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
_Charge 6a._ It was not true that a misty rain with haze and mist had
occurred at the time of the sighting; the witness herself stated that
it was not raining. [Incorrect. The Cleveland Weather Bureau recorded
continual slight precipitation between midnight and 7 A.M.: .20 inches
were recorded between 2 and 4 A.M. When asked whether it was raining
when she saw the UFO, the witness replied, “It had rained a few hours
before,” a vague response suggesting that she had not noticed the
weather at the time of the sighting. Other parts of her account,
however, strongly indicate rain. Although the night was warm (about 65
degrees F. at 3 A.M.), her bedroom window was closed.]
_Charge 6b._ It was not true that smoke from the steel plant southwest
of the house could have been a factor in the sighting, because the
direction of the wind was wrong. [Incorrect. The Weather Bureau
recorded “WSW and SW” winds that night averaging ten miles an hour;
coming from the southwest, the winds would have blown the smoke
northeast, directly toward the house.]
_Charge 7a._ The sergeants did not make a house-to-house check among
the neighbors to obtain confirmatory evidence. [Correct. Such a
time-consuming procedure would not have been justified. The neighbors
had had two weeks in which to report a visiting spaceship. No such
report had been made, even by the neighbor in whose yard the noisy
object was supposed to have hovered while emitting puffs of smoke.]
_Charge 7b._ They did not ask Mrs. Fitzgerald to make a drawing of the
UFO. [Correct. Before their visit she had already made such a drawing,
prepared with the help of members of the Akron Committee who had shown
her a sketch of an alleged spaceship reproduced several years earlier
in an Air Force pamphlet[XIII-13]. With this sketch before her to
aid her memory, Mrs. Fitzgerald had described her UFO to a draftsman
provided by the committee. Unsurprisingly, the resulting sketch was
very similar to the picture used as an example. A drawing obtained in
this way could have no value as evidence.]
_Charge 7c._ The sergeants failed to ask enough questions about the
motions of the object. [Incorrect. The standard form for reporting
unidentified flying objects contains questions specifically designed to
describe the motion of an unknown; all these questions were asked and
answered.]
_Charge 7d._ They used only the standard report form; it did not
include questions that allowed Mrs. Fitzgerald to express all her
ideas of what she had seen. [Correct. The questions are designed to
elicit observed physical facts; it does not require all the witness’s
interpretations.]
_Charge 7e._ They did not take notes during the interview. [Correct.
In filling out the report form they obtained all the necessary
information. They had been trained not to take additional notes because
some witnesses become nervous when they see that their remarks are
being written down.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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