flying Saucers,
Chapter 2: You Can Get Here From There,
Chapter 3: From Where Do They Come?,
Chapter 4: The Cosmic Watergate,
Chapter 5: The Cult of SETI,
Chapter 6: The UFO "Why" Questions,
Chapter 7: Science, Science Fiction, and UFOs,
Chapter 8: UFOs and Public Opinion,
Chapter 9: Update on Crashed Saucers at Roswell,
Chapter 10: The Press and Flying Saucers,
Chapter 11: The Operation Majestic 12 Documents,
Conclusion: What Does It Matter?,
Bibliography,
Index,
About the Author,