Sputniks, Saucers, and Spacecraft

W.B. Smith

This lecture was given to the Illuminating Engineering Society, Canadian Regional Conference, at a luncheon on June 11, 1959 in Ottawa.

On October 3, 1957, the Russians astonished the world by placing an artificial satellite called a Sputnik, in orbit around the earth. To most of the world artificial satellites were things which might happen sometime in the din and distant future, but to have a satellite actually aloft brought home the fact that some space travel was about to become a reality. There were official announcements that the sputnik was there and many people managed to get glimpses of it as it raced across the sky. Because it was announced officially it was considered quite proper for people to start admitting they had seen it.

With an artificial satellite aloft and people looking skyward there were an increasing number of reports of objects being seen that were not sputniks. Many of these objects were confused with the sputniks and this confusion would have persisted except for the fact that the sputnik orbit was known and predictable. Many of these objects were recognized by their viewers as definitely not sputniks, and since it was now considered polite to admit having seen things in the sky, many of these reports came forward and were added to the already thick file of flying saucer sightings.

The fact of the first sputnik, and the many more which followed, made it quite apparent that our space race was upon the threshold of space travel, and had actually taken the first step to the great outside. With this realization came the realization that space travel was not really quite so fantastic as it seemed at first, and that it was quite within the realm of possibility that some other race elsewhere might be a bit ahead of us and actually and actually doing it, and that maybe there was something to all the stories about flying saucers after all. However, officialdom was not quite yet ready to admit the reality of the saucers, probably because they were not yet ready with all the answers to questions, which might be asked.

During the past ten years I have made a serious and extensive study of the phenomena of flying saucers. I have covered every aspect that I could come to grips with, and have arrived at some conclusions, which, I might say, are entirely my own and do not represent any views which might be held officially or unofficially by the Canadian Government. I think that many of these objects are spacecraft, and that they come from “elsewhere” than on this planet; that they are built and operated by being much like us, but who are more advanced in the business of living than we are, and that the saucers represent a technology which is much ahead of ours. I do not propose to wade through the reams of material upon which these conclusions are based, since this is practically all available in the current literature. I propose only to summarize this material.

Many thousands of people have seen lights in the sky, which behaved as no light normally seen in the sky ought to behave. Many thousands of people have seen what appear to be solid objects in the sky, which behave as no solid objects normally seen in the sky ought to behave. Many people have seen solid objects at close enough range to be able to say definitely what these objects were not, even though they could not say what they were. Many scientific observations and pictures exist with respect to these objects, which just can’t be explained without challenging the honesty of the observers.

I have interviewed many people who claimed to have seen a flying saucer, and I am convinced they are normal honest folk who are reporting as best they can something, which they actually did witness. We would be happy to accept the statements of these same people in a court of law as witness to something more mundane, such as an automobile accident, so why would we doubt them when they tell about having seen a flying saucer. I do not think that these people are liars, fools, neurotics and hoaxers. Even if the sightings evidence were all we had I would still be inclined to accept it as fairly well establishing the reality of spacecraft from elsewhere.

However, we have in addition to visual evidence a variety of confirmation in other forms. Many sightings have been confirmed by radar with identical positions being established. Physical evidence of witnessed landings, such as imprints in soft ground, broken bushes, withered vegetation, etc. is plentiful and well confirmed. Various items of “Hardware” are known to exist, but are usually pro promptly clapped into security and therefore are no available to the general public. Substances such as “angel hair” and molten tin, etc. have been observed to drop from these craft, and have been gathered up and analyzed. Strong magnetic disturbances have been observed in the vicinity of these craft. In fact, I would say that many more people have evidence supporting the reality of flying saucers than evidence for the reality of atomic bombs. But atomic bombs bear the stamp of official disclosure.

It is a well known fact that our science consists of a few basic facts and a large amount of conjecture, cemented together with great numbers of “correction factors” and “perturbation factors.” We have many anomalies in our science, but instead of heading them as Nature’s warning that there was something wrong with or concepts, we shoved them into the background and turned our thought to those things, which appeared to be more self-consistent. Consequently, I am convinced, having missed the boat on many occasions, and now when we have before us the magnificent fact that space travel through other means than on the business end of a rocket is possible, we are unable to cope with the situation, and instead of learning from these beings who come to us from elsewhere in flying saucers, we deny them, ignore them, and hope that they will go away.

I think that there is  too much evidence to ignore, that the saucers are real and extraterrestrial spacecraft, and since their behaviors can not adequately be explained by our science, we are forced to the conclusion that this alien science transcends ours, and may even be beyond our reach.

Fortunately, a few serious researchers had the moral courage to face up to this problem despite the cries of “heresy” from orthodox science, and responded that if some other race could do these things, so could we. I will not dwell on the many dead ends which were investigated or the theories that were developed and discarded, because this is typical of any and all scientific progress. Suffice is to say that many of our basic concepts were tested and found wanting. Many of the things which we have held sacred in science were found to be valid only under specific conditions, or are special cases of a more general concept. My own group has concentrated on problems associated with gravity, refusing to believe that Newton’s Law that “every particle in the universe attracts every other particle with a force which is equal to the product of the two masses and a universal gravitational constant divided by the square of the distance between the two masses” was the alpha and omega of gravity. Since flying saucers demonstrated what appeared to be gravity control, it certainly seemed logical to assume the behavior of these crafts gave us valuable clues to the real nature of the Universe, and its elegant simplicity.

At the present time we do not have all the answers. Nor do we have anything like an integrated theory. All we have is a collection of facts based on observation and the results of a number of experiments, but we feel that this foundation is considerably more secure than that of our orthodox science, for in it there are no anomalies. We know that gravity is not all what Newton visualized. Far from being the basic force in Nature, it is really a derived function, and is the consequence of a dynamic condition, not a static one. We know what goes into its makeup; we know its “formula” and we have a pretty good idea of how to go about bringing it under control. We have conducted experiments that show that it is possible to create artificial gravity (not centrifugal force) and to alter the gravitational field of the earth. This we have done. It is fact. The next step is to learn the rules and to do the engineering necessary to convert a principle into workable hardware.

So far, this work on gravity has been carried on entirely as a personal project, privately funded at a cost which in minute compared with the cost of the current rocket program, and with the volunteer assistance of a few people who are sincerely interested enough to put in the long hours after their normal working day, and face the criticism leveled at anyone who dare to think differently. I am sure that if even a small fraction of the money being spent on rockets were spent on proper research looking toward gravity control, with the example of the flying saucers before us, and with the possible help from these people from elsewhere, we could join them in space much sooner, more safely, and more economically that we will ever be able to do on the business end of a rocket.