To the physicist, these statements are an unsavory verbal hash. Lines of force cannot provide a source of power and they cannot cause explosions—they are not even real. Created merely to describe the behavior of magnetic fields, they have no more objective existence than a train of thought. By using the convenient fiction that lines of force emerge from the north magnetic pole, spread apart as they flow around the earth, and then crowd close together again as they enter the south magnetic pole, the physicist is able to map observed variations in the earth’s magnetic field. In a similar way the geographer uses contour lines to map high and low areas on the earth’s surface.
A spacecraft could not propel itself by hitching to magnetic lines of force any more than a man could travel from Philadelphia to Peru by sliding down the 75th line of longitude.
The more sophisticated students of UFO behavior do not propose magnetic lines of force as a source of power. In fact they skip lightly over the awkward question of how the saucers are propelled and vaguely assert that extraterrestrial vehicles obtain energy (apparently without doing equivalent work) by somehow plugging in to the cosmic rays and magnetic fields that exist in space. Thus having access to unlimited power, a saucer supposedly draws on E-M forces to create and enclose itself in a kind of cocoon of artificial gravity. This G-field cuts off the attraction of the earth and other heavenly bodies, enables the saucer to attract or repel any approaching object, and allows it to travel almost as fast as light without suffering an increase in mass or a transformation into energy[IX-18].
The G-Field Myth
To explain the alleged properties and behavior of flying saucers, a variety of speculations have been published on the nature and operation of the G-field[[IX-18], [IX-19], [IX-21]]. In the physicist’s view, most of these ideas belong more to the realm of magic than of science but we shall summarize them briefly, with a few parenthetical comments.
A UFO supposedly can travel at speeds of thousands of miles an hour and shatter the sound barrier without making any noise because the G-field would create a kind of protective envelope around the saucer. But if the G-field breaks down for any reason, so that the protective envelope is opened, then the ionized moving air hits ordinary static air and creates the thunderous detonation produced by some UFOs. (Even with an intact G-field, a boundary or gradient would always exist somewhere between the air that was dragged along by the saucer and the air that was not. A thunderous impact would certainly occur at this barrier.)
The “invisible” UFOs supposedly become so by using the G-field to bend or deflect rays of light. (It is true that starlight passing near the sun’s gravitational field suffers a deflection that makes the star appear slightly displaced from its actual position on the celestial sphere, but a shift in apparent location does not dim a star and does not make it invisible. Furthermore the amount of deflection is only 1.75 seconds of arc, less than half of a thousandth of a degree! To produce even this small deflection, a covey of saucers would have to be able to increase its mass to equal that of the sun: 1.97 times 1033 grams! What this increase in mass would do to the rest of the solar system doesn’t bear thinking of.)
Angel hair (see [Chapter XI]) is supposed to be a waste product from the operation of the G-field. The ionization of the air inside the G-field allegedly would create heavy atoms that reacted chemically with the atoms in ordinary air to produce a kind of precipitate that falls to the ground and disappears as the ionization decreases. (In the physics laboratory, ionization means taking an electron away from an electrically neutral atom. The resulting atom would not be heavier. The contact between ordinary air and that in the ionized trail of a meteor has never yet produced “angel hair.” No laboratory has ever reported that isotopes of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other elements in the atmosphere can react with their normal analogues to produce precipitates. A change in ionization cannot make a chemical compound disappear.)
The envelope of air enclosed by the G-field is supposed to allow a UFO to accelerate or change direction instantaneously, even when flying at enormous speeds, because the UFO would not encounter atmospheric friction. (Vehicles moving in the earth’s gravitational field are also surrounded by a cushion of air, but they still must overcome friction.)
At this point the whole G-field myth falls apart. One of the fundamental laws established by Newton, to which no exception has ever been found in the laboratory, states that a moving object will continue to move in a straight line unless it encounters an applied force. Let us suppose, for the moment, that a gravity shield could suddenly be interposed between a spacecraft and the earth, and thus make the craft reverse its direction of flight. The occupants would still be subject to the law of inertia. They would be hurled against the wall of the craft with a violence far greater than that experienced by a plane crashing to earth from an altitude of 30,000 feet. There could be no cushioning of the blow.