LETTERS TO EDI
FLYING SAUCER REPORTS
Minister Suggests An Explanation
Sir,—From time to time people report having seen unexplained objects in the sky which have come to be called “flying saucers.”
There have been many explanations of them—the sun shining on high-flying aircraft—meteorological balloons—imagination, etc.
There is another possibility that may account for some of them, which has not been suggested 1, so far, as I know. On known dates in each year, the earth passes through meteor-streams. These are the remains of meteors that have disintegrated in outer space, but which continue their original paths round the sun in the form of streams of solid particles and meteoric dust.
The fact that the earth moves round the sun in a fixed path and that these debris of meteors also move round the sun in fixed paths, means that the paths of the earth and of some of these meteoric streams intersect each other on a series of dates which are the same each year. The earth sometimes takes a number of days to pass through the more important of these meteoric streams.
The dates of maximum meteoric activity are: January 3, April 21, May 4, June 8, June 30, July 28, August 10-13, October 10, October 20-23, November 3-10, November 14, November 16, December 11-13.
I have lists of the dates over the last several years on which people have reported having seen “flying saucers” in Australia, and have compared them with the dates on which the earth passes through the principal meteoric streams. There appears to be a noticeable relationship between these two sets of dates. By this I mean that there tends to be a grouping of “flying saucer” sightings round about the meteor-stream dates that it is hard to believe is by chance.
And again, there is a relative increase of “flying saucer” reports during the principal gaps between meteor-stream dates. For instance, the minimum meteoric activity in the year is between January and April. These are also the months in which fewest “flying saucers” have been reported in Australia.
I do not suggest that this evidence is by any means complete, or that it is, at best, more than a partial explanation of “flying saucer” phenomena. All that I suggest is that there is some evidence that people seem to report otherwise unexplained objects in the sky round about the dates on which the earth passes through the principal meteor-streams, and there seems to be a lull in the reporting of “flying saucers” in between these dates.
I do not suggest any more than that, what I have said may be an explanation of at least a proportion of the “flying saucer” reports.
R. G. CASEY,
Minister for External Affairs.
Melbourne.
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*Some evidence suggests that “Saucers are related by during meteor showers. (Perhaps knocking out the whoppers.) may be your evidence my theory or whether?*