The World of Flying Saucers: A Scientific Examination of a Major Myth of the Space AgeMenzel, Donald H. (Donald Howard)
Science
The World of Flying Saucers: A Scientific Examination of a Major Myth of the Space Age
Menzel, Donald H. (Donald Howard)
Unidentified flying objects
Whether such tales are delusions, fantasies, or hoaxes may be
impossible to determine. Some contact cases, however, undoubtedly
contain elements of fraud. At worst, the witness may be deliberately
inventing the whole story from start to finish; at best, he may feel
so certain of the reality of his experience that he feels justified in
manufacturing evidence to convince possible skeptics. No matter what
his motives, when he tries to add verisimilitude to his narrative by
fabricating proofs, he joins the company of hoaxers[X-7].
In the Maury Island case (see _Chapter_ II), the witnesses offered
alleged fragments of a disabled spaceship, which turned out to be
chunks of slag. The scoutmaster in Florida exhibited singed hair on his
arm and a scorched cap to prove that he had suffered from the heat rays
of a landed flying saucer (see _Chapter_ VII), and the grain salesman
in Nebraska bolstered his tale of the Saturnian ship by pointing to
shallow cracks in a dry river bed and oil smudges on the grass (see
_Chapter_ IX).
A contactee who provided “proof” of his story was Howard Menger, who
specialized in describing visits to the moon. In the moon cities, he
said, he met many earth scientists who enjoyed a delightful, relaxed
existence. The lunar natives use no money, are born without appendixes,
and for entertainment play a game very much like baseball. In science
they are way ahead of us: using saucers equipped with “self-contained
gravity” and propelled by “processed free energy,” they transported him
from earth to moon in only two hours[X-8]. As a trophy of his visit,
Menger brought back a lunar potato. This remarkable vegetable was
supposed to have five times the protein content of an ordinary American
potato, but unfortunately it was not available for analysis. As soon
as he returned, he said, he had turned it over to the United States
Government, and the government was keeping it top secret[X-9].
_Adamski’s Travels_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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