of the Americans decided that they "had something" there and, within the hour the term was in use. Within two, it is claimed that ninety people had reported having seen one,
Man has always instinctively locked to the sky for signs and portents, nor has he, even to-day, quite lost his inclination to discern and report celestial manifestations. It is not the object of this article to decry or deprecate such reportings - as Shakespeare wrote "There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" - but it is the intention to encourage a rational approach both to the objects themselves and to the method of their reporting.
Generally, reports are of commonplace objects which would normally pass unobserved but which attract attention in the light of more sensational stories, and lend support to them. Thus a meteor or a radio sonde balloon, or even a conventional aircraft, assumes in the perception of some observers speeds, shapes and movements which are entirely uncharacteristic. A well-known astronomer has declared that his experience of the reports of ordinary observers prompts him to reject 95 per cent of what they say, particularly when he knows that they have been startled by a sudden phenomenon which they could have observed for no more than a few seconds.
With such reports we are not seriously concerned. There are a number of other reports on flying saucers which are emphatic statements of visitations from neighbouring planets, and suchlike; these derive both from the imaginings of zealots, admittedly quite serious and sincere in their beliefs, and from charlatans.
Visual Sightings
Reports of sightings themselves reveal certain stereotyped patterns. They usually describe objects as being projectile-shaped, round, oval, or ellipsoidal; they are dazzling-bright, light, shiny, blue-green and generally speaking, irridescent. They move at fantastic speeds in lateral and longitudinal directions; they also hover. Such are the basic lines of description, with inevitable variations.
Practically all of these objects can be roughly identified as follows:-
(a) conventional aircraft viewed by the observers from unaccustomed angles:
(b) present-day jet aircraft, flying at great speeds and great heights, mistaken by untrained and/