Structure—Unknown. A saucer may be visible or invisible to the observer; visible to the human eye but not to the camera or radar; visible to the camera or radar but not to the eye. Some obey the laws of gravity and inertia, others do not.
Purpose—Unknown. No officials in the government, the press, the churches, or the universities have received any attempt at communication. No saucer has produced intelligible visible, audible, or radio signals.
Long before finishing this tabulation the investigator realizes that he is not dealing with one thing but with many. No single phenomenon could possibly display such infinite variety. However, before he starts trying to classify the descriptions and to explain them, he takes a look at the second class of material—the conclusions offered by saucer enthusiasts. Leaving the realm of observation for that of interpretation, he is suddenly catapulted into a world of fantasy.
A “Baedeker’s Guide” to Saucerdom
One of the commonest themes in science fiction is that of parallel universes—a number of nearly identical worlds coexisting in alternate space-time continua. Occasionally, at a vulnerable spot, the barrier between two of these worlds will dissolve so that they overlap near the point of contact. After such an accident a man may find himself unhappily living two lives at once, identical in some ways but so different in others that if one is real, the other cannot be. Until the break is repaired and the incompatible worlds are safely separated once more, the man exists in a state of desperate confusion and performs agonizing mental acrobatics, trying to maintain a foothold in both worlds until he can decide which one is valid.
From the “damned” phenomena collected by Charles Fort, plus the legends of Atlantis, Mu, and Lemuria, flying-saucer addicts have constructed a multiplicity of such alternate worlds. Although they differ in minor ways, all are in direct conflict with the real world known to science. Let us ignore, for the moment, the descriptions given by the “contactees” ([Chapter X]) and consider only the beliefs and/or theories offered by serious proponents of the interplanetary theory and publicized by writers such as Donald E. Keyhoe[[I-3], [I-4], [I-5]] Aimé Michel[[I-6]], and Morris K. Jessup[[I-7]]. A “Baedeker’s Guide” to saucerdom based solely on statements and speculations in the books published by these investigators would portray a fantastic universe:[[A]]
[[A]] Following common practice in scientific discussion, we originally included the specific sources of important and/or controversial ideas described in this book and, for maximum accuracy, often used the original phrasing of the several authors involved. In this and certain other sections, however, we have been forced to abandon the more scholarly method of presentation because one author (Major Donald E. Keyhoe) refused permission to quote from his works.
“In saucerdom, alien spacecraft continually visit the earth and have done so for centuries. Constructed and controlled by intelligent extraterrestrial beings, the craft perhaps come from secret bases on artificial earth satellites; on the moon; on Mars; on Venus; on Jupiter; perhaps on the planets supposed to be orbiting the binary stars 61 Cygni and 70 Ophiuchi; or from planets supposed to be in orbit around the stars Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, about eleven light-years distant from earth. Radio transmitters serving as beacons for space navigation may exist on both Venus and Jupiter.
“These spacecraft can perform maneuvers that, on earth, are possible only for rays of light. They fly at speeds of many thousands of miles an hour, can reverse direction instantaneously at any speed, ascend or descend vertically, and hover motionless in the air. They accomplish these feats perhaps by using the power of cosmic rays and by generating and manipulating artificial gravitational fields, which they could also use to prevent the transmission of sound waves and to become invisible.
“The extraterrestrial visitors may be explorers sent to study the earth, descendants of a race living thousands of light-years away from the solar system. They may be the ancestors of the human race, which itself is a remnant of a colony established on earth thousands of years ago and then abandoned. More than 300,000 years ago the inhabitants of earth had found the secret of space travel, and human beings mapped the earth by an aerial survey at least 5000 years ago. It is also possible that these craft come not from space but from time; they may be earthmen of the future who have traveled backward through time to explore their own past.