e~\
1291 V~tide!lti/ied (LORDS] Flying Objects 1292
[The Earl of Halsbury.J / Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords
had seen it when sitting by the shore off . may I ask the noble FarJ one question.?
Bo~1bay. It was eyentually phot?graphed 1 Ha~ he eyer seen a mirage? That i~
durmg the InternatiOnal Geophys1cal Year, ; easily explicable, and one can also see it
the IGY, some years ago. 1 easily.
However, before that I saw it myself /
in rather odd circumstances, after having 1
read about it. I was bird watching in I
the far North-West of Scotland, by a ~ea i
loch called Loch Glcncoul, near a little 1'
village called Drumbcg, where there is a 1
cliff path. On that cliff path, there is a 1
bench for the convenie11ce of people who /
want to sit down and admire the view. ;
Another traveller, a visitor to the district, !
was sitting upon the bench when 1 sat ·
dovm and, by a chance coincidence, we
v,:erc both using the same type of Hensholt
binoculars and ·we got talking about our
binoculars. There was a spectacular
sunset, and when the sun was very low
and it was safe to look at it through
·binoculars, I said to my fellow traveller,
The Earl of HALSBURY: Yes, my
Lords, and one can reproduce a mirage
in the laboratory. You have a long trav
of sand with bunsen burners unden1eath
it, and you look at it from one end. It
is quite a reproducible kind of phenomen.
Science deals with material objects-
things such as atoms and molecules;
material processes-things such as the
emission and absoption of radiation·
and material forces-things such as th~
; force fields which couple the objects to
i the processes. But if things are not
" Let us se\! if we can watch the grc~n
flash ". So we trained our binoculars
and this very rare meteorological pheno-
menon actually happened when 1 had
just said to a fello>v bird watcher, " Let
us have a -look to see if it happens".
What would that person have made of it
if I had not been there, just by chance,
to tell him what the green flash was
about?
/ material, then science has nothing to say.
If you want to know what is the con-
sciousness of a mind, I do not think
science can either answer the question,
on the one hand, or say whether it is a
proper question, on the other hand.
Therefore, from the scientific point of
view, I can deal only -.vith the assumption
that these are material objects, ::mel, if they
! are material objects, then, if they travel
I at the kind of speeds that are alleged, .
! why do they not make supersonic bangs :
I when travelling above ~.1ach I? The ,
noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, made
/ this point, and the noble Lord, Lord
I Lastly, I come to ball lightning. 1 ! Rankeillour, also made it. l should lib:1
have never seen ball lightning, but the 1 to go into the point in a little more depth.description one reads of it is so coherent, 1
so similar in all cas~~. that 011e must f:ccept We customarily express the speeds of
it as a phenomenon which occurs regularly fast moving objects in terms of Mach
in nature, though we cannot reproduce numbers. Mach 1 is the speed of sound
it in nature and attempts to reproduce it appropriate to temperature and pressure
in the laboratory are, to my mind, where the sound is being propagated.
unconvincing. There is no theory of it. In terms of miles per hour, it is not a
It appears to take the form of a football- constant figure, but the advantage of using
shaped mass of glowing gas which hops it as a parameter is that no matter what the
around or, if it has a chance, gets on to a I temperature and pressure may be, Mach 1
cond!lctor f;uch as the rail in the gallery / is the speed at which the kinetic energy of
here and migrates along the conductor I a moving object-that is, the power to
until it finally disappears with a bang. / pack punch-is equal to its thermal
It has never been srrtisfactorily photo- energy. This is an unstable condition.
graphed, to my knowledge. If it has The least disturbance to these unstable
been, then the photograph must be a conditions entails the com·erison of kinetic
fairly recent one, and, as I say, it has not energy into thermal energy with a bang, and
been reproduced. But this, again, should this is what is called the shock wave. If
assure the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, one takes a cross section through a shock
that, faced with an unknown phenomenon wave, there is a rise in pressure, tempera-
which I cannot explain, 1 do not get ture and entropy. There is complete
vertigo. J should be delighted to go discontinuity. That must happen when a
ball lighming watching, as I go bird material object is moving at Mach I or
watching. above through any medium.
1293
The answ~
noble Lord,
not had very
he sprung it c
is this. lf \ ·
what would.h
placed? Wo
;l!ld push it
means of tra•
Y•)ll arc mer
\\ ards at the
create a sup
Custom:1rily.
bangs hc-caus
stern wa,·c fr
times the ba;'
just as a thu
rumble. An)
uncomfortab!
are aware tha
bang as the ~
· . If these are
I are moving a
see th-:m doiu
so eitha the.
, they are ;JOt
: in which ca~e
optical illu::io
the rest of the
them.
In this we•:!
today, there is
and { should I
a passage fro1
h CJr\...c;sk con
r.tdar beams "·-
this tunes in
noble Lord. l
•• e;<i~led in th::;
the- nights ~l,~n tt
of December.
Neil Ch~rf)1 , h;.
spotted lla. r<!d;~r
brilliant hgl.t .,.
airborne TV ·:r.:·
There is ncd1
whether the Oj
si!!htings can::·
lhe saJuc digt
We shall ha\
b~cont~ a\~ti~a
I w~ts nr.1c
that the rig.ht
of Not'\vic:l h·
bv some of t
Lord, Lord 1
too. I do ·nt
reads the C.
H.L. S Q2