THOUGH PERHAPS not too much thought has gone into the saying "nearer to church the further from God" (else how explain the piety of monks and nuns?), it-nevertheless happens that a hermit on a faraway hilltop sees more clearly into your windows now and then than your next door neighbor. Such an explanation of the vagaries of reflected light might explain also why it was not the Denver newspapers that gave the best report of what Scientist X had said to students of the University of Denver. The reflected prize for the best reporting would go to the Summerside Journal, a modest sized publication quartered on Prince Edward Island, Canada; between Newfoundland and New Brunswick at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.
This newspaper obviously got its story from a Denver correspondent, but it recapitulated what the speaker said so well that it's better than a transcript in helping readers arrive at an understanding of what went on that March afternoon.
A transcript of a speech doesn't necessarily leave the reader with a well-rounded picture of what happened. The reason for this is that when a man talks he is primarily appealing to the ears of his readers; when he writes he is appealing to their eyes. Therefore, a complete transcription such as The New York Times frequently employs would not necessarily be the truest picture of what a man said. It would certainly lack his emphasis, his gestures, and (in this case) his chalk sketches on the blackboard.
Basically, the questions brought to the surface by this mysterious talker at the University of Denver were: (1) had science really found flying saucers to be real, (;2) what did they consist of, and (3) where were they found?
A listener would like to know if the speaker thought the flying saucers had their origin on this earth. If they were, on the other hand, from another planet, what planet? Were they operated by pilots aboard them? And if by pilots, what were the appearance, size, coloring, age, clothes, and some of the other census-taking facts?
Did their knowledge of aerodynamics go deeper than ours would be another natural question.
In a fifty-minute address, it would be too much to expect any scientist to cover this whole field completely. At best he could subdivide the already divided camps between those who believed in flying saucers and those who disbelieved in them. He might reveal certain information along the way :fortifying the general suspicion that he was a man of education and standing in the community, that he was not only a man of science but of substance.
Well, he was saying, to begin with, that there is such a thing as a flying saucer. He was saying, moreover, that the Air Force, despite its announcement to the contrary, had not abandoned its Project Saucer, but was operating on another level and under possibly another name. He was saying that t four of these flying saucers had actually landed on this earth.
Three of the four, he added, had. been captured and had been inspected by men with whom he was currently identified in geophysical research. Thirty-four men, measuring between thirty-six inches to forty inches in height had been found dead in three of the saucers discovered.
The first saucer to land on this earth, he said, landed less than two years previous to his talk, "on a site within 500 miles of Denver."
The saucer not only didn't appear to come from any part of this earth, but the question of where it came from still remained unsolved. The best speculation, he added, was Venus, but he continued to stress the point that it was still a wide-open question.
Under research, he said, the materials used in the saucer had disclosed two metals unknown to us. This convinced him and his co-scientists that the saucers were not likely made by us or rival powers.
Found in the first space ship were instruments which seemingly measured lines of magnetic force. These instruments were a key to something which his group was still working on and believed when they solved it, they would have solved the whole problem of the propulsion of these saucers. He said such ships capable of traveling with the speed of light could leave such a planet as Venus, say, which is 161,000,000 miles from us when our orbits lie in extreme positions, and return to Venus in less than one hour.
According to the correspondent of the lecturer never identified himself speech was calculated, well thought enough for the slowest student to absorb and record.
There was no particular accent or diction which the correspondent could detect. The speaker used scientific terms and spoke with a familiarity of a man who knew many sciences. He repeatedly used the word "we" when referring to experiments being done on the strange crafts. He didn't associate himself with any particular experiment. He also indicated that a full disclosure of the government's interest in flying saucers, though officially denied at present, would be forthcoming in the not too distant future. He said the first disk that landed was 99.9 feet in diameter and had a cabin measuring 72 inches in height. The second measured 72 feet in diameter, the third, 36 feet. All measurements on the ships seemingly were divisible by nine, which may have been a clew that they used our system of measurement.
The disks, he explained had revolving rings of metal, in the center of which were the cabins. The cabins were geared to the disks, which revolved around the stabilized cabins. The gears, which had no lubrication, were of a gear ratio unfamiliar to our engineers. He thought they might have traveled by using the magnetic lines of force known to encircle planets of our solar system.
From its appearances the researchers assumed that the first saucer was capable of maneuvering in any given direction. Like helicopters, which these ships were not, they could be maneuvered to land anywhere. The smallest had a landing gear built like a tricycle of three metal balls, which could revolve in any direction.
Accepting the theory, which he did, that the craft could operate by harnessing magnetic lines of force, he said it was entirely logical to assume these saucers could travel up to virtually unlimited speed-at least up to 186,000 miles per second the speed of light-in this atmosphere, and where there was no gravitational or wind resistance it would be impossible to compute how fast they could travel.
Sixteen men, ranging in ages, he would guess, from thirty-five to forty years old, if we use our calendar of time, were taken dead from the first craft. Their bodies had been charred to a dark brown color.
Sixteen dead men were also found in the second craft. These, however, had not suffered from burns apparently, and were all of fair complexion. Otherwise they were like the first space travelers-of small stature. No different from us, except for height, and lack of beards. Some had a fine growth resembling peach fuzz.
The third ship was also manned and the men in it were also dead. This one, a small saucer, 36 feet in diameter, had a crew of only two. These men had lived to land, because they had died while attempting to climb out of their cabin.
Those connected with the research, the speaker said, believed that all three craft landed under the guidance of their own instruments and did not crash, despite the fact that their crews were dead. They may have landed on instruments or they may have been guided the whole distance. But they did not crash and in only one ship was there any mark of imperfection.
In construction, they were quite dissimilar to anything we have designed. There was not a rivet, nor a bolt, nor a screw in any of the ships. Their control boards were a series of push buttons. Their outer construction was of a light metal much resembling aluminum but so hard no application of heat could break it down.
There was no reference to the means of propulsion beyond that the craft presumably operated on lines of magnetic force and the designers had conquered the problem of how to switch from Venus (which is positive) to this earth (which is positive), and therefore repel each other.
The ships carried no weapons, and the speaker assumed that they had solved the problem of disintegrating an object which might pursue or threaten them.
He gave details of the water and food found on the board the saucers. He also told of sleeping accommodations on one craft that had wall-enclosed bunks which could not be seen when closed and ingeniously disappeared in the curtains when open.
As he neared the end of his lecture he told of the discovery of a fourth saucer which members of his group stumbled on near a government proving ground. It was unoccupied at the moment.
The scientists returned to their car for cameras and equipment and as they neared the ship they saw several little men hop into the saucer, and the ship just disappeared like one of those hallucinations we hear so much about.
At no time did the speaker indicate where the ships disappeared to after being broken up for research. Nor did he give any clew as to what happened to the bodies of the 34 men found dead in the first three saucers. "He said simply," concluded the reporter for the Summerside Journal, `There is a flying saucer.' "
He might have added for the benefit of any eavesdroppers scouting for the Air Force that the ships were as real as the planes over Pearl Harbor, which the Air Force never saw either. He might have, but he refrained.
Comparing this news summary with an actual transcript of the lecture, the reporter for the Summerside journal comes out with flying colors. That he skipped such technical matters as the speaker's reference to William Gilbert-(1544-1603)-as the father of magnetism, and other milestones, such as July 16, 1945, at 5:30 A.M. when the atomic age was born at Alamagordo, New Mexico, and Max Planck's theories advanced in 1903 when he was professor at the University of Berlin is not important. Tying all these things to the age of the flying saucers was part of the speaker's general introduction.
He drew four designs on the blackboard. One showed the "System of Nines," believed to have been used in constructing the saucers. Two others showed two views of the saucer, which was 99.99 feet in diameter, 18 feet across the cabin and a clearance of 45 inches above the rim for pilots to see what might be around them. The design looked very much like the photographs taken by Paul Trent of McMinnville, Oregon, and published in the June 26, 1950 issue of Life. The fourth design showed how magnetic lines of force travel from the sun to the various planets, particularly to the earth and to Venus.
After his lecture had caused such a stir, the chalked designs were preserved by lacquer, and unless the lacquer has been removed are there to this day.
The reporter missed too that the space ships apparently had no doors, no exits. They did, however, have portholes. One was broken and it had a hole about the thickness of a pencil. Through this had rushed either gases or air with such speed that it burned the 16 passengers inside to a brown crisp.
The speaker made it quite clear both in the transcript and subsequent fireside chats at my home that the passengers, although approximately 40 inches tall were not midgets. They had no bad teeth, no fillings. They all wore a sort of uniform but there were no insignia on collars or caps.
There were two or three instruments which the scientists judged to be timepieces. It took 29 days for the instrument to make a complete circumference. This was their first clew that there might be something between the ship's means of propulsion and magnetism, because a magnetic day is 23 hours and 58 minutes, which works out at 29 days for a magnetic month.
Another thing the reporter missed, one that was really significant, was the speaker's solution as to what happened to Captain Thomas F. Mantell. This case had been hashed and rehashed many times, but never once had anybody come near a remotely plausible solution as to what happened to Mantell and his plane.
All reports agreed that on January 7, 1948, an unidentified object was sighted over Godman Air Force base, Fort Knox, Kentucky, by both military and civilian observers. Four national guardsmen in F 51's, flying in the vicinity, were requested by the Godman control tower operator to investigate the foreign object. Three of the planes closed in and reported that it was metallic and of tremendous size. One pilot described it as "round like a teardrop and fluid."
Captain Mantell contacted Godman tower and reported the object was traveling at half his speed at 12 o'clock high. "I'm closing in now to take a good look," he said. "It's directly ahead of me and still moving at about half my speed. The thing looks metallic and of tremendous size&It's going up now and forward as fast as I am. That's 360 m.p.h&I'm going up to 20,000 feet and if I'm no closer, I'll abandon chase."
The time was 3:15 P.M. January 7, 1948. That was the last radio contact by Mantell with the Godman Tower.
Five minutes after Mantell's disappearance from the formation the two remaining planes returned to Godman Field. One of them refueled and equipped himself with oxygen. He covered the territory for 100 miles and climbed as high as 30,000 feet, but found nothing.
Later that day Mantell's body was found in the wreckage of his plane near Fort Knox.
Much of the magic, the scientist explained, which has baffled both trained and untrained observers, is not magic at all. A good deal of what is claimed to have happened to ships in the air, such as disintegration, suspension for a period of time, immobilization of their instrument boards, and such can be duplicated in the laboratory. Mantell's plane and every portion of his plane from the motor to the tips of the wings hung together by reason of magnetic frequency. This was true of even Mantell himself. Therefore all that a flying saucer had to do to disintegrate Mantell's plane, the lecturer revealed, was to demagnetize it.
No two lines have ever been known to cross each other naturally. If forced to do so, or if crossed by "accident" you get disintegration and fire.
Anybody who could create such a magnetic disturbance could wipe out every living thing on this earth in a second.
This, then was the magnetic research scientist's explanation as to what happened to Captain Mantell and his ship. The captain was proving a source of annoyance in his pursuit of a magnetically controlled flying saucer. A button was pushed and Mantel] and his plane were no more.
Another thing the speaker pointed out that should have been of more durable interest was that the water on the flying saucer was almost twice as heavy as our drinking water. It was carried in two small containers and was very similar in fact to the heavy water the Nazis wanted so badly from Norway in their haste to be the first to make an atomic bomb.
The little wafers, apparently the food supply, were so condensed that when one was put in a gallon of water it swelled up and overflowed. It was fed to guinea pigs and they thrived on it.
From the outside the whole cabin of the first flying saucer examined seemed hermetically sealed and if it had not been for that break in one of the portholes the researchers might have spent months getting into the ship. But from the inside there was a visible knob in the wall and on the knob was another smaller knob. When the smallest knob was pushed the door flew open, but once it was shut again it was impossible to see the door from the outside.
This at least is the official opinion of the Air Materiel Command. According to them, subsequent investigation revealed that Mantell had probably blacked out at 20,000 feet from lack of oxygen and that the mysterious object which he chased to his death was the planet Venus.
"However," the report continued, "further probing showed the elevation and azimuth reading of Venus and the objects specified time intervals did not coincide."
The object, in fact, is still considered "unidentified," and as far as is known has never been identified or cleared up by the Air Force to this day.
But the speaker in Denver cleared it up to the satisfaction of many. He first prepared his hearers by explaining that members of his group had been engaged in government research since 1942. At least 1,700 scientists were involved in top secret projects. They had worked together for five years and had found out more about magnetism in those five years than the whole world had been able to do in centuries previous.
They had come to the conclusion that everything existing owed its shape and being to magnetic lines of force. He explained there are 1,257 magnetic lines of force to the square centimeter. That is to say, to about a half inch.
Around certain areas of this earth are places known to have magnetic fault zones. Here blow-outs occur, similar to the perpetual eddying of the waters around Cape Hatteras. On this continent areas around the states of Oregon and New Mexico are known to have these sort of faultings.
If the saucers fly on these magnetic waves and have an intelligence operating them (like ours or even superior to ours) it follows that they would show a curiosity about areas that were troublesome. Also atomic explosions might disturb magnetic lines of force and certainly be not unknown to their instruments.
This could explain their frequent appearances over areas like the White Sands Proving Ground. Since the air is so much clearer in Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas it obviously is easier for land-based observers to spot them.
It had not yet been determined what the two materials found on the ship were. Heat had not been able to melt one down, not even up to 10,000 degrees. It was strong it was light. A dozen men could stand on it and not dent it; two men could raise up one end of the ship, it was that light.
More than 150 experiments had been tried to break down the gear structure of the ship, with no success It was hard and of a ratio different from the Swedish system which we employ. Instead of being three to five it was three to six, giving no allowance for lubrication or play or wear expansion under heat. The speaker said that one ship had defied all effort to get inside of it, despite the use of $35,000 worth of diamond drills.
Though the 72-foot ship had sleeping quarters and even a toilet, the third ship had neither of these features. The latter was piloted by two little men, who sat on bucket seats in front of a control board which was entirely manipulated by push buttons. One, when found, was halfway out of is cabin. The other was sitting with his head on his chest; both dead.
It was the little ship that had the three-point landing gear. The locomotion was not on wheels but steel-looking balls. If all the balls were spinning in the same direction, any number of men could not tilt the ship. However, if the were no movement to the steel balls, a child could tilt the disk ship. This helped to convince the researchers that magnetic laws were involved. The speaker guessed that the two-seater must have been a later model, based and built on the knowledge that the trip from wherever they came and back did not require sleeping accommodations nor toilets, any more than automobiles require them on this earth.
Certainly any flying saucer which cod travel from the planet Venus, say, to this earth and back in an hour would have no need for overnight bags.
The speaker also said that the thread used to sew the buttons on the jackets of these men had been tested, and it took 450 pounds of weight to break the thread.
This was the lecturer's story. Later we will get to Dr. Gee's own story, but I have a story to tell, too. And after me the Air Force has its story, for in this court all will get a hearing.