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The object above the skyline (enlarged in the insert) is supposed to be a flying saucer sighted in California in 1951. The man who took the picture says he and two friends saw the object fly by once and he took the picture on the second pass

TuESIVr( 14.-rii MANI I969 A serious

PART I

A T LEAST two Australian " scientists well-known and respected in their dif-ferent fieldsare now working seriously on the problem nearly everyone else dismisses as a 20-year-old joke: unidentified flying objects.

They are working unofficial-ly and in secrecy. In fact they would only agree to talk to me on condition their anonymity was respected.

George A.damski and the rest of the lunatic fringe who claim personal contact with the little green men removed respecta-bility from flying saucers in the early fifties no reputable scientist can now afford to ruggest he takes the pheno-mena even semi-seriously.

Why, then, are these scientists risking their reputa-tions with work on L'FOs? Firstly. because they, in comreen with many other seientsts all over the world, are not satisfied with lame official explanations for a large proportion of UFO sightings.

They believe official investi-gations are often more con-cerned with pooh-poohing UFOs than with credibility: they suspect that some sight-ings may be inexplicable in terms of what is so far known about the universe, and that valuable scientific discoveries

ight b' gained from further investieatioi

And secondly, there is a sound argument for at least retaining an open mind on the possibility of this planet being visited by intelligently-directed pr obes from outer space.

This is not a lunatic suggestion. It is backed by some sound scientific opinion.

We are not talking here about Adamski's little green men. Its comforting sometimes to toy with the notion that gentle beings from outer space might some day step out of their imearthly vehicles and set us all to rights: banish the nuclear bomb in accordance with Galactic League law, solve the rave problem and drive delinquents off the streets.

I think about it quite a lot in bed, and an does Professor Fred Ho tc, whose daydreams have infeiftely more claim on your neention. But the evidence of peoele who claim contact with specemen is too open to the erarknot description to be considered in any serious, scientific approach to the UFO question.

If even 10 per cent of their claims were factual veu would have to believe that so many different si:es. shapes. and races of aliens were visiting our planet that we must base become the favorite tourist resort for the entire Milky Way. With so much flying saucer traffic around It's a wonder our own air transport can get off the ground.

This argument for an open mind on UFOs rests rather on two entirely demonstrable propositions! that it is logical to suppose there is intelligent life elsewhere In the universe, and that the official explanations for a proportion of UFO sightings are too thin to he believed.

Professor Hoyle, in common with the majority of the world's astronomers, believes it is inconceivable that intelligent life in some form does not exist somewhere else in creation besides earth.

There are 80 million suns in the galaxy IC 1613. IC 1613 is a "dwarf galaxy" in astronomical terminology because it is far smaller than the 16 others one of them the galaxy of which our own solar system is a minute part which make up what astronomers believe is merely a local cluster in the unimaginably huge universe.

And our -am. one of million:,

in our galaxy alone, has nine planets. Even allowing that the proportion of earth-like planets to non-inhabitable worlds may be far less than the solar system's eight to one, Hoyle and other astronomers calculate that there must be 100 million planets identical to earth in this cluster of galaxies alone. It is hardly reasonable to suppose that earth should have been the only one to develop intelligent life.

As Sydney University's Pro-fessor of Theoretical Physics Stuart T. Butler remarks: "I certainly believe there must be intelligence on some of the other inhabitable planets. Its the only logical interpretation from the evidence. I would go even further and say that there must be intelligent races far further advanced than us. Why should the earth be either at the start or the end of the scale? It is more likely that we are about average, in which case there would have to be older races out in space, ahead of us in development.

eAe

"That is not to say that there is any reason they should want to visit us, even if it were possible for them, considering the enormous distances and time it would take to travel them.

"I would emphatically disas-sociate myself from the people who claim to have contacted flying saucers. Their stories are so wildly improbable they seem to me to involve the suspicion of mental unbalance of some sort.

"At the same time, in view of the probable existence of some other intelligent race in the universe. I think we have to an open mind on the

of some UFOs being dined"

This is Ibis wean Dow adopted by seinstists. who have reently eatsiputos orgentsstlen to tinustione sightings falter years of dismissing them as a cap:taBst fantasy).

The decision was sparked by a rash of sightings over Kazan, verified by two observatories who traced sickle-shaped ob jests in t sky which they affirmed were "neither planes nor manmade satellites." Sov-iet astronomer nlakarov, one of the first Russians to speak officially on the subject, told a scientific congress in August last year that the sightings were "hard to explain."

Official bodies in the West are much more confident of their ability to produce explanations, but in the opinion of the two Australian scientists working in the field these do not always fit the facts.

One of the scientists, working in New South Wales on a UFO survey, said: "I am by no means convinced that UFOs are intelligently directed, but there is no logical reason why they should not be. There Is just no evidence for Or against It.

"What bothers me is the way in which official agencies. such

as the RAAF, seek inevitably to explain every sighting away in terms of natural phenomena, even though the explanations often seem very thin on the evidence available.

"I am now concerned to analyse UFO sightings, using a computer, to attempt to see if there are any common circum-stances or any statistical indications that unsuspected natural causes may be behind them if, for example, there is a preponderance of sightings when Venus is at its brightest, and so on.

"So far, I can find no such indication. I am inclined to think that the official agencies very much underestimate the percentage of UFO sightings which are inexplicable in natural terms. Personally, I would put this percentage at considerably more .ban ten pe cent."

In Australia UFO investiga-tions are generally carried out by the RAAF and the Department of Air, who collate the findings. Their approach is certainly more open-minded than some of their counterparts abroad.

But official inquirers in all countries tend to approach UFOs with an understandable scepticism and an equally understandable desire to find a simple natural explenation before the lunatic fringe of flying saucer lovers starts blocking the phones day and night.

At least 80 per cent of the reported sightings are certainly attributable to natural. camel_ aircraft tail lights, weather balloons, and meteorological phenomena. Unfortunately, when the inquirers find natural "explanations" where the evi-dence does not really support them, the soothing syrup gets written into official records

Ibis sort ot pubBn soft-souping has led as bitter reorindoulions in the States. Wine Ow Mal is accused at

Ineseninfikat : e

bees 1111111A and is currently

rg 111111.01$ tot an indepen-taillaspday hap WOG le appease Um elika.

A recent rise-history in Britain is probably the clearest example of the way an unlikely official story becomes accepted as fact by the sheer weight of its repetition.

It is a better example than any in Australia because the "sightings" took place over a heavily populated area and there was therefore multiple evidence from highly reliable witnesses: it was also one of the few 'UFO sightings in which the complete evidence was available to independent scientific inquirers.

The story started simply enough one mid-October night last year when two policemen patrolling the countryside in Hampshire by car spotted a cross-shaped light moving in the sky.

As the policemen approached to investigate, the lights receded. The police car

accelerated in pursuit and the lights, diving and swooping across the countryside, led them in a high-speed chase around the early-morning lanes for the best part of an hour.

The two officers reported the incident. and, after the story was reported in British papers, were firmly reprimanded for allowing their imagination to get the better of them. They stuck to their story. to the amazement of their chief constable and saw the lights again on the next night's patrol.

Other policemen in the county now went on the lookout, and on the third night more witnesses reported the cross of lights. The Hampshire chief constable was forced to withdraw the reprimand and admit that the men had, in fact, seen something.

The British Defence Minist-ry, now approached for comment, retorted calmly that the police had mistaken the planet Venus for a TWO

"It often happens at times like this when Venus is more than normally bright," said an Air Force spokesman.

gut amateur .aationotriers in

the areas who bed in fact been trying to see Venus on the nights in question pointed out that total cloud cover had made it impossible over the whole of Hampshire. One amateur star gazer bad himself sew the Crt2SPAS.

*r

The Royal Oberreat=y cow chipped into the arpkoest engreersts the sisals of Nornare by Mk akke smkesktan at Thrismoncenn. &mei. sold torthrtOttr: *There k seeheetteg f17,08 around Up them !bat oettkar a sta r nor a planet.'

More ponce in Smith-West England, some of them a ccom panted by newspaiset men on their night car patrols, reported seeing the crosses.

On Thursday, October 26, the Defence Ministry, quite un moved. announced that it had discovered

a perfectly normal explanation. USAF fighter planes had been carrying out mid-air refuelling practice over England, and the policemen had seen nothing more than lights on the pipelines connect-ing fighters to tanker planes.

Interest died for two days. Then, on Saturday October 28, a reporter for the Sunday Express in London thought of asking the USAF exactly when the refuelling manoeuvres had been carried out a

step everyone assumed the Defence Ministry had already taken.

The answer was revealing. "All our planes were on the ground by 9 pm each night."

Ti

an hour. It did large and it ma had two flashin which dimmed when a bright appeared in r was travelling.-

The most ot tion, of course, aircraft: the re be its port wing the white be landing light. .sa off as the pilot lost air strip.

But Sergeant. of the object's

s hardly makes t fit, and the po enced ()beery believe at the were looking Nevertheless, occurred to Ser asked his base RA AF to inquir

The air fo checked, and definitely next were no aircraft area at the time.

Notwithstan RAAF later w Windale incid aircraft activity, does not rate a Department of official UFO inv

Tomorrow's tail some of UFO sightings Department o inexplicable, an of the odd event of the world In has produced explanation.

The upshot incidents is no support for plea for an open that arises most any study of evidence for th traffic from ou this planet unconvincing a attempts to ex sightings in nab

Tomorro Sighting in Australi

look at an old joke .

UFOs said the USAF spokesman. "If the policemen saw the crosses between midnight and 2 am as they say. it could not have been us."

The Royal Observatory com-ment. in fact, had gone as far as anyone reasonably could towards an explanation of the Hampshire crosses. "There is something up there" these occurrences, attested to by policemen and amateur astro-nomers from four countries, were classic examples of the inexplicable UFO, which is not to say there was any evidence they were intelligently-control-led vehicles from outer space.

These were some of the UFO sightings about which Profes-sor Butler would keep an open mind.

But the official explanations had been made and even though they had been shot down (the Defence Ministry had admitted on October 28 that in the face of the LTSAF denial it had no explanations left to offer) they were there on the record. When on November 8 the British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of Defence, Mr Mervyn Rees,'

was asked to comment in the House of Commons he gave the assurance: "They are not men from Mars or anything of that kind" and blandly trotted out the exploded Ministry story ... "it was Venus."

In Australia too there are signs of an official desire to explain UFOs away irrespec-tive of the evidence. (Parado-xically, the Department of Air seems also to be extraordinar-ily keen to investigate reported sightings on occasion, though the scientific division respon-sible is unwilling to be interviewed on the accusation made by saucer enthusiasts that it knows more than it cares to tell. for fear of public alarm).

For example, on January 15 1967 two Newcastle policemen Sergeant J. Bell and Constable F. Tracy

patrolling by car in the early morning, like the British police in Hampshire saw a slow-moving aerial object between 400 and COO feet over Windale, a small town ten miles south of Newcastle.

Said Sergeant Bell: "It came from the sea and was travelling at between five and ten miles

Tot-1N W TR i

Large lights in sea seen by Unknown- vessel NE of Point of Groote

Ey landt, WA. Compass went "haywire." Shadow in centre of lights rotated clockwise, rang-ing lights to. pulsate,

Rocket-like object with win- Astronomical. An odd explanation. doss in aide. yellow/Orange. above Wittenoom Gorge and Hamersley Ranges, WA.

Two silvery solid oval objects Light refraction. semi on flight between Mel- bourne and Canberra.

Blue light emanating from Unknown. object colored red. wavering in sky. Light sufficient to illumi-nate beach. Sehulea, Papua-New Guinea.

Saucer-shaped with cone top Astronomical. and rows of lights across front and along side, with bluish-hite and red trail, Daunia

Station. near Nebo, Northern Territory.

Loud hemming, glassine (Mime, Astronomical. emanating yellow-while light which illuminated herd of cattle. Kimberley, Tasmania.

White spherical object over Astronomical. Canberra, A.C.T,

Seems to be another example of the "least likely mei.... tien." The object was seen

by airline pilots and control emcees In the Canberra tower. They were certain ft was neither a star nor a balloon, and they are wed to looking at the sky.

The experienced pilot was sure they were solld.

Explanation sounds hard to accept on the heels of this description.

Again. the explanation stretches credibility. Does an astronomical object hum"

Some Australian sightings THIS is a

sample of some of the more remarkable UFO sightings in Australia taken from the Deportment of Alt file together with the comments of some independent scientists.

DATE INCIDENT DEPARTMENT OF AIR INDEPENDENT EXPLANATION COMMENT

WFbN ES DAY).-7n4 lqW

THE VAST MAJORITY OF UFO (UNIDENTI- FIED FLYING OBJECTS) REPORTS CAN EASILY BE EXPLAINED. BUT SOME, LIKE THE MANTELL INCIDENT, ARE CHILLING-

LY INEXPLICABLE

RINCE American pilot Ken- neth Arnold reported

seeing "silvery-grey flying saucers" over the United States' Cascade Mountains in 1947, tens of thousands of people all over the world have claimed encounters with mysterious craft from outer space.

Some of the reports are merely hilarious. The vast majority can be explained simply. in terms of falling meteorites, man-made space satellites, weather balloons, cloud formations and other meteorological phenomena. A small minority appear chill-ingly inexplicable.

Perhaps the most famous is what is now known as the Mantell Incident, on January 7, 1944.

The incident be-an about 1.15 in the afternoon when the U.S. Air Force base at Godman, near Louisville, Kentucky, received a call from the State highway patrol inquiring if they knew anything about strange aircraft hovering in the area. Godman knew nothing checks with the area flying control at another base also revealed nothing.

The highway patrol rang off. Twenty minutes later they were back

on the phone. The

first reports had come from Maysville, a small tone]

80 ' miles east of Louisville. Now there were more reports from two places west of the town. A flat, circular object about 300 feet in diameter had been seen travelling west at fairly high speed.

At 1.45 the Goodman flying control tower saw the object for themselves. Two USAF men on duty and the base commander inspected the ob-ject through 6,60 binoculars but could not identify the UFO. Forty-five minutes later a training flight of four F.51 fighters came into the Godman area. The Godrnan base commander asked flight leader Captain Mantel to investigate,

Gaining Mantel] and two other pilots

went off to look for the UFO. By the time they got to 10,000 feet, Mantel's plane was barely visible to the others. He called to the tower: "I are something ahead of me and I'm still climbing." The last call he made to the tower was 'It's above one slid I'm gaining 'on it. Ion going to 20,000 feet." Minutes later. Mantel's plane crashed. He was dead.

The Niemen incident is intriguing. but it proves nothing. Mantell might have been chasing a weather balloon, a light refraction, or simply a

strange cloud. He should never have gone to 20.000 feet in a plane unequipped with oxygen= he most probably died because he blacked out for lack of an oxygen mask, went into a dive and lost a wing through excessive speed.

But it's a strange story despite all the explanations it remains an extraordinary thing that an experienced pilot. well aware of the hazards. should have been tempted to fly into danger.

A year after Mantel's death, another pilot reported a brush with a UFO. He was George Gorman, a 25-year-old second-lieutenant in the North Dakota Air National Guard, who was flying a small, single-engined plane into Fargo, North Dakota.

Gorman. just about to land, saw a light passing him on his right_ Me complained to the control tower that another aircraft was in his vicinity, only to be told that his was the only plane in the area apart irons another which was just touching down. Gorman saw the light again, and gave chase, determined to prove the tower wrong.

When he got to within 1000 yards of the strange light he saw the tower had been right. It was no plane but what he later described as a sharply outlined disc about eight inches in diameter, blinking

on and off, The disc turned left. Then it began evading Gorman's efforts to get a closer look.

Dived Finally the disc headed

directly at Gorman, who had to dive to avoid a collision. The saucer skimmed over his cockpit, turned, and closed again head on. Gorman dived once more, and the disc moved off out of sight.

The pilot of ati aircraft which had landed immediately before Gorman partially con-firmed his story. lie too, with two members of the ground staff--hart 'seen' the Mn' flashing across the airfield, Gorman's report expressed certainty that the disc had been "controlled by thought

or reason."

There have been many other reported aerial sightings of smell discs (which UFO believers interpret

as robot reconnaissance probes). Two entire squadrons of RAF Lincoln bombers tracked some. thing of the sort on

a training

flight off the west least of Ireland in 1051.

The RAF planes saw something small

on their eerier,

flying underneath and between the two flights, in the opposite direction, at

an estimated speed

of 1500 miles an hour. Radar

An Open

Mind on UFOs part

two, by John

Hallows

scientists' cannot to this day suggest an explanation, and the Ai: Ministry took the incident so seriously at the time it clamped an Official Secrets Act screen over the entire incident

Early this year in Australia. Airlines of NSW pilot Alex Garriock reported an incident which might qualify for this category.

Garriock saw a "green streak" zipping past his cockpit at 14,000 feet up. The streak was level with his wingtip. lie could not suggest any explana-tion, and had the streak been the distant met balloon that springs to mind he would have expected to recognise it,

But pilot- have spotted large objects, too. which defy rational explanation.

One of the most interesting of these stories is reported in Howard V. Chambers' new book, UFOs. on the evidence of former U.S. Marine Corps Major Donald E. Keyhoe, now a Convinced believer in UFOs and a writer on the subject.

The story, it most be admitted, is not well-document-ed. but the lack of names and published evidence is not surprising in view of the U.S.

October 27. 1960.

January 18, 1961.

February 15, 1963.

January 23, 1969.

August 2, 5964.

September 2, 1964.

May 25, 1965.

June 29, 1965.

July 2, 1965.

July 15, 1965.

September 15. 1065.

Government's attitude to secur-ity.

Keyhoe claims that an 4' American Navy four-engine

Constellation encountered a sere. large UFO on a trans-Atlantic flight to Maryland, which included a refuelling stop at Gander, Newfoundland.

Outside Gander the pilot saw a cluster of strange lights below biro and banked closer to inspect them, alerting his passengers, all Navy airmen, to be on the lookout. Just as the navy plane approached the lights dimmed and several coloured rings appeared in their place. One of the rings began to move closer to the navy plane.

Larger The pilot moved into a full-

power climb but the ring climbed faster, catching up with him. As it got nearer the pilot made it out as a huge disc, larger than his own plane. The LTFO slowed and took up a station abreast of the plane and about 100 yards away.

The pilot and the crew were able to inspect the UFO before it moved off and vanished

Explosions beard I. sky at Cressy. Tasmania, and orange-colored hall also described and cigar-shape hos ering in sky.

Apparentle-controlled light, no sound. several sightings around tierane, Victoria.

Grey, rotating object descend-ing and then moving away to the west. Gave off "swishing" sound. Moe, Victoria.

White object sighted west of Port Moresby, Papas-New Guinea. Moved westwards. slowed and then sped north-wards.

several seconds later. The pilot described it as being

30 feet thick at the centre, with a diameter three times the Constellation's wing span. There was a blurred glow along the rim of the disc.

As soon as the disc vanished the navy pilot radioed Gander Airport and was told that the control tower there had also spotted something on the radar screen, crose to the Constella-tion.

The pilot was examined by an air force team on landing, but no conclusions were reached.

According to Major Keyhoe, the pilot was later examined by a U.S. Government agency scientist who showed him a file of UFO photographs and asked him to identify the craft which nearly rammed him. The pilot is reported to have picked out one of the photographe

whereupon the scientist said thank you, politely, packed up the pictures and left, refusing to answer further questions.

In view of the attention lavished on UFOs in the United States it is not surprising that most of the impressive reports originate there. Such as ex-

Astronomical.

Aaironomical,

Tornado-like manifestation.

Unknown.

Navy pilot William J. Meyer'g December 13, 1961 sighting of a 20-feet diamond shape pulsat-ing light at 1200 feet which he was "convinced could not have been any conventional heavier or lighter than air craft ... temperature inversion mirage or sun refraction." Or the cone-shaped object reported by

a Californian naval station in February 1950.

Pictures (it should be remembered

that these impressive sightings represent only a minute proportion of the U.S. total: and a very small proportion even of the 3 per rent which 'USAF investigators classify as inexplicable. Most sightings in the U.S.. as in the rest of the world, are capable of simple natural or psychological ex. planation.)

There are fewer well docu-mented "inexplicables" from outside the U.S. although the Brazilian Navy survey ship Almirante Saldanha took one of the best-authenticated "saucer" pictures off an Atlantic island in 1958 because in other

countries there are fewer

investigating agencies, less money to spend on investiga-tion, and a

lower population density, which 'Means the likelihood o, fewer witnesses.

The first reported UFO sighting in Australia was as far back as 1893. (The age of the report is not surprising one of the oldest flying saucer descriptions, according to Chambers, is in records from Byland Abbey, 'Yorkshire, where monks saw "a large round silver thing like a disc" flying around their buildings, to their vast distress_ in 1290.1

American scientist Professor James McDonald. senior physi-cist in the Arizona institute of Atmospheric Physics, who is now carrying out his own UFO investigation, visited Australia last year and collected some 70 sightings which he interpreted as evidence of intelligently directed UFOs.

Australian scientists do not go as far as this view of McDonald's whom they describe as a "cautious and able scientist who has, however, a missionary glint in his eye on the UFO question."

Three of the incidents which impressed him might strike any impartial observer

as remark-

able:

Remarkable in 1959 a clergyman named

Father Dill. together with 30 other witnesses, saw what appeared to be a saucer hovering over the sea off a beach in Papua-New Guinea;

On October 7, 1960, another clergyman at Crease. Tasmania, saw a cigar-shaped object joined by domed discs about three miles from him. Indepen. dent commentators find the Department of Air's expiring, lion of this "astronomical sighting" hard to accept;

On April 9, 1966, near Ballarat, Victoria, car driver Ron Sullivan reported that the beam of his headlights was bent by a ray of light coming from a "very bright source of tight, disc-shaped, with a cone of multicolored light project. Mg upwards."

Other interesting Australian sightings that are hard to explain are described in the accompanying table of the incidents taken from the official Department of Air summary of UFO Investigations In this country.

Thera are no !Aeries --in Australia as impressive as the Meyer sighting or the Gorman and Mantel incidents. But both the two Australian scientists now working on the UFO question, who were referred to yesterday, believed there ere a higher proportion of truly inexplicable sightings In this

Hard to reconcile official explanation with the descrip lion of clergyman witness who saw cigar joined by round shapes.

Hard to see hon. an

"astronomi-cal" object moved in ''alWa-reedy controlled fasbion."

meteorological Independent scientist who

investigated incident said this was "the least likely explana-tion." The scientist, a UFO sceptic. could not suggest any natural cause for incident.

What to do if you see a UFO

LO NT

Tomorrow: saw two people in white . .

`I saw ' 11Ti Mf/Y /96? 3A8T 3_ two people

in white'

country than the Department of Air is prepared to admit.

The second of the two scientise, a sceptical Victorian workr'r in the atmospheric science- who has written papers on LIFO phenomena, says.

"The east majority of so-called L'FO sightings can unquestionably be put down to natural and man-made causes. For example, you can throw

all the sightings which seen within 10 degrees

!,...etion from the horizon ..e use these will normally be

light refractions in the atmos-pheee, Then there are peculiar

mations or unusually -ens which people can

een mistake for UFOs. "But there are incidents

which we cannot explain, and it seems to me that official agencies are damaging the chances of proper scientific inquiry by their anxiety to write them off as natural happenings.

"They may well be natural. In a way we don't understand as yet. But we need to find out. end it seems to me that many of the Department of Air's Australian Investigations come to unacceptable 'answers in this hunt for any old natural explanation that will do.

Conceal "In one incident at Moe,

Victoria, which I also investi-oted myself, the official inquirers plumped arbitrarily for a natural explanation which was

to fact and this is in nee field the least likely of all.

"Other incidents are simply not mentioned at all officially. Schoolchildren in Moorabbtn, VieMria, some time age saw a pl Ivory. object descending be-hind clump of trees nearby end later taking off again.

All ems an interesting report The

enwere familiar en th aircraft there is n hgt 'plane airfield nearby tee to confuse a crop-dusting Groh, or a helicopter, with a uro.

nothin more has ever beetlirtjuteerd of

it because the g

Department of Air people went down and persuaded everyone it had been the children's imaginstion. Sometimes I won. der If they have some experimental pinne whose existence they want to conceal.

"Of course, I am not suggesting that because we cannot explain a UFO in criticalterms we must !wets. airily believe It comes from outer space: we know far inn little ahnut freak effects in our etrensphere, on our radar, and on meteorology to say that,

"Before I believe they are extra.terrestial I would want hard evidence - have the air force shoot one down, for example. I done see why It ...., r e he rresiisie, if they

. see ran always

spa,. inside. "I should want

evidence from our own space satellites,

which are after all constantly photographing

the earth

and the lower atmosphere

on meteorological

projects.

Evidence "So

far there

is only

one UFO sighting

from a satellite

an

uneaplalned dot on one

weather satellite photograph

out of literally millions that

have been processed since they first went up,

"Until then, If

you ask me

whether I can

credit the suggestion that

UFOs are

Intelligently directed objects from apace I would have

to say: I don't know. There is

no evidence that they are, and equally there Is no evidence that

they are not.

"All we can say is that something unusual and inex. plicable seems to happen quite frequently.

We need to get far

more evidence about this, to collect detailed informa I ion about more sightings, before we can even come

to a

hypothesis." If

you do happen to see a

UFO, there are three useful things you can do to help scientific Inquirers later, Firstly, If the object Is less ee

. 10 degrees above the izon, forget all about it

...less it is spitting green fire and burning up the garden. It is likely to be a light refraction, and the scientists

it certainly assume so.

:eecnndly, take some small lied with which to compare

its size and note some kind of bearing. So: the object may be as big

as a two cent piece at arm's length, and moved between a point over the neighbor's chimney pot as seen from your kitchen window, and another over the apple tree seen from the same point.

Thirdly, try to

take a photograph and have it developed by someone who knows what you were trying

to do, no he can guarantee

later that

the film was untouched.

Night-time lights in the

sky may need

as much as 30 seconds

to one minute's

exposure at full aperture. The great disadvantage of

having an open mind on the UFO question is that once you admit even the faint possibility of Intelligently-directed probes from outer space you find

It harder to dismiss entirely the incredible stories of personal contact.

Some of them are extraor-dinary. And

no I

can't resist

it. tomorrow's article will take a

look at a few of the

amazing claims made by people who swear they have seen the flying saucers land.

ANYONE who makes a ANYONE out of interview-

ing strangers a barrister or a policeman for example knows from bitter ex-perience that some of the most likely-sounding stories turn out on examination to be the most complete fan-tasy.

Even detailed evidence from unimpeachable sources requires careful checking with second and third parties before It serves as a foundation for belief. The human capacity for seladelusion can make dream-ers out of doctors and judges just as well as the dottiest neurotic housewife.

This sort of confirmation is the exact thing missing from all the stories of people who

claim to have

seen or contacted the crews of UFOs. Some of the claima come from apparently highly reliable people including several policemen who had everything to lose from telling wild stories but the absence of good, indepen-dent confirmation makes accep-tance impossible.

Sometimes inquirers wonder why, if

the stories are not real, the claimants should risk ridicule in telling them.

But there are psychological explanations far more appeal-ing to an

impartial observer than the wildly

unlikely hypothesis that aliens might, after all, be landing.

The dream of

being picked out for

confidences by shining beings

from the sky has floated in the human subconscious since

the dawn of religion.

Mental unbalance, delusion, unverbalised

desire for some

personal difference which calls for

respect and attention from other people

are found as often

in the ranks of the police force as

among the neurotic virgins whoseegyidenee v' I to the field of m e and so

doubted in e court

witness box. None of the Australian

scientists quoted in this series believes

you need look further than psyrhologicallyenduced fantasy for the explanation for claims of personal contact will& UFO aliens.

Even so, there is awaken:1.0r to the coin al thlrarrammat,,

The experienced detective who on principle double even the clergyman's reasoned state-ment knows, too, that the drunk tramp's wild store can sometimes be the 'truth. Without corroboration either way he can neither believe nor disbelieve.

And at the same time, If you accept the reasoned scientific argument for an open mind on the existence of UFOs, as Professor Butler of Sydney University suggests, it follows as a logical corollary that you have to accept the very faint possibility that one or two of the fantastic stories just might be fact.

Chasing

Can you, in these circum-stances. come to any definite conclusion on the story of New Mexico policeman, Lonnie Zamora, which Is now on file with the U.S. Air Force's "Project Bluebook" UFO inves.

Ling team .eirnora was chasing a

eeeding car near Socorro, New Mexico, when he claimed to have seen a bright flash out in the desert.

Going out to investigate, he saw a flash of flame and color, and heard a roar in the distance. Moving in the direction of the noise and the .1 mos, he came to a deserted

etch of road. "Suddenly," he said, "I noted

a shins...type object to the south. It looked at first like a er turned upside down.

een I got nearer I saw two

-oleo dressed in white ..ecralls very close to the object. One of these persons seemed to tuns and look straight at my car and seemed startled seemed to jump."

The two figures seemed normal, but small. Zamora radioed to alert the Socorro sheriff's office to what he assumed was an accident.

While he was on the radio he heard another roar. As he looked up he saw: 'The flame was under the object The object wan starting to go straight up slowly up. The flame was light blue and at the bottom it was a sort of orange color. The object was smooth, no doors or windows visible."

As it travelled upwards, Zamora noted unfamiliar insig-nia on the craft's aides before it disappeared.

Another American police report came from Ohlo deputy. sheriffs Dale Spaur and Barney Neff in April, 1986. They claimed to have spotted a vast, saucer-shaped object rising from woods near a country road where they were inspect-ing a parked car full of apparently-stolen radios. They chased it eastwards into Pennsylvania before they ran out of feel and the UFO disappeared.

One of the most remarkable contact claims of all was made by American Negro Barney Hill and his wife, who even under hypnosis stuck to their story of being kidnapped by a flying-saucer crew on a lonely road near the Canadian border to September 1981, and being

medically examined aboard the craft.

Australia, too, has a number of impressive close-contact reports.

In Yericorn, 99 miles north of Perth, Western Australia, 43- year-old farm manager Alan Pool told police last November that a 15-foot flying saucer landed beside his. Land-Rover as he drove through a paddock. The saucer, the same size as his vehicle, came so close he could hardly open his door, and took off "like a rocket" as he opened the other side.

"It was flat on the bottom and dome.shaped on top," said Mr Pool It appeared to be made of smoky-grey metal."

Denis Crowe, a technical artist of Vaucluse, Sydney, reported watching a 20-foot green disc take off from a beach near his home one night in July 1965. lie claimed the craft was no more than 60 feet from him as it rose into the air.

Jim Tilse, Queensland hotel proprietor, claimed that a large disc "buzzed" his hotel near Mackay

in May 1965, scorching nearby trees.

Mrs D. Manhood, of Canter. bury. NSW, and her sister, Mrs It. Coleman, described a saucer which hovered over a bowling green less than 100 feet from the verandah where they stood, in March last year.

Agricultural research scien-tist Dr /Mean Lindtner. who is president of the Unidentified Flying Objects Investigation Centre in Sydney and who does believe in UFOs and their crews, has collected two other remarkable Australian close-contact claims.

The first is the earliest UFO report in the country, mention-ed yesterday.

Says Dr Lindtner: "The story

as we have it cornea from a farming family in central NSW. It was apparently handed down verbally in the family and was

yen to us in confidence. The

man it happened to found he could not speak of it to outsiders without being jeered at.

"The man, a fanner, claimed that a saucer.shaped UFO landed us his paddock one day in 1893.

As he approached a man in strange clothing emerged from it. The farmer walked towards him perhaps making some threatening gesture and the stranger shone some kind of torch at him.

"The farmer was thrown to the ground and stunned. When he came to the machine had taken off. His hand, where the torch beam bad hit him, was paralysed for life."

Historic Dr Lindtner's second report

was from a woman in Newcastle who claimed to have seen a saucer land in a nearby paddock in 1960.

UFO-contact claims are almost as old as history, on some readings of the Bible, Hindu scriptures and the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Take Elijah's ascent to heaven .. there appeared a chariot of fire . . and Elijah went up like a whirlwind into Heaven."

Or, the Ezekiel 1.4-5 quote much beloved by UFO believ-ers: "As I looked and behold. a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire unfolding itself, and a bright. ness was about it, and out of the midst, thereof, as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst, thereof, came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a

man." And Zechariah 5:1.2: "Again

I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a flying rolL The length thereof is twenty cubits and the breadth thereof ten cubits."

The 3000-year-old Sanskrit epic Mahabharata talks of a spinning aerial missile which radiates light and leaves a wake of scorching heat.

UFO historians have un. earthed reports which can be interpreted as sightings from all periods of European history. Flying saucers and discs in the Middle Ages, fiery balls in the sky during the Renaissance, cigar shapes spotted in the 19th century which sound exactly like those reported in July 1948 in the U.S. by Eastern Airlines flight crew Captain C. S. Chiles and First Officer John B. Whit-tee'.

But after 30 centuries of awe-struck human examination of the sky, the enigma remains. The vital corroboration is always missing.

The pilots were not carrying cameras . . , the photographs taken from the ground are always fuzzy, looking like any-thing from an old hubcap to an odd trick of light in the sky ... the policemen who see flying saucers taking off never think of calling in the air force to track them on radar.

Even with the inexplicable incidents there are always natural hypotheses that make it unnecessary to stretch imagina-tion as far as aliens, choosing to travel light-years in order to visit our insignificant planet, out of millions of others.

The most art impartial inquirer can say on UFOs is an expansion of the British Royal Observatory comment on last year's Hampshire sightings: "There is something flying around up there . . . but what it is. natural or intelligent, there is no evidence to decide."

After sifting for several weeks through all the evidence and claims surveyed in this series, and countless others, I find myself still with an open mind but I shall only BELIEVE in intelligent visitors from outer space the day that wise golden giants step out of their saucer and invite my help in avoiding the detection they plainly seek to avoid.

Only if it happens, f can't logically ask you to believe

me without pictures, finger prints, and one

of them locked in the bathroom.

JOHN HALLOWS concludes his series, An Open Mind on UFOs

Is THIS a flying saucer? * MY INTEREST in your article "The Case for Flying Saucers" (POST, April 15) prompts me to send you the enclosed print (right) of what could be a fly-ing saucer.

The intriguing picture was taken at Bonkstown, New South Wales, either on January 2, 1953, or January 2, 1954. I cannot be sure of the date without consulting records.

The object photographed was com-ing from the direction of Bankstown aerodrome at midday.

I took two other exposures similar to the one I have sent you.

I shall be interested to see whether you consider it worthy of a place in POST.

YAGOONA (NSW).

* I MUST congratulate you on your recent articles on the subject of un- identified flying objects. Over the years I have collected many sightings

I ram people in this area 3 Carodo, NSW).

All sash reports claimed to have seen torpedo-shaped objects, disc-shaped objects, or strange lights per-forming strange manoeuvres or tra-velling at fantastic speeds.

It has not been books or news-paper articles that have convinced me that we are being watched by superior and more intelligent beings which are not of this earth.

My conviction comes from these reports by people whom I know well and who all say they would not tell anyone else for fear of being laughed at.

I have not seen any "saucers" my-self, but my wife, daughter Julie and a friend saw six brilliant silver discs pass slowly over here in a cloudless sky on June 6, 1962, at 11.40 a.rn.

Unfortunately I missed them by 10 minutes, but I did see the tangle of strands of silver web which ap-peared in the sky towards the sun.

This tangle of strands appeared much shinier than spider web and disintegrated as it fell towards the earth.

Air Force Intelligence was inter-ested in the report.

In my opinion, it is high time that much information collected by governments throughout the world was released to the public.

The United States Government in particular still says that people are seeing Venus balloons, etc-, but they supply a very detailed report form of about 10 pages containing some 50 questions for anyone to fill in and return.

Furthermore, a joint Chiefs -of-Staff document issued in the U.S. in 1953 orders that pilots be directed to report unidentified flying objects immediately from all parts of the world, and to keep such reports sec-ret.

Under Section III of the order, any pilot who reveals an official UFO report may be imprisoned for one to 10 years and fined up to 310,000.

If it were genuinely believed that people were imagining things, I cer-tainly do not believe such orders would be issued.

S.G.W., CARODA, via BARRABA tNSW I.

,alrnii aNgqiialf4Ffi!:11111.1140111P~ ViOr

ST Icienc i Frqlcqg(1. Act _FgOhlifat i P.Ift5Az1Ng. OF suLy

TO ma, THIS APPEARS TO fjc AN LitslU&V AL (-Wt.) D FcRri,

Saucer shock

Argentine woman who

was reported no have seen a flying saucer at close quarters w a s taken to hospital suffering from shock.

The woman said she saw two strange men, re- sembling robots, near the unidenti-

. fed object. Experts later

confirmed that the grass in the area where the saucer was sup-posed to have landed was singed in a circle about 20 fret wide.

ENETE RED __SATURDRY IRTH MAI I(314

l'ikrACINCa OF A PuOTO Friam teos-r MAGRzINIE 22Nd 1954,H

f t

snsn'-ana'

UFOs AIY LETTER asking your

readers for information on flying saucers and other unidentified flying objects sighted in the Southern Hemisphere has had a re-sponse which was quite remarkable:

Aa manner of people have taken the trouble to

Cite to me, ranging from headmasters to seamen and housewives, etc. Thank you.

M. HERVEY Henley !I11 ;

allninss

Green, brightest

here

Hovering, appeared all green

TUESDI:7 21ST MA/. 194.$

NO HELP FOR U.F.O. STUDY CANBERRA, Toes. The

minister for Air (Mr. ; Freethl said today he could not give any en-j enuragement to people wile wanted the Common'.. wealthto subsidise re-search into unidentified flying objects.

He was replying in the House of Representatives to Mr. P. W. C. Stokes (Lib., Vic.). who said the Commonwealth Aerial Phe-nomena Investigation Or-ganisation had asked for the grants.

Mr. Stokes asked if Mr. Freeth had seen recent re-ports of U.P.O. sightings in the Wonthaggi district of Victoria.

Mr. Freeth said the mat-ter was being considered. but he could not under-take to give Mr. Stokes any encouragement.

As far as governments are concerned, it has never been precisely determined where science fiction ends and where these objects begin to ,be related to realitat.7 saitL n

photographed inANTIAGO, Wed. A

Chilean scientist show-ed reporters in Santiago photographs of what he believes may be a "fining saucer."

Professor Gabriel Atrial Caceres, director of Chile University's cosmic Radian, Lion Centre, said the "un-explained phenomena:x-1 was photographed from the University observatory, 12,600 feet up in the Andes, on May 17.

The large, cigar-shaped object was stationary in space for about an hour, he said.- AAP-R.

4onaltwvw

E ES UFOs A Turther UFO sighting has taken place. this time in Mel- bourne by six schoolboys. Even the American Air Force's Operation Blue Book has never been able to explain all the sightings and photographic evidence. Australian UFO organisa

-

tions also have books full of unexplained sightings.' Disbelievers automatically classify the person con- cerned with a sighting as a "nitwit." And why not life on other planets? The visitors are evidently friendly otherwise we would know by now '13ronte-Kiwi."

* * .e

`SAUCERS' MAY BE SPACE SPIES, SCIENTISTS WARN

WASHINGTON, Tues. A group of scientists today urged the United States and other govern-ments to co-operate in investigating the "utterly baffling" phenomena of flying saucers.

-a- nistlEY made the plea in that the major New York

testimony at a one-day City power blackout in symposium held by the 1965 and other big power House of Representatives failures may have had Committee on Science and something to do with

UFO's, he said Astronautics. Dr. Jan cs McDonald, a Dr. J, Allen lly-nek,

physics professor at the chairman of the Astronomy 'University of Arizona. said Department at North West-he had investigated sight- ern University. proposed ings in AUSO4118 and New that Congress set up a Zealand, as well as in the Commission to investigan U.S. . thoroughly what he called

Unidentified flying ob- the "utterly baffling pawl jects were a "global one- nornena" of UFO's. nornens," and should be in- He suggested establish

-vestigated on that basis, he ment of an internations:

said. - centre to help relay infor-

. McDonald said that niation on sightings to Drafter two years' intensive scientists around the world study of more than 3N Dr. Hynek said then sightings be could not were too many reports rule out the possibility "which defy explanation by that the UFO's were sur- conventional means" to veillance spaererart from rule out the possibility another planet. that UFO's were of extra- There were indications I terrtastriai ,

WEDNESDFq 315T TULY,1942,g_

* ANTONIN KUKLA outlines cell-like "saucer."

W.A. flying was green * TWO PERTH (WA) people came back from a car trip to Carnarvon the other day with o story about the night they nearly had a head-on collision with a FLYING SAUCER.

The flying saucer, they said, swooped on them and hovered nearby for about half an hour changing color from green to orange. red and back to green.

The trip started as a rock-hunting tour but turned into a nightmare for 43-year-old Mr An-tonin Kukla and his woman companion, Mrs Audrey Lawrence.

Mr Kukla, who practised as a doctor in Europe, said the queer object reminded him of a living cell under a Microscope. But it didn't look so harmless when it suddenly swooped On his car at great speed from where they first sighted it a good distance away. He and Mrs Lawrence watched in fear as the

object, silent but pulsating with a transparent and fluorescent green glow, hovered over the road in front of them.

The couple said they first saw the object at on July 27. As they drove, they saw a

4

* MRS Audrey Lawrence saw object change color.

saucer and cheeky green light in the sky moving slowly until it disappeared behind cloud. Some minutes later they saw the glow again this time orange-colored.

When about 40 degrees above the horizon, the object changed course sharply and dived towards the car's headlights.

Mr Kukla slammed on the brakes. He and Mrs Lawrence jumped out of the car and ran. Standing about 15 feet from the car, the couple

watched the saucer-shaped object. It was hover-ing in a green glow, rocking slowly from tip to tip.

Mr Kukla said that after a few minutes he went back to the car and got a magnifying lens. His dog, crouched in the back seat with her hair bristling, refused to budge.

Mr Kukla and Mrs Lawrence studied the object through the lens for nearly 30 minutes. Said Mr Kukla: "I had the fear in me that whatever it was I was looking at was not man-made." After hovering above and below nearby trees,

the "saucer" banked on to its edge then drifted westwArsUal sight.

! * DRAWING of the mysterious object that ter- rifled a couple near Cornarron (WA) recently.

CROWDS In support of "Bronse-

Kiwi," I would like to have my say in the UFO matter, For simplicity 's s a k e, assume one In every 10 planets is inhabited by life as we know it. There are at least one billion suns in our galaxy. There are mil-lions of these galaxies known to exist; some may be bigger, some smaller. Among the planets there would be more than 10,000 supporting life forms similar to ours. This is where, in my opinion, these UFOs are coining from."Percy.'

* *

1 7/9(38

' Flying Saucer'

THURSIM 13m TuNE.136ii_ 1111-- i:IFISCITFROG:0 -='LlAt3PR_INE.12f gni SEeTEM8EK 1%5:

Intelligent life in our galaxy

THE question of extra-terres- trial life is once again a

discussion point throughout New South Wales and Australia.

by S. T. BUTLER Professor of Theoretical Physics

at the University of Sydney

cri

0MM,

'44

"Let's not be hasty, it might be of those musicians.

another group

FRI DP 1714 MR( JcP08

2

This subject is so fascinating that inter-est in ii can be pro-voked very easily.

The space film 2001, at present showing in

2

Sydney, has produced considerable discussion in this regard.

And ..hen again, the question of UFOs (uni-dentified flying objects) is passing through one of

its periodic analyses in Australia; at such a time "men in the street" be-come half convinced that we are indeed being visi-ted by extra-terrestrial being.

It is pertinent, then, to summarise actual scien-tific thought on the sub-ject.

As a result of laser-Various made by space probes and other scien-tific means. it is now al-most ruled out entirely that there is any other intelligent life in our solar system.

It is to be remembered that only ten years ago the possibility of some forms of relatively ad-vanced life on Mars or Venus could not be ruled out, but the advent of space exploration has now essentially eliminated this possibility.

Moreover, conditions on other unexplored planets make life there seem highly improbable on general grounds.

Once we consider our galaxy as a whole, how-ever, this situation is vastly different.

There are altogether some 100,000 million suns in the galaxy and it ap-pears quite possible that something like one half of them may have planets. Logically, therefore, there could be a very large number of planets on

us in evolution and there-fore fantastically ahead of us in scientific and tech-nical "know-how."

There are very few scientists who would go against this logic and thus it is a scientific expecta-tion that our galaxy not only has other forms of life in it, but that much of it is far more advanced than us.

The tremendous dis-tances involved, however, mitigate against us know-ing of the existence of such life, Distances of many thousands of light years are involved wilLin

year being the distance that light travels in one year at its speed of 186,000 miles per second.

That there could be an inhabited planet close enough to us that its in-habitants could pay us frequent visits is improb-able. On the other hand the possibility of min-t!! unicatinn with other forms of intelligent life is by no ineans out of the question.

There his in [act been serious discussion anlong, scientists that radio tele-scopes should be aimed at neighboring suns which appear as if they may have planets, to see if any coded signals can be iden-tified.

Professor Brace w e I I, director of the Stanford

Radio Astronomy Depart-ment, has suggested that there may be "galactic clubs" in radio communi-cation with each other.

He pointed out that if we could "tap in" on such a club, we might be able to rapidly bridge a gap in knowledge and tech-nology that would other-wise take us hundreds of year&

Although some radio telescopes did allot a period of time each day for such a program, no signals were detected in any way different from the natural random I 11

emit. The nearest discovery

that could fall in this category is that of the new "pulsar."

However, few scientists at present would say that this mysterious object 150 light years away is auto-matic evidence of an ad-vanced civilisation. Scient-ists are loath to jump to any imaginative conclu-sions and always strive to understand their observa-tions in terms of natural causes.

While it is our belief therefore that intelligent life in all probability does exist within our galaxy, it is the scientific point of view that, to date, we can-not point to anything that proves this conjecture.

which life has evolved as it has on Earth.

The evolutionary time scales involved for the development of intelligent life are extremely long of the order of 1000 million years. On some of these other planets, there-fore, it is most plausible that life could have started evolving, say, a million years ahead of evolution on earth.

We are thus led logic-ally to the thought that in all probability there is life in our galaxy which may be thousands of mil-lions of years ahead of

CONTACT To "Triffids1 Go Home n I think they have already made contact. If a few 01 their secrets, e.g., means of propulsion and production techniques became well known our whole societt would collapse overnight- Sufficient reason for official secrecy? The "chosen few" are sometimes many. An awestruck 5000 watched a UFO in one case "Starry One."

uFri Want physical evi- dence of UFOs? On

September 14. 1957, over Ubatuba, Brazil, a flying silver disc was seen to dis-integrate. Fragments of the object were analysed by the Ministry of Agriculture and proved to be no less than 100 percent mag-nesium. Earthlings at this time could not produce 100 percent magnesium by any process. It is reasonable to assume this craft had extra-terrestrial origin, "Starry One."

* *

NOT ALONE Kiwi" Kiwi" and "Percy": It does not mat-ter how many planets con-tain life and what they look like so lona as we know we are not the only fife -in this or any other universe. These sceptics and non-believers reckon they know everything, which they do not."Mar-tian."

car I) 3RD AUGUST 194

UFOLOGISTS At least there is count on UFO matters "Starry One." There was another sighting seen by many. A 17F0 was watched at one time by more than 50.000 people; it was re-garded as a religious sight- iao

by many and not a . UfoIog. who have

studied the facts are cer-tain that it was an extra-terrestrial vehicle. not the dancing sun of Fatima,

as some claim. "PALS."

* *

TuFsD At /GUST 6,g.

* * *

UFOs To "Triffids Go Home": Appar-ently you don't know too much about the UFO phe-nomena. Otherwise 9you wouldn't make the state-ment that UFO observers have "highly developed imaginatioas." A great many sightings have been made by scientific people professors. doctors. pilots. etc. You say sightings in densely populated areas are only seen by a few. This is of course a thing which cannot be remarked on too much, because a lot of people do not men-tion their sightings until months or years alterif everbecause of ridicule such as from people like yourself."P.M.S

one other person in Sydney MONDRY STS able to give a factual ac-

U ST. Piing BRIGHT Trainer": i n ;132 w Tw we intrinsic properties of absolutely pure metals are not known. Trace ele-1 ments have devastating: effects on mechanical strength, etc. The absolute purity of the magnesium from the UFO was not the only striking property; its density was about ten

: percent higher. indicating a molecular structure vastly different from what we know. So please don't apply limitations of our technology to the extra-terrestrials. They're obvi-ously bright boys= , One."

SPACE To "Bow - Wow oa Pale& Trainer": Friction

' >s produced by inter-ference between two sur-faces such as magnesium and air. In outer space (beyond 200 miles) the earth's atmosphere does not exist. Only on re-entry does friction heat occur. Friction in space due to collision With cosmic par-ticles would be offset by the extremely cold temp-eratures of space. Also, burning could not occur in space as oxygen is re-quired."Yogi Bear."

FRIDR"( 2311D 21.)_WST__19tok

ARE INTER-GALACTIC vehicles really saucer-shaped, with flashing lights? Taken in America, this was claimed to be a picture of one -

,-

`FLYING OBJECT' NEAR SYDNEY A MYSTERIOUS dying object was sighted be- tween Sydney's southern suburbs and Wollongong shortly after 7.30 o'clock last night.

Several reports reaching "The Sun-Herald" told of a high flying, white, glowing light which made no sound.

Peter Anderson, 15, of

Telopea Avenue, Caringbah, saw the object from his backyard as it approached from the direction of Hurst-Title.

He said: "My young brother Michael thought it was a helicopter at first but it was moving much too fast."

The boys' mother, Mrs

Dorothy Anderson, said: "When it got over the top of our house it sent out a pulsating red light.

"It was going east but veered and continued in the direction of Wollongong.

"It was a tremendously powerful cigar-shaped white light."

Four Wollongong boys

David Tovey, 14, Brian Kearney, 15. Richard Lasek, 17, and Colin McNeill, 16, of the Fairy Meadow Hostel saw a bright white light form an elliptical pattern about 7.50 p.m.

The R.A.A.F. said it had not received any reports of 1 strange flying objects.

* *_ *

' MYSTERY Thank8 for the informa-tion "Starry One" on the existence of UFOs through , the ages. I am aware of C RI

DRy 30T H some of them. It is obvious,. f-- the fact that UFOs exist pU G USf. icitog that the people who deny have never studied the vast literature available on the subject. Why governments won't admit that UFOs exist is beyond explana-tion, because gradually it

seems that more and more people are believing in them and the governments will end up making a laughing stock of them-selves. "P.M.S."

* , * * *

WFDNFSD*RY:2RT1-1 ii)UAUST I9L8

a it PICTURED To "Hell's Bells ': You are pitifully ignorant on the subject of UFOs. I say this because if you have ever seriously investi-gated them you will find that not only are there thousands of pictures of them but some moving pictures as well, Another thing. in 1965 thousands of people saw five UFOs streak over N.S.W. You say UFOs are intangible, which also means "cannot be grasped mentally." Yes, I agree to you they are intangible. "Prospective Ufologist."

SINCE primitive man first lifted his gaze to the stars, perhaps the most thought-provoking question has been: "Is there life on other planets?"

Today, we can say with some certainty that there is no intelligent life in our own solar system. Space probes and other scientific means have given us suffi-cient data to make this conclusion.

Ones we consider our galaxy as a whole, how-ever, the situation is vastly different.

There are, altogether, some 100 thousand millions of stars in the galaxyand it is likely that something like one hail of them have planets.

Logically, there could be a very large number of planets on which life has evolved as it has on Earth.

The evolutionary time scales involved for the development of intelligent life are extremely long . . . of the order of one thous-and million years.

On some of these other planets therefore life could have started evolving, say. a million years ahead of evolution on Earth.

We may consider that

there is life in our galaxy which may be thousands or millions of years ahead of us in evolution, and, there-fore, fantastically ahead of us in scientific and techni-cal know-how.

The great distances in-volved, however, mitigate against us knowing of the existence of such life. Dis-tances of many thousands of light years are involved, even within our galaxy.

That there could be an inhabited planet close enough to us for its in-habitants to pay us fre-quent visits is improbable,

On the other band, com-munication with h other forms of intelligent life is by no means out of the question.

Serious discussion has taken place among scien-tists that radio telescopes should be aimed at neigh-boring suns; which appear as if they could have planetsto see if any coded signals are identifiable.

Professor Ron Bracewell., the Australian r adio astronomer, at present director of the Stanford Radio Astronomy Depart-ment, has suggested that there could be "a galactic club" in radio communi-cation with each other.

He points out that, if we could mat in on such a club, we might be able rapidly to bridge a gap in know-ledge and technology which otherwise might take us hundreds or thousands of years to cross.

Another suggestion by eminent physicist, Pro-fessor Freeman Dyson, at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, goes even further than Professor Bracewell, and indicates yet another way that we may be able to identify a sun which has very advanced forms of life in its solar system.

Professor Dyson points out that Man is on the verge of going into the space of his own solar sys-tem.

It is possible, according

to Professor Dyson, that in some hundreds of years this civilisation of oursbecause of its tremendously advanced technology will be able to build large space stations from the metals, minerals, and materials contained within the planets.

Blocking the Sun

The space stations would be so numerous that they would provide a complete swarm around the Sun and prevent much of its light from escaping into space.

This would be a natural way for an advanced civil-isation to solve population problems and provide far more efficient living quar-

tens in the solar system. Naturally, questions of

cost did not enter Dyson's calculations.

What did enter them was solely the possibility of building space stations of material available, and how large these space stations could be.

He found that space sta-tions of, say, 50 miles dia-meter would be stable in orbit around the Sun and could support extremely comfortable life.

Now, if you work out how many would be needed to support a population of the solar system many tens of thousands times the number that we are at the moment you very soon find that the numbers of these space stations would be extremely

large and, indeed. not very much of the direct light of the Sun would escape. Other distant solar systems in which this has already occurred might well be detectable astronomically. The sun in question would appear to have strange characteristics, and to be emitting large amounts of infra-red radiation.

While we are on the question of suggestions which sound initially pre-posterous. let me recall another, put forward by Dr. Thomas Gold, Profes-sor of Astronomy at Cor-nell University, New York.

Professor Gold pro-claimed that we should an-ticipate life to be teeming throughout our galaxy, some of which could be vastly ahead of us, to the extent of millions of years.

There is no reason why we should be the first space travellers in the galaxy.

Other space travellers may have visited our Earth when it was without any trace of life.

If that were so, these travellers unintentionally would have left some life matter behind, thus con-taminating us with at least the microbes infesting their own bodies.

These forms of life may have proliferated, and an evolution on the lines of Darwin is quite consistent with this theory.

Gold has suggested obviously without proof the possibility that evolu-tion of life on earth may not have started naturally but as a result of space visitors many hundreds of millions of years ago.

Scientists essentially have bridged the gap in understanding how life

can originate on a planet naturally.

The atmosphere thit Earth had in its initial stages contained methane, ammonia and other gases.

It has been proved that the action of sunlight, and specifically of the ultra-violet light within it, can cause chemical changes in such an atmosphere which result in the formation of large molecules of which life forms are made.

By experiments in the laboratory, then, we can see it is not unreasonable to expect, on planets with the appropriate conditions, that life molecules can arise and form under the natural circumstances. '

Once this happens, evolve-Lion will take place in a natural process over thous-ands of millions of years.

An interesting question that always is asked con-cerns what scientists might expect other forms of life to take.

Are they, for example, the little green men of science-fiction, looking something like us but per-haps with pointed ears and some other peculiarities?

Evolution in other forms

In this category. abso-lutely nothing can be said from a scientific point of View.

The circumstances under which other life forms may have evolved may be vastly different from the circumstances on Earth.

If the environment is different, the forms with be different. Then again; even the chemistry of these individuals may be different.

S. T. Butler

Say, have you seen

an L.G.M.? (little green man)

a UFOs j us tsuppose, "Bow-Wow Train-er" that UFOs could ion-ise the surrounding air. The resulting rarefied air tenuid provide far less drag and the boundary layer of Ionised air would protect the craft, since any fric-tion is between the mov-ing layer and the outside air. Mysterious glows and the hazy outlines observed support this reasoning . You shouldn't expect con-ventional theories to ex- plain unconvential nomena. "Ven

on phe- us de

Pluto."

m oN DP14_2-12Tii_

ipS

uFe. As well as being UFOs human "Triffids Oa Home" try to be real-istic. First assume that UFOs do sometimes con-tact us. It is highly prob-able that anyone experi-encing a genuine contact would not reveal it, due to the very real fear of ridicule and sbcial exclu-sion. If they choose not to contact its why should they? We couldn't tell them anything new. You Aig -- Irey,us de Pluto."

SOUND To .. "Starry' w One : Since

most UFOs do not dis-lay an exhaust, you could

!presume they use a pro-pulsion system completely alien to our technology. Perhaps if they used an

,lelectrontagnetic field to protect them against fric-tion, this could be utilised as a silent power source. kven our technology is

' producing methods which nullify sound such as that made by an atomic sub -rn urine." Uf ologist-"

CREATURES I ' a few pe-culiar sights, usually at night iwbile quite sober) and do believe in the pos-sibility of the existence of vehicles and people from other planets -- after all we would have to be great fools to think there were no creature` out there. They may not be the same as we are; but who can say? "Realistic Dresaii-er."

SIGHTINGS There seems to be `some eh: about the authen-ty of UFOs. Would all

kers care to deb:tee that re have been countless mends of sightings

all points on the earth's surface? Would it be possible to organise hoax on a scale as large as this?"Fourth Dineen- . Sion."

* * *

is

TI)P- SDAYI ;RD SEf. Meci,

(nualoti WOW o - WOW Train-

er": I disagree with your statement that UFOs can-not be made of magnesium. I believe that these craft are propelled by anti-gravity force fields. These operate in such a way that not only is the craft moved along, but also the air surrounding it. Thus, there is no friction between the skin of the craft and the surrounding air

!Therefore. UFOs could be made of light magnesium. "Lil' Eno."

* * *

OLD HAT To "P "M 'S ' "" Thepresence of UFOs in our skies has been accurately traced back through history for almost 4000 years. Ancient records of the shapes, colors and the rapid manoeuvres describe the modern-day UFO perfectly. There were more than 300 recordings before the year WOO of aerial phenomena that could not be twisted to be anything else but extra-terrestrial spacecraft. "Starry One."

MONDAY) 11-1 AU6 iiST/ ici(oR

TUE5Di:Tr 19TI-1 RUGUcTi. 1 96 8

* * *

! Tun' v

I see that all LI members of the

United Nations have been urged to bring up the problem of UPOe before the Security Council About rime. Since world-wide contact with extra-terrestrials is going to be the most important facet of the space age I sup-pose it might be worth-while looking into."Star-ry One."

* * *

SPITU RD AY,24TH AUGUST. 1 4%8

k_

THOSE MAD MARTIANS . chase last night. And in Argentina police

warned today they would prosecute anyone who spraed "unwarranted fear" about the presence of fly-

saucers, he sighting of a bright

, object in the night sky yesterday over Madrid caused a huge traffic jam and sent the U.S.-built F104 jet scrambling to find out what it was.

An official Air Force an-nouncement said the pilot climbed to an altitude of more than 50,000 feet and reported the object was still above him when he had to return to base for fuel.

Radar trace Tire pilot of another

plane flying Sr 36.000 feet, reported seeing the same object.

Air Force radar screens tracked the UFO and said It was flying at 90,000 feet and moving slowly,

Thousands of Spaniards jammed the s treets of Madrid to get a look at the object. and traffic backed up for nines.

! One reporter, sent to the

n unidentified flying sh Air Force a merry

Madrid Astronomical Ob-servatory for a look through its powerful tele-scope. said the object gave off "a blind ' g light."

A photo taken through the telescope revealed a triangular object. appar-ently solid on one side and translucent in sonic sect ions.

In Buenos Aires, police issued a commurdeue say-ing their experts had !owed no evidence whatsoever to substantiate a report that live midget 'humanoids" had stopped two casino workers on their way home in the city of Mendoza at the foot of the Andes Mountains last week.

Another rumor claimed that two Martians had been arrested for swooping their spacecraft recklessly on a major thoroughfare and crashing into an Rata-mobile,

In Mendoza. 600 miles west of Buenos Aires, a court investigation was or-dered into reports that cit-izens had seen five small flying saucer crewmen In the streets carrying a port-able outer-space TV set,

MADRID, Sat.A object led the Spans

MYSTERY FORCE

HIT CARS LONDON. Saturday. A

mysterious bicidesit fn which an nnknewn torte stripped three ears on a iiaiet ratintre read is be-ing investigates).

The British Unidentified Firing Objects Reevarch Association is etudying a report on the mange hap-pening.

One of the drivers_ Mr Paul Redshaw. 21, said: was driving along the old Roman road from Aekere-well to Beaminster at suss on Sunday when the en-gine failed. lights went out, clocks and watches stepped and 1 tame over i dizzy.

"Two other vehicles on wthere e ssimamefia7.trlyeatteheetoftdrotrt

after 30 minutes every-thaniringa rterretazdhadtearreeranniial

pared notes we continued

11rMril:MME:03Tn-ol'ciew"

ortlev. 28, ;

`.who was in Mr Redshawas car eaid: -The experience

' ebattered us. We haw and Ilea* nothing'

JET CHASES 'FLYING SAUCER' TO 50,000ft

MADRID, Saturday.A 1500 mph jet fighter yesterday chased an unidentified flying object to more than 50,000ft after thousands of people reported seeing a "flying saucer" over the city.

At the same time reports t h ro ugh a telescope. 'saucer scare" ireean when court investigation was ,

ing spacemen" came from ject. seemingly solid on splashed reports of the of visits from "weird look- showed a triangular ob- Argentine n e w spa. per s

at least three cities in one side and translucent sightings.

citizens had seen five small ; ordered into reports that ;

flying saucer crewmen in Latin America. in places. In Mendoza. 600 miles the streets carrying a port-

The Latin American west at Buenos Aires. a able outer-space TV set.

2 _SUN Dfrc 91-14

P PrE tifiE R_ 369

.0 U N DAY, 5TH _cEPTFM13CR 1914'

Rumors swept Buenos Aires that two "Martians"

ad been arrested for if 'swooping their spacecraft recklessly over a major the ro ug h fare'

H igh above In Spain, an air force

F-104 took off after re-ports of a mysterious tri-angular object, over the city.

The pilot climbed to more than 50,000 ft in an attempt to approach the object.

But at this height the obieet was still high above him and he returned to base to refuel.

The pilot Of another aircraft dying at 36.000 ft reported seeing the same object at a "consid-erably higher altitude."

Meanwhile, air force radar scanners tracked the le-F'0.

A photegraph, taken

COVER AEM:110W

Roy Thinnes has really seen a `flying saucer'

Roy Thinnes as David Vincent ... no one believes his story.

insaid "But a few are disturb-

. T UE5D_AY

g I "These come from people

who claim to have been in SEPTEMBERI968L touch with extra-terrestrial beings. They claim that the real beings are friendly and object to the way we are dramatising them_

"They object. not so much because they think it is wrong. but because and. so help me, this is what they say the beings may not like it and get mad.

"Some of these people may be crackpots, but can you discount all of them?"

He broke into a smile. "If those callers are right."

he said. "I hope the beings don't really get mad at us. -

2

Chased by a flying saucer

YOUTHS TELL POLICE AUCKLAND, Thursday.Two youths who leapt from

their car seconds before it crashed into a shop window said they were being chased by a diving flying saucer.

Dozens of people say they have seen- the saucers.

Mrs Evelyn Cooper, 67, said:

"Call us cranks if you wish, but there is something very strange going on in Taradale,

"I'm frightened to go out alone at night for fear of seeing those peculiar whir-ring lights."

It is understood that the insurance company handling the crash damage claim has accepted the flying saucer story.

THURSDAY/ Ich-H

SEPTEMFIER lem

Napier police have since been patrolling where saucers have nearby Taradale been "sighted."

At least two police con-stables have confirmed see-ing strange lights in the sky.

Many Taradale residents are nervous about reports of flashing lights in the night sky and ominous rumblings around_ the hills.

The youths claim they had to abandon their car in the town's attain street situ !wing chased In

a bright light.

tic ear smashed into a fruiterer's shop.

A resident, Mr Vernon Walker, said taa youths hobbled from lhe scene "trembling with fear."

"Apparently they had been bunting the flying

saucers for several days," he said.

"On a previous night, they had heard an explosion near the rubbish dump and saw

a massive flashing

object rise from the ground. Fear spreads

'Then they reported

entailer sighting to the

"The following evening they said they had seen

a flying saucer and had fol-lowed it by driving round the town.

"They reckoned it dived on them," Mr Walker said.

"One of the boys called `Bail out. it's got us.' "

The car is believed to have been travelling al more than 30 m.p.h. when they jumped_

The youths' fear has become infectious.

AN FY.TR ACT fkor-f-rviiMEIE"

ROY THINNES, who plays architect

David Vincent in The In-vaders. claims to have seen in real life a "Mine saucer". like David Vincent in Thinnes' TV science-fiction series.

Now. Thinnes is seriously in-terested in the investigation of UFOs Unidentified Fly-ing Objects. But for a long time he was chary of having his experience known, afraid that he would be ridiculed, as was David Vincent.

This is the way he describes his experience:

He and actress Lynn Loring (to whom Thinnes is now married) were driving along the beach near Los Angeles when:

"We looked up suddenly and saw an object glowing in the sky over the ocean.

alt started to change

IN 1047 on American pilot. Kenneth Arn-

old. reported seeing "silvery- grey filing saucers" over the Cascade Mountains, in the

Since then tens of thou-sands of UFOs tUnidentified Flying Objects+ have been sighted-62 of them last year in Australia.

Most can be explained ih terms of falling meteoritee. man -made space satellites. weather balloons and the like; but there is still the baffling minority.

Last year Soviet scientists began taking UFOs seriously. After years of dismissing them as a "capitalist fantasy" they set up an organization to in-vestigate them. The first UFO

colours, from red to blue to green. and so on.

- Then. suddenly. it flew at right angles to its direction and disappeared over the hori-zon.

-We just looked at each other for a moment. And then we tried to explain it in the usual ways: that it could have been a weather balloon or

a cloud catching the lights, or a lightning ball.

",Then we both realised that we knew what it really was." Thinnes said that before

the series began. he had been interested in the phenomenon of UPOs. -Then. when I got involved in the series. I did more serious research into the subject. Now I'm a firm believer in UFOs although I'm not about to speculate on who or what they are."

In this he is more restrain-ed than David Vincent of his series.

Vincent finds that its pas-sengers. The Invaders. are from another planet and are

seen in Australia was in 1893, but in recent times there have been many sightings: at Cressy, Tasmania an orange-coloured ball. also described as cigar-shaped and hovering in the sky; at Kerang, Victoria, apparently controlled light; at Moe. Victoria, a grey. rotating object that gave oft a swish-ing sound; a yellow :orange rocket-like object with win-dows in the side was reported above the Hamersley Ranges in W.A.: and a loud, hum-ming. glowing object emanat-ing yellowtwhite light was seen at Kimberley, Tasmania.

The RAAP and the Depart-ment of Air jointly investi-gate UFO sightings in Aus-tralia and generally explain them as "light refraction" or aetronomical." Among the flying saucer

an advance guard for plane to take over the earth.

He tries to warn people to no avail.

Thinnes, a believer in things "out of this world" isn't sure that The Invaders have, in reality. landed, but he is sure that -tbey are up there, watching".

That evening on the beach Thinnes cautioned Lynn not to say anything about their experience. and he did not tell anyone about it for a long time

I felt awkward about it," he said. "Here I was playing

stories that cannot be ex-plained is one known as the Mantell Incident_

It occurred on January 7, 1948, when a flat, circular object some 300 ft in diameter was seen flying near the U.S. Air Force base at Godman, Kentucky.

When the object was seen from the control tower a training flight of four F-5I Mustang fighters were sent to investigate. In charge was flight leader Captain Mantell.

Minutes later Mantell re-ported to the tower: see something ahead of me and I'm still climbing." Next came the call: "It's above me and I'm gaining on it. I'm acing to 20,000 ft."

Seconds later atiantells air-craft crashed. He was

dead.

a 'taloa. who (AWL= to have seen a UFO and is ridiculed by everyone.

"Maybe it's partly because I am so involved with my character. but partly just the way I am, but I was afraid the same thing might happen to me if I were to say that I had seen a Dying saucer.

"Not only that, but it would look like a pretty obvious publicity gimmick." Because The Invaders is a

one-man show, with guest stars, much in the style of The Fugitive or Run For Your Life, Thinnes carries most of the acting load. Sometimes he works 15 hours a day.

His working hours, plus the time he spends with Lynn. give him little time to pursue his interests in painting and writing. But he continues his Investigation of UFOs.

"I subscribe to NICAP," he told me. "This is a pub-lication put out by the Na-tional Investigations Com-mission on Aerial Pheno-mena. "NICAP is a thorough re-

search organisation, a private one, which takes the position that there have been enough sightings and incidents to confirm the existence or UFOs.

"The publication is factual, as opposed to many UFO newspapers I've seen that deal in sensation."

One thing that Thinnes and others connected with the show have generally avoided discussing are the phone calls they receive.

-Most of the calls and letters we've received have been very favourable," he

. . . and so have many Australians

At last A REAL SAUCER

Could this be the answer to the crash of Unidentiled Flying Ob-ject reports in the southwest United States in 1966 and 1967?

The nearest thing yet to the oft described, but never confirmed, `flying saucer" was photographed by a reporter who spotted it at White Sands missile range, New Mexico.

The rocket propelled "saucer" was used in a space project called "Voy-ager Balloon."

The U.S. Government is believed

to have continued to deny the exist. once of their "flying saucer" rather than disclose its use in a space pro-ject.

Two heads? I HAVE noted number of news-

paper Articie over the past few weeks about a Sydney club setting up electronic equipment mar Pietas to study =Id possibly make coo-lant with unidentified min; Objects.

Why' There is already a civilian society in Pictou which has been studying UFOs in a scieatilic manner for web over a year now.

It is extremely well organised and has had detectors, recorders and other electronic and optical equipment ,..et up, and in use, for at }east six months.

"SYDNEY N1EMNER,"

Manly, 2095.

ANOTHER "SAUCER" BUENOS AIRES, Satur-

day.The pilot of an Argentine commercial air-liner told authorities yes-terday he had an eneonn-1 ter with a Hying saucer,' goon after taking off from Buenos Aires for Mar Del Plata_

Copt J. Heslop. of the Argentine Austral Airline, said the saucer appeared in his flight path over met-ropolitan Buenos Aires.

It looked like an expls-A-ins star giving off brilliant green, white and red lights..

The object remained stationary for a moment, then took oft at a speed never reached by a mart