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
1. _Color._ Meteors do not contain copper; since the peculiar shade of
green shown by the green fireballs could come only from copper, the
fireballs were not meteors but spacecraft.
2. _Speed and trajectory._ Meteors do not travel at a slow rate of
speed and do not follow a horizontal path; since the green fireballs
did both, they were not meteors but spacecraft.
3. _Size and brilliance._ Meteors do not show such great size or
brilliance as did the green fireballs, which were therefore not meteors
but spacecraft.
4. _Sound._ Meteors produce a loud noise; since the green fireballs
moved silently, they were not meteors but spacecraft.
5. _Fragments._ Meteors deposit material fragments on the earth which
can be located if the investigator maps the flight path and makes a
search; since the green fireballs left no fragments, they were not
meteors but spacecraft.
In the pages that follow we shall attempt to correct each of these
mistaken ideas in turn, to present the actual facts known to
astronomers, and to show clearly that the green fireballs were not
spacecraft, but meteors.
_Facts about Meteors_
1. _Color._ Copper-green meteors are not a new phenomenon. This
unusual shade of green is only one of the many possible colors that
meteors may display--white, green, blue, yellow, orange, red, and all
shades in between. Descriptions received by the Meteoritical Society
include adjectives such as bright-green, copper-green, blue-green,
fiery white, green-white, orange, blue, yellowish, silver, red-orange.
Perceptions of color vary greatly among different observers, so that
several witnesses may choose different words for the color of the same
object. The most common adjective used is “brilliant”; an observer who
has only a few seconds to look at the object often has real difficulty
in deciding just what color accompanied the brilliance. Very common
phrases are blue-green, greenish-white, orange-yellow, orange-red,
greenish-yellow, yellow-green.
Both the chemical structure and the velocity of the meteoric body help
determine its apparent color. As the burning object plunges through the
atmosphere and vaporizes, the chemical elements produce their typical
colors. At higher velocities, atmospheric friction heats the body to
higher temperatures and whitens the color; as the body slows down and
becomes less hot, it is apt to appear redder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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