Oberth, Hermann
: The American Weekly, pp. 4-5,
: The American Weekly, pp. 4-5, : The American Weekly, pp. 4-5, And he thinks their intelligent passengers have been observing us for centuries
It is my thesis that flying saucers are real and that they are space ships from another solar system.
I think that they possibly are manned by intelligent observers who are members of a race that may have been investigating our earth for centuries.
I think that they possibly have been sent out to conduct systematic, long-range investigations, first of men, animals and vegetation, and more recently of atomic centers, armaments and centers of armament production.
They obviously have not come as invaders, but I believe their present mission may be one of scientific investigation.
After all the official inquiries into the mystery of flying saucers, the fact remains that many of the observed effects still are formally described by the United States Air Force as "Unidentified Flying Objects." Many theories, therefore, are being suggested as an explanation of why the saucers cannot be real.
Some of those who have seen saucers are said to have been self-hypnotized. Others are said to have been the victims of optical illusion, light aberrations or mass hallucination.
Russian papers even have claimed that the United States Air Force purposely started the
big saucer bluff
to obtain more funds for space research and armament.
No proof of this, either, has ever been offered.
The radar screen often has confirmed the fact that observed phenomena were not light aberrations. Any experienced pilot ought to be able to distinguish the difference between optical illusions and real flying objects.
Attempts to explain the phenomena as fireballs or meteors no not meet scientific standards.
Speculations that the saucers are secret American or Russian missiles have been supported by no facts. Any man-made object flying faster than sound would cause a tremendous noise when breaking the supersonic speed barrier, while most eyewitnesses report that the saucers they have observed, unlike jets, fly silently.
Far too many observations of saucers have been made between en and en for their presence to be dismissed merely by the statement that the observers have been the subjects of mass hallucination.
I have examined all of the arguments supporting the existence of flying saucers and denying it, and it is my conclusion that the Unidentified Flying Objects do exist, are very real and are visitors from outer space.
While believing that the saucers are a reality, I do not conclude, as some investigators have, that they come to us from one of the other planets in our own solar system. It is my theory that they are directed by living beings from another solar system, or more than one other solar system, and I call this race of visitors "Uranides." I have taken the liberty of making up the word from the Greek word for heaven, "ouranos".
We know too much about conditions on our neighboring planets in our our own solar system for us to argue successfully that the saucers can come from one of them. The only one that seems to be fostering life, even in the form of plan growth, is Mars, and its surface is not habitable by any creatures that we can imagine as having a brain more highly developed than our own, or a culture immensely broader than ours.
With the planets or our own sun system ruled out, I suggest that the home base of the saucers may be a planet, or planets, revolving around another sun, or suns. Probably this other sun—or star—is one of those nearest to our own sun, which of course is a star.
Despite the immense distance between our own solar system (including the earth) and the nearest other solar systems, a journey from one system to another is theoretically possible, once an unlimited source of power is developed.
I do not, however, believe reports that some saucers are manned by beings resembling men, although we can not prove this is untrue. I do not believe the visitors resemble any living beings known to us. Even if they came from a carbonate acid atmosphere and, in our eyes, might be the strangest creatures ever imagined, they still could, theoretically, think logically and develop a highly superior civilization.
Reports that saucer men have been seen who are beautiful, human-like beings
have no factual support, I think,
and probably that is fortunate for us. Creatures who could move around in our atmosphere without a kind of diver's
outfit might be able to settle here. It is more comfortable for us to speculate that saucer men come from an
atmosphere far different from our own and are so outlandish in appearance that they do not resemble us at all.
If they do come from a quite different atmosphere, they might find it as difficult to exist on earth as we could find it difficult to exist at the bottom of the sea.
The Uranides, I think, have been examining the earth for centuries. People call their craft flying saucers and say that the phenomenon is new. It's far from that, for as long ago as le , there was evidence that we on earth were being visited by travelers that seemed to come from space.
Observers then reported that strange globes of light
maneuvred over Florence, Italy,
and there were similar reports from Switzerland on le . In
London on le , and elsewhere in England in en , en ,
en and en , the same kind of lights were seen aloft as the kind we now speak of as
flying saucers. They buzzed Bloomington, Indiana,
on le , ships in the Yellow Sea in en , and ships in the
Atlantic in en .
Why, then, if space creatures have been coming to us for a long time, have they not communicated with us? I believe the reason lies in the conclusion that, just as we do not know anything about their sense organism, they do not know anything about ours.
It is possible that they would react to rays still unknown to us. Perhaps they are trying to reach us with a ray unknown to us. We can only wait. For their means of communication may be anything from a ray to para-psychological power revealed to us occasionally in human manifestations of telepathy.
Just as a starter, we might try to communicate with them by radio signal. Mathematical symbols might be interpreted by them. A mutual mathematical understanding might be the forerunner of written words and sounds.
We may be sure that they are not slow-thinking. Their intellectual powers, no matter how strange the creatures' appearance may be, are great. I believe they are demonstrating this by bridging the space between their planetary home stations in a distant solar system and our own.
To come to us from that vast distance they may have achieved the dream of human astronauts. That is, they have been able to travel almost at the speed of light. This seems to us, now, almost at the speed of light. This seems to us, now, almost as far beyond our means as our own present rockets would have been beyond the ability of men who made the first steam engines. Yet we speculate about ways to reach the stars and the Uranides, long ago having passed the stage of speculation, apparently have reached one. That is, having left their own star, or sun, they have come to our own sun, and its planet, the earth.
Our own mathematical theorists believe that one way in which this could be done, if unlimited power were available, would be through an achievement of a kind of suspended animation on the part of the travelers. Medical science might make this possible. Travelers not only would think of a long trip through space as a short one but, once it was finished, they would know, also, their physical and chemical processes had been slowed down almost to a stop.
They would think of the trip as short because if they moved at almost the speed of light, there would be what might be called a "contraction" of time. Mathematicians, expert in relativity, believe they can demonstrate this. They say that if one were to travel at immense speed, months might seem like minutes. This is, of course, theory. It is apart from what I think of a reasonable demonstration of something observed.
The thing observed is called a flying saucer and it is my thesis that flying saucers are space ships coming here—in one way or another—from outside our solar system.
While we are trying to hasten the day when we can send a ship to one of our sister planets in our own planetary system—our own solar system—the Uranides have got the jump on us. They have broken free of their planetary system far, far away and have come to us.
How can we turn their venture to our own profit? If we can make them understand some kind of message, we should welcome them. We should try by every scientific means that seems feasible to get into contact with them.
Perhaps they can disclose to us secrets that otherwise we might not lay bare in a hundred thousand years.