The World of Flying Saucers: A Scientific Examination of a Major Myth of the Space Age

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The World of Flying Saucers
A SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION OF A MAJOR MYTH OF THE SPACE AGE
Donald H. Menzel AND Lyle G. Boyd
DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC., GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 63-12989 Copyright © 1963 by Donald H. Menzel and Lyle G. Boyd All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America
To Fred L. Whipple, whose studies have added much to our knowledge of meteors—which have furnished more than their share of UFOs.
Drawings by Cushing and Nevell
Both as scientists and as devotees of science fiction, we have long been interested in space travel. When reports of unidentified flying objects began to increase in the years between 1947 and 1952, one of us (D.H.M.) collected and studied the limited information available about the sightings. He soon concluded (with a slight feeling of disappointment!) that the flying saucers were not vehicles from other worlds but were only mundane objects and events of various kinds, some of them commonplace, some familiar chiefly to meteorologists, physicists, and astronomers.
At a conference with Air Force officials in Washington in April 1952, he presented his idea that planetary mirages, sundogs, reflections, and other astronomical, atmospheric, and optical phenomena probably accounted for a large percentage of the mysterious UFOs. This suggestion met with strong skepticism from some of the conferees who at that time were sympathetic to the interplanetary hypothesis and were, of course, better acquainted with military than with physical science. Other conferees, however, wished to consider and test the theories offered. Proof obviously required a knowledge of all the facts of a given sighting, facts that often were not available to the public. The Air Force therefore granted access to the file of UFO cases. At the same time, since many of the cases were then classified as secret, the Air Force imposed the condition that security regulations must be strictly observed.