Except for the Sebago, no radar reported the presence of a UFO.
Moonwatch teams, trained specifically to detect, observe, and plot the exact path of moving objects in the sky, were on the alert that week all over the United States and Canada. They did not see even one unidentified flying object.
“G-Fields” and UFO Propulsion
Even more fantastic than the E-M force that stops cars and silences radios is the artificial gravitational field or “G-field,” which saucer enthusiasts call on to account for all UFOs whose reported behavior clearly contradicts the laws of physics. Employing electromagnetic forces, the UFOs supposedly can create a variety of G-fields as needed, to be used as a defense weapon, a means to invisibility, or a method of propulsion[[IX-18], [IX-19]].
Writers of science fiction have regularly utilized similar handy expedients such as “gravity shields,” “force fields,” “inertia drives,” and “space warps” to move their heroes quickly from earth to remote parts of the galaxy. Physicists, too, dream of revealing new aspects of nature that would allow man to nullify the effects of gravity and make short cuts through space, but they realize that such devices, even if theoretically not impossible, must await unimaginable discoveries about nature and are at least far in the future.
Unlike the amateur investigator of UFOs, both the storyteller and the physicist know that if and when such advances are made, they will enlarge our understanding of the cosmos, as did the creative insights of Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, but new discoveries cannot invalidate what we have already learned about how the universe works. Many of the properties ascribed to UFOs imply a complete breakdown of physical law. They belong to the realm of magic, not science. Traveling at speeds approaching the velocity of light, reversing direction instantaneously, achieving maximum acceleration or deceleration in a fraction of a second, becoming invisible at will—such feats are impossible for a solid body moving either in an atmosphere or in space. Most of the serious proponents of the saucer hypothesis acknowledge that such actions are impossible, according to our present knowledge, but they argue that alien races more advanced than earthmen have undoubtedly found new sources of power and developed new methods of propulsion. Elaborate theories have been constructed, phrased in nearly incomprehensible scientific jargon, to show that UFOs do not flout the laws of physics but merely operate under laws that are still unknown to human beings.
To UFO investigators whose professional training lies chiefly in fields other than physics—business, the arts, entertainment, military science, government, the law, medicine, or religion—such theories might well seem plausible. But to the physicist they seem so irrational that they do not even deserve discussion, and he dismisses them as nonsense. Saucer believers thereupon denounce the physicist as a bigot, complain of his “closed mind,” and piously invoke the ghost of Galileo. They forget, apparently, that the persecutors of Galileo were specialists in theology and had only a nodding acquaintance with astronomy.
One of the earliest theories of UFO propulsion suggested that saucers got their motive power by tapping the lines of force in the earth’s magnetic field. One author wrote:
“The earth being simply a huge magnet, a dynamo wound with magnetic lines of force as its coils, tenescopically [the meaning of this impressive word is unknown to the present authors] counted to be 1,257 to the square centimeter in one direction and 1,850 to the square centimeter in the other direction (eddy currents), indicates that natural law has placed these lines as close together as the hairs on one’s head. And yet they never touch or cross each other if let alone. If done so by accident the catastrophe would spread like a searchlight and destroy everything in its path.”[[IX-20], p. 139]
The same author asserts that such a “catastrophe” is the true explanation of Mantell’s death ([p. 33]). Supposedly objecting to his close approach, the occupants of the saucer he was chasing manipulated some of the lines of force until they crossed in front of Mantell; the resulting surge of power knocked the plane out of the air. Under some conditions, he adds, the crossing of the lines can produce desirable effects, such as the Aurora Borealis, when “we have magnetic lines of force that are crossing one another at or near the geographic and the magnetic poles and as a result we see those beautiful colored lights.”[[IX-20], p. 141]