NZDF declassified RNZAF UFO files

# ASTRONOMER GIVES ASSESSMENT OF "SAUCER" REPORTS

# Timely— Rhyme

Travellers in flying saucers seem to speak most of the languages of earth. News Item.

When in a century or so Our ships flash out through space No doubt the natives will prepare To greet the tourist race.

Popular opinion demands, and the scientist is forced to admit, that it could be that life in some degree similar to ours might exist on unknown worlds.

Mr. I. L. Thomsen, president of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand, said this in giving a scientific assessment of so-called, flying saucer reports to the society at the Carter Observatory on Saturday.

Mr. Thomson said that by the end of the 17th century the astronomer had revealed the arrangement of the solar system. When it was realised that the other planets could be thought of as worlds similar to our own there was the almost immediate suggestion that some might be inhabited.

"Such speculation has continued to the present day," said Mr. Thomsen, "but it has to be admitted that no observational or other proof of a definitive nature has been forthcoming it is still almost a matter of pure speculation.

"Every astronomer must at sometime or another have tried to imagine what it might be like on the other planets. Several eminent astronomers have surveyed the planets of our solar system as possible abodes for life as we know it. Their conclusions are unanimous that the solar system contains no place other than our earth which is at all suitable for life resembling that on earth. Certainly no human being could exist on any of the other planets without the most elaborate artificial aids."

## "Much Better Radios"

Discussing flying saucer reports, Mr. Thomsen compared the situation with that shortly after World War I, when radio was still coming into its own. It had been said at that time that if intelligent beings lived on Mars then they were probably much more intelligent than earth dwellers and had probably developed much better radio sets. Hence the theory developed that Martians might have been trying to establish radio contact with the earth.

"You will see the similarity between this type of woolly reasoning and that with which we are being presented today." Mr. Thomson added. "Sure enough, it was soon reported that Marconi had picked up mysterious messages."

In New Zealand the late Dr. C. Coleridge Farr had flouted the whole Idea, giving scientific reasons for doing so the value of which had not been altered by the passage of time. Radio techniques had since been improved almost beyond comparison, and man had even touched the moon with a radio finger, but no messages had been received from Mars.

Brilliant meteors, or fireballs were quite certainly the cause of an appreciable percentage of flying saucer reports. It was very difficult for an unskilled observer to give an accurate report of such objects.

"In New Zealand, during the last war, an anti-aircraft battery was all set to open fire on an unidentified plane, but was unable to set the range because the range finder showed infinity—this was lucky for Venus!" said Mr. Thomson.

It was significant that there was a complete lack of flying saucer reports from seamen, who were continually on watch all over the world. No reputable astronomer had reported such objects so far as the speaker knew.

## Credulity Taxed

"Such claims as have been made concerning actual landings by these craft stretch credulity almost to breaking point," he said. "There seem to be various types of craft. The passengers are either pygmies or giants, dressed either in a superior type of flying suit or in tin suits.

They can speak Polish, Latin, French and Norwegian and seem to have a quick ability to understand English. In spite of their various sizes and a few minor peculiarities they do not seem to differ in any astonishing manner from the people of this earth. This dispenses with the speculation that on other planets there may be forms of life strange and unknown to us.

"Personally, I am inclined to the opinion that all such reports of flying saucer landings, and many of the

sightlings are nothing more than hoaxes which the perpetrators will some day, regret.

Indeed, when we realise that much nonsense is even being pumped into schoolchildren about such matters by some people who should know better, it becomes a very serious matter.

"Do not let us take the degenerate road of easy fantasy. Remember the history and struggle over the last few hundred years by many thousands of people to give us a treasure of sound knowledge and experience so that we ourselves may progress to greater heights.

"Discard this as well as the basic method of living which has been known, for some thousands of years and we can be sure that self-destruction, to which the atomic bomb is only the finality, is already on the way. The Goths did not kill Rome—they merely finished it."

## DISCOVERY OF "COMET"

"Don't let us, as astronomers, feel too smug," said Mr. I. L. Thomsen, president of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand, mentioning the hazards of inexperienced observation to the society on Saturday night. "I remember one well-known telescopic observer who watched the outof-focus image of a wireless insulator just outside the observatory for three successive nights and reported the discovery of a comet."