FICTIONAL WARNING
The Scientist General has determined that conducting research into areas considered 'fringe" to conservative mainstream science may stunt professional credibility and has been known to cause premature career death. The following text contains liberal use of the "U" word considered by some to be offensive.
Fear of being singled out and ridiculed for reporting unexplainable observations keeps many from being reported and scientifically investigated. I know. I have experienced a couple of strange events personally: one which can be explained, and one that cannot (yet).
The explainable event happened in 1987 while driving in Kansas. I was cruising at 60 mph in the passing lane of an Interstate highway when, out of nowhere, a UFO suddenly sprang up in front of me. My immediate thought was that I was hallucinating due to fatigue. It was right at eye level and hovering about a foot in the air over the hood of my 1979 Pontiac Bonneville. It looked like a jet aircraft but was only about three or four inches long. "Of course I'm seeing planes," I thought. After all, I was in fact passing the municipal airport at the time. Instinct told me to pull over to the shoulder and stop the car to get hold of myself.
As I changed lanes, the hovering UFO stayed right with me. When I began braking, the craft made a gentle landing upon the hood. As I pulled onto the shoulder of the highway, the tiny UFO taxied toward the front of the car, turned slowly, and then started back toward me. Once I managed to stop the car, the mysterious craft disappeared from my sight. Shaken by the sudden appearance of something so out of the ordinary, I kept telling myself that a scientific explanation must exist. And, as I will soon explain, one did.
Since the early days of flight, from biplanes to jet planes, pilots have returned from the skies excited about having seen strange colored flashes of light high above the clouds. Such reports from otherwise credible people have been numerous. Since the events were all sudden and startling, descriptions were inexact and varied. Though many pilots have been willing to swear by what they saw, the science community has been unwilling to recognize them as credible sources, or to offer answers. Most pilots decided not to pursue the issue once they recognized that they were being patronized by both civil authorities and scientists and soon risked being labeled "kooks."
However, in 1989, a Space Shuttle crew who were filming lightning over the curvature of the earth met with a surprise. For the first time, the strange flashes that pilots had been reporting for years, were captured on film. Scientists could no longer ignore them. For the next several years, investigative teams began to study the newly discovered phenomenon. The most noted was a team of physicists from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, headed by Professor Davis Sentman. Sentman quickly recognized that the University's specialized low-light television system could best capture the flashes for analysis. And it did. For many years they remained the front-runner in real-time data collection. Recently, many more research teams from schools such as MIT and Stanford have joined in the data collection and analysis.
The phenomena are called "red sprites" and "blue jets." Atmospheric scientists are eager to learn how these bizarre flashes fit into the total energy equation of the planet. Volumes of data have already been collected over the last nine years. It will take several more years for scientists to study the data and draw conclusions. Fully understanding new science discovery often takes time. Time requires patience. The pilots who had caught a glimpse of something strange were finally exonerated, because new high-profile technology on the Space Shuttle happened to catch it on film.
But what about my unexplainable experience with UFOs? After thirty years, I still impatiently wait for science to explain what I saw over Lake Champlain, New York in 1967. Looking out a second-floor dorm window at the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh, I noticed an eight-to-ten-foot diameter ball of light moving above the treetops. For several minutes the bright orb drifted slowly northward, gradually growing smaller in the night sky. I thought that it might be a helicopter until it suddenly shot quickly to my right, then abruptly zigged way up high, then zagged back down low. It remained stationary for about a minute. Next, it shot off to my right and out of view, then back again. My two roommates fumbled with a telescope to get a better look. By naked eye it appeared like a bright ball of light, but through the telescope it appeared to be a solid object - curved along its top and flat along its bottom. A dark band ran along its length close to its bottom.
I phoned a girlfriend from my hometown who lives in the new high-rise dorms. She and her roommates had already been watching the light from the ninth floor. She described the object's movement from her higher perspective. When gone from our view, she could still see it speeding north toward Canada and then disappearing over the horizon. It covered great distances in only seconds, faster than anything known to us. Also strange was the appearance of the sky above the treetops - not its usual black, but pale blue. Groups of students gathered in the cold night air to watch the strange light. Everyone was at a loss to explain it. As a freshman physics major, I was eager to solve this exciting mystery.
However, the local science community did not seem as eager. No one in the faculty was willing to openly discuss anything connected with the term UFO. As soon as we mentioned the word, all discussion abruptly ended. When stories surfaced in later years about similar sightings around the world, I elected to keep my experience private, for fear of being ridiculed. It became clear early on that if I ever wanted to establish professional credibility, I had to drop the "U" word from my vocabulary — that is, until March 1997.
In awe, I watched "Earthlights" on the Discovery channel. For the first time in thirty years, I saw video of a similar sighting and heard a plausible explanation for my 1967 experience. Norwegian college professor, Erling P. Strand, together with a team of college students, set out in 1984 with rudimentary equipment to investigate what has come to be called the Hessdalen Phenomenon (named after the valley in Norway where sightings repeatedly occurred). Something very much like what I saw in Plattsburgh, began in Hessdalen in 1981 and continued 15 to 20 times each week until 1984. Since the peak sighting period, the occurrence rate has fallen to an average of 20 per year. Still, Hessdalen offers a novel outdoor laboratory for scientists to conduct research into this strange occurrence (that is, if any of them are brave enough).
Such events are nothing new. Julius Obsequens wrote in Prodigorium liber of such sightings in Arpi, Italy as far as 216 B.C. In 1893, Charles Norcock, while aboard the H.M.S.
Caroline in the North China Sea, reported:
...some unusual lights were reported by the officer of the watch in between the ship and Mount Auckland, a mountain 6000 feet high ... To the naked eye they appeared sometimes as a mass; at others, spread out in an irregular line, and being globular in form, they resembled Chinese lanterns festooned between the masts of a lofty vessel...As the ship was passing the land to the eastward ... it soon became obvious that the lights were not on land ... A clear reflection or glare could be seen on the horizon beneath the lights. Through a telescope the globes appeared to be of a reddish color and to emit thin smoke.
Into the twentieth century, reports of sightings may have increased because of the rapid developments in mass media. The richest period for sightings had been 1947 to 1987, reaching an all-time peak in 1967 (the year of my Plattsburgh experience). As reports continued to pour in from around the world in the late 1960s, the scientists remained silent, probably out of fear of being labeled believers in flying saucers and little green men from outer space. After all, who can blame a credibility-seeking scientist, who has labored hard to build a professional reputation, for avoiding reckless connection with the "U" word?
But the widespread sightings of the late 60's eventually did spill into the science community. By the early 1970s, scientists who had witnessed the phenomenon began a flurry of letters to Physics Today magazine. By their own admission they were reluctant to come forward and comment on the matter. "I went through a lengthy period of vacillation before deciding to send out my initial letter on this subject," said physicist Jack Epstein in the March 1976 issue. "I thought that some people might make fun of it - and some people did." "UFO investigators should be accorded with the same respect and be subjected to the same scrutiny that investigators in other disciplines enjoy," added colleague Harold Heaton of the University of Massachusetts. "But the history of UFO investigations has been one of character assassinations and belittlement." Within two years, the scientific interest that surfaced publicly faded as quickly as it had first appeared. The investigative curiosity of many enlightened scientists had been swallowed up by professional peer pressure and the politics of mainstream science - a sad loss for us all.
So where does the public tum to find answers? Space, or here on earth? As for myself, I do not believe that flying saucers piloted by extraterrestrials explain the thousands of unidentified flying objects reportedly sighted around the world. I do believe with a high degree of certainty that such sightings are manifestations of electromagnetic energy, the direct result of physical forces on our own planet yet to be identified and understood. There is no doubt in the minds of the thousands who have witnessed some form of "strange light," that unidentified atmospheric light phenomena are real. Perhaps this new name to an age-old phenomenon will encourage more scientists to get involved. I encourage scientists and the public to begin the search for answers on the premise that the phenomenon belongs to the planet Earth. Scientists across the world who choose to study these occurrences could then do so openly and without ridicule.
The present situation is counter-productive to the pursuit of truth: fear and reluctance on the part of scientists to freely explore; and growing mistrust on the part of the public concerning the motives and focus of research. All pieces of the puzzle (regardless of how strange they may appear to our current ignorance) must first be discovered, and then properly fit together, if we are ever to unlock the mysteries that still exist. What better way can there be to enter the new millennium than with unbiased and open minds.
As for my encounter with a UFO in Kansas: I must admit, I felt ridiculous (and quite nervous) getting out of the car to look around, but I had to understand what had just happened. There lying on the ground was a toy plane - a Transformer. The toy had hinged parts which allowed it to transform from a robot figure into an F-14 fighter jet. Continuing my investigation at home disclosed that my kids had left it on top of the car hood the night before when they were called in for dinner. It had wedged between the hood and the Plexiglas wind deflector. Highway vibrations worked the plane loose and it was lifted by the high-speed wind. It was able to stay aloft due to the aerodynamics of the car and deflector, which created an air pocket. As the car decelerated, the toy plane lost its lift and gently landed. Vibrations and decreased wind caused the taxiing effect, and inertia pushed the little UFO off the hood. Once I discovered it lying on the ground, it became an IFO (Identified Flying Object). As bizarre as this event seemed at first, through an objective investigation, I solved the mystery.