The dreamers always must precede the doers across new horizons.
The ethical scientist has opinions, preconceptions, but dares
not acknowledge them even to his colleagues. To the
professional scientist all new ideas are theoretical until they
are supportable with conclusive evidence.
There is no conclusive evidence about "flying saucers."
Most men of science, therefore, have expressed either disdain or
disinterest in the subject. The handful of bona fide scientists
who did want to speculate on UFOs found themselves in the
uncomfortable company of pseudoscientists, commercial cultists,
pulp booksellers and crackpots.
Last December's issue of the respected Journal of Aeronautics
and Astronautics changed all that. In this technical
publication the bigwigs of the esteemed AIAA subscribed to this
very meaningful conclusion: "UFO phenomena cannot be
resolved without quantitative scientific study; this matter merits
the attention of scientists and engineers."
Suddenly such men as Dr. James McDonald felt less alone.
Dr. McDonald, a physicist, of the Institute of Atmospheric
Physics, University of Arizona, has been in the forefront of
those few respected voices urging "quantitative study."
Inevitably now the evidence he and others have collected will
be properly evaluated.
Dr. Allen Hynek, head of the department of astronomy, Northwestern
University, now freely confesses his own
"conversion." He says, "I can no longer
dismiss the UFO phenomenon with a shrug."
Other respected professional voices join the rising chorus.
For Medical Times, Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz, eminent
psychiatrist, examined scores of UFO "observers,"
decreed that they are not psychotic, not suffering hallucination,
not publicity-seekers. "More, on the contrary,
fearing ridicule, are embarrassed to testify to what they saw."
Notably, Dr. Schwarz and his colleagues find among mental
patients a total absence of any such "observations."
So, concludes Dr. Schwarz, "These reports are neither
conscious nor unconscious fabrication. What they say
they saw they think they saw!"
For no man is this now-official "recognition" more
rewarding than for Dr. McDonald. He believes "UFOs
constitute the greatest scientific problem of the times."
He believes this matter has been "mishandled for 20 years"
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