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<title>La philosophie naturelle des soucoupes volantes - Annexe V - Rapport Condon</title>
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<p>Basé sur une conférence donnée pour la Branche Nord-Orientale de l'Institut et Société (sic) et la Société
Astronomique de Newcastle. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<q>Je croirais plus facilement que 2 professeurs yankee mentent, que des pierres tombent des cieux.</q> Si le
président Thomas Jefferson a pu dire cela avec si peu de bonheur en 1807, que répondrions-nous aujourd'hui à la
controverse sur le fait que notre Terre est visitée pas seulement par des pierres, mais par des appareils pilotés par
êtres intelligents ? Le scepticisme de Jefferson avait en fait déjà été traité par Chladni, célèbre pour ses
[vibrating plates], dans une bataille avec l'Académie Française qui avait atteint son apogée <time>~1790
</time>. A cette époque, comme l'a raconté Paneth, les hommes de science étaient trop sophistiqués pour accepter de tels
[yarns] comme des pierres tombant du ciel ; mais Chladni, qui était autant avocat que scientifique, était convaincu
d'après son expérience de la justice que les témoins de chutes de météorites décrivaient honnêtement un phénomène
naturel. Après 10 ans de bataille, il finit par convaincre l'Académie Française qu'elle avait tort, et que les
météorites étaient réelles.</p>
<p>
Peut-être que ma justification pour écrire cet article est que dans une certaine mesure, je partage l'expérience de
Chladni, puisqu'en tant qu'officier de renseignement, j'ai souvent eu à enquêter sur les éléments de témoignages alors
qu'ils entraient en conflit avec la "/science" établie, et parfois, ce fut la "/science" qui avait tort. Laissez-moi
donc jeter un œil aussi dépassionné que possible sur le caractère des preuves concernant les "soucoupes volantes".
L'expression elle-même date du <time>1947-06-24</time>, mais il semble que les apparitions auxquelles elle se réfère
aient eut lieu de nombreuses fois auparavant. Que ce fut ou non dans les cieux que <a
href="/science/crypto/ufo/enquete/dossier/Ezechiel">Ezechiel</a> vit ses roues, le ciel était une source de signes
suffisante pour les augures Romains pour le scruter dans leur routine prognostique et cela semble avoir encouragé
l'Empereur Constantine handsomely avec un monogramme céleste "chi-rho" avant la bataille du Pont de Milvian. Dans la
même tradition, certains d'entre nous peuvent se souvenir des Anges de Mons.
</p>
<p>
Il pourrait en fait se révéler que des apparitions aient été vues dans le ciel aussi longtemps que des archives
humaines ont été conservées. Dans son histoire de l'Eglise et du Peuple Anglais Bede (735) décrivit ce qui serait
aujourd'hui presque certainement qualifié de soucoupes volantes ; et je me souviens avoir lu un récit du 11ᵉ ou 12ᵉ
siècle où un objet dans le ciel avait causé "multum terrorem" aux frères d'un monastère. Et peut-être depuis aussi
longtemps, la tendance de l'humanité à se faire peur a été exploitée par l'auteur de <a
href="../../../../../../../enquete/dossier/canular/">canular</a>. J'ai lu que Newton alors qu'il était un garçon de
12 ans provoqua une grande alarme dans son village du Lincolnshire en faisant voler un cerf-volant avec une lanterne
la nuit.
</p>
<p>
Il y eu une grande préoccupation en Angleterre <time>1882</time> lorsqu'un observeur aussi objectif que <a
href="/people/m/MaunderEWalter">E. W. Maunder</a> de l'Observatoire Royal vit ce qu'il considéra être un visiteur
céleste. L'objet fut également vu sur le Continent par un futur lauréat du Nobel, le fameux spectroscopiste Zeeman. Il
fut décrit de diverses manières — <q>en forme d'axe</q>, <q>comme une torpille, ou la navette du tisserand</q>,
<q>comme un disque sur la tranche</q> et ainsi de suite. On le décrivit luisant d'une couleur blanchâtre. D'après les
mesures qui en furent faites, il devait être très grand —
peut-être 70 miles de long et situé à plus de 100 miles au-dessus de la surface de la Terre. Bien que <a
href="/people/m/MaunderEWalter">Maunder</a> dit qu'il était différent de tout phénomène d'aurore boréale qu'il ait
vu, il est intéressant de noter qu'il y eut une tempête magnétique intense à l'époque, coïncidant avec une des
plus grandes taches solaires jamais enregistrée. Il est par conséquent probable que l'objet de <a
href="/people/m/MaunderEWalter">Maunder</a> était une caractéristique inhabituelle de l'affichage d'une aurore
boréale. Il y eut un autre effroi <time>1897</time>, lorsque quelque chose comme un cigare ailé projetant une
lumière brillante depuis la tête fut observée au-dessus d'Oakland, en Californie <span
class="source">[<a href="/people/f/FortCharles/index.html">Fort</a> 1941]</span>. <a
href="/science/crypto/ufo/enquete/dossier/Airships">Des objets semblables furent bientôt vus dans tous les
Etats-Unis</a>, mais alors que certains furent sans aucun doute le travail d'auteurs de <a
href="../../../../../../../enquete/dossier/canular/">canulars</a>, la cause de l'indicent d'origine reste obscure.
</p>
<p>
Mon propre contact avec le sujet remonte vers 1925, lorqu'on me parla à Oxted en Surrey d'une lumière brillante qui
faisait lentement son chemin à travers le ciel chaque nuit. En fait, je connaissais un couple marié qui s'était assis
toute la nuit à la regarder. C'était <a href="/place/systeme/solaire/planete/venus">Vénus</a>, qui les avait attirés
par sa brillance ; ils n'avaient jamais remarqué auparavant que toutes les planètes et les étoiles semblaient se
déplacer à travers le ciel. <a href="/place/systeme/solaire/planete/venus">Vénus</a>, de fait, avait provoqué beaucoup
de troubles au fil des années. En <a href="../../../../4/0/index.html">1940</a> ou <a
href="../../../../4/1/index.html">1941</a> il y eut une alarme que les allemands avaient un nouvel appareil volant à
haute altitude, parce que ce fut rapporté par l'équipage équipage de prédiseur d'une batterie antiaérienne quelque
part, je pense, aux frontières. L'appareils, dirent-ils, montrait une lumière et ils avaient déterminé sa hauteur avec
leur télémètre. La réponse fut, autant que je me souvienne, 26 000 pieds et nous nous demandâmes comment ils avaient
pu obtenir une mesure si précise. Des enquêtes montrèrent qu'il s'agissait de la dernière graduation sur leur échelle
et que ce que ce dont ils avaient essayé de mesurer l'échelle était, une fois encore, <a
href="/place/systeme/solaire/planete/venus">Vénus</a>. La même explication avait été vraie pour plusieurs soucoupes
volantes qu'ils avaient été portées à mon attention au nord de l'Ecosse ; il a parfois été possible de prédire les
nuits lors desquelles les signalements arriveraient, en fonction de la brillance et de la visibilité de <a
href="/place/systeme/solaire/planete/venus">Vénus</a>.
</p>
<p>
Il est nécessaire, dans toute discussion sur les soucoupes volantes, de considérer la nature des indices les
concernant ; il pourrait par conséquent être pertinent que je relate certaines de mes expériences de sujets
similaires, les tensions associées à la guerre ayant fourni une base fertile à la conception d'apparitions. Je peux me
souvenir des russes avec la neige sur leurs bottes qui arrivèrent en Grande-Bretagne en <a
href="../../../../1/4/index.html">1914</a>. Un de mes oncles faisait partie des gens qui les virent bien que, dans
son cas, il n'ait pu voir la neige parce qu'ils étaient dans un train roulant sur un pont ferré. En fait aucun
détachement de troupes russes ne vint jamais dans ce pays. Des années plus tard le Chef de notre Service Secret me
raconta l'explication. Dans les jours précédant la guerre il y avait régulièrement de grands convois d'oeufs importés
de Russie, et un des ports auquel ils étaient déposés était Aberdeen. Un agent à Aberdeen en cette occasion
particulière envoya un télégramme à ses quartiers-généraux de Londres pour les prévenir que les oeufs avaient été
livrés et étaient sur le train. Avec une économie télégraphique il envoya un signal comme <q>100 000 Russes maintenant
en route de Aberdeen vers Londres</q> et déclencha la légende par inadvertance.</p>
<p>
Les années précédant <a href="../../../../3/9/index.html">1939</a> furent remplies d'histoires d'un rayon arrêtant les
moteurs. Lorsque j'entendis l'histoire en <a href="../../../../3/7/index.html">1937</a> ou <a
href="../../../../3/8/index.html">1938</a> il s'agissait d'une famille anglaise en vacances en Allemagne qui aurait
voyagé en voiture lorsque son moteur aurait soudainement défailli, invariablement sur une route de campagne, et
généralement à l'orée d'un bois. Une sentinelle allemande aurait serait alors sortie des arbres et leur aurait dit
qu'il y avait des essais spéciaux en cours et qu'ils ne pourraient pas continuer. Quelques temps plus tard il serait
revenu et leur aurait dit que tout était bon pour qu'ils redémarrent le moteur et que le moteur aurait immédiatement
démarré et qu'ils furent capables de repartir au loin.</p>
<p>
A cette époque je commençais à être préoccupé par le renseignement, et une de mes tâches était de m'assurer de la
réalité des rayons mystérieux. A à peu près la même époque quelqu'un pensa qu'il était désolant que les allemands
doivent avoir un monopole dans l'histoire et une histoire parallèle fut délibérément diffusée, laissant entendre que,
nous aussi, avions eu un rayon. En un court moment nous au renseignement fûment submergés d'histoires d'événements
similaires en Angleterre. Nous étions étonnés du détail circonstantiel que le public avait ajouté. Dans un cas, décrit
comme ayant eut lieu à la Plaine de Salisbury, ce n'était pas une famille ordinaire qui se trouvait dans leur sa
voiture, mais une famille de Quakers — et les Quakers, était-il ajouté, étaient bien connus pour dire la vérité.
</p>
<p>
Finalement, j'obtenu le fin mot de l'histoire. Les lieux les plus mentionnés en Allemagne étaient les régions autour
du Brocken dans le Harz, et le Feldberg près de Frankfort. Il s'agissait des sites des 2 premières tours de télévision
en Allemagne. Un annonceur d'une radio juive à Frankfort qui s'était échappé de ce pays fut d'abord intrigué lorsque
je lui racontais l'histoire puis, avec un chuckle, me dit qu'il pouvait voir comment c'était arrivé. Dans les jours
avant que les transmetteurs de télévision soient érigés, les ingénieurs procédèrent à des études de force de champ,
mais ces études furent rendues difficiles par les interférences venant des moteurs de véhicules. Sous un régime
autoritaire comme celui des nazis il était simple d'éliminer ce problème en arrêtant toutes les voitures dans la
région autour du récepteur d'étude durant la période du test. Des sentinelles, probablement fournies par la Force
Aérienne allemande, étaient postés sur les routes, et à l'heure prévue auraient émergé et arrêté tous les véhicules. A
la fin du test ils auraient alors donné aux conducteurs la permission de continuer. Cela a seulement nécessité une
transposition simple dans l'histoire telle qu'elle fut racontée par la suite par un conducteur pour lequel le véhicule
s'était arrêté avant que la sentinelle apparaisse, donnant lieu à une chasse de la vérité pendant 2 ans.
</p>
<p>
Le début de la 2nde guerre mondiale took me for a few weeks to Harrogate, where part of the Air Ministry was
evacuated. Rapidement je vis une soucoupe volante. Elle était haute dans bleu d'un ciel clair de milieu de journée,
blanche brillante, et semblant à peine se déplacer. Tout le monde s'arrêta pour la regarder, mais il s'agissait
simplement d'un <a href="/science/crypto/ufo/enquete/meprise/ballon">ballon</a> échappé. De tels objets appeared
throughout the war and were even reported by fighter pilots who tried to intercept them, only to find that the objects
were too high. There were indeed enough such incidents for part of the Intelligence Organization to suppose that the
Germans had developed a special high flying version of the Junkers 86 aircraft known as the Ju 86P, P indiquant que la
cabine était pressurisée (an unusual step in those days) for the crew. It was further supposed that these Ju 86Ps were
flying photographic reconnaissances of this country and that we were powerless to intercept them. I doubt in fact
whether any such reconnaissances were made — certainly, and very surprisingly, there was no photographic
reconnaissance of London by the Germans from 10 January <a href="../../../../4/1/index.html">1941</a> until 10
September <a href="../../../../4/4/index.html">1944</a> when the Me 262 jet became available.
</p>
<p>
<a href="../../../../4/0/index.html">1940</a> was a grand time for scares. Many people saw flares fired up by Fifth
Columnists to guide the German bombers to their targets; I even had an eyewitness account from an <a
href="/org/uk/mod/RAF.html">RAF</a> friend who had worked with me in finding the German navigational beams. I was
involved in a hunt for Fifth Columnists in Norfolk in which the details were far more convincing than those of any
Flying Saucer story that I have encountered but the explanation turned out to be quite innocent. Happily, observations
of curious lights were not confined to one side. I was delighted to watch the pilots of Kampfgruppe 100 (the 'crack'
beam bombing unit of the German Air Force) conduct a three week test of a theory that our Observer Corps was
indicating the presence of German bombers to our fighters by switching on red lights whenever a German bomber was
overhead. At the end of the check the Kgr 100 crews reported that they had confirmed the observation, despite the fact
that we were doing no such thing.
</p>
<p>
Air crew, because of the intense strain involved, appeared to be especially susceptible to apparitions. Air Commodore
Helmore, one of our ablest pilots in World War I, recalled to me in <a href="../../../../3/9/index.html">1939</a> that
he and his contemporaries had been scared of a particular kind of German antiaircraft shell which burst with a purple
flash. The legend was that these shells somehow radiated venereal disease — one can only guess at the chain of
events that led up to these speculations.
</p>
<p>
In World War II our bomber crews repeatedly reported that they were shadowed by German single engine night fighters
carrying yellow lights in their noses. The oddness of this observation was that, apart. from the difficulty of putting
a light in the nose of a single engine aircraft, there were at that time no German single engine fighters flying at
night. No one ever completely explained the story. When I did get a chance to ask a German nightfighter crew whether
they knew what the explanation was they said that they also knew that no single engine fighters were flying but that
they had seen much the same thing as I described to them. American aircraft, later in the war, also saw what may have
been the same phenomenon, both over Europe and over Japan. One theory, advanced by Professor Menzel (1953), who has
studied such incidents in detail, is that it may have been some effect of light reflected from condensation in wing
tip eddies.
</p>
<p>
Another of the aircrew theories, which ultimately did us very great harm, was that the control of German searchlights
was mysteriously put out of action if our bomber switched on its radar identification device. Some of our most
experienced and cool headed pilots believed this story, although one could see that it was ridiculous. Even if, by
some accident, the German radar control had been upset originally by the radiation from our identification set, the
Germans would very clearly have remedied the defect and used the radiation from our set as a means of identifying and
locating our bombers for we had thereby presented them with the answer to one of the most difficult problems in
combat, that of getting your enemy positively to identify himself. They indeed exploited this technique towards the
end of the war when their main radar equipment was jammed, and it cost us many bombers before we persuaded the Command
that it must get the IFF sets switched off. There was another story that a beer bottle thrown out of a bomber would
defeat the German radar, and I can remember lord Cherwell's humorous question "<q>Must it be a freshly opened
bottle?"</q>
being solemnly recorded in the minutes of a War Cabinet discussion.
</p>
<p>
I had often to assess the evidence of eyewitnesses but even when these were observers who were anxious to help us, it
was sometimes surprising how much in error their descriptions could be. I received, for example, three reports within
a few weeks of one another in 1941 regarding German constructional activity on Mont Pincon in Normandy. One report
said that it was an underground aerodrome, the second that it was a long range gun and the third that it was a radio
mast about 1100 ft high. Faced with such diversity, I guessed that none of these descriptions was correct but that,
from the site, the construction was probably a radio navigational beam station, with an aerial (which was,
incidentally, about 40 ft high) which could be rotated on a turntable of about 100 ft diameter. Photographic
reconnaissance showed that my guess was correct; it also illustrated a more general point that witnesses were usually
right when they said that something had happened at a particular place, although they could be wildly wrong about what
had happened.
</p><p>
Another example that occurred, not to me but to Professor Charles Kittel, the American solid state physicist, may also
be salutary. He and a British theoretical physicist were given the problem of establishing the pattern on which the
Germans laid their mines at sea, the principal evidence being derived from the reports of minesweeper crews regarding
the range and bearing of the mines as they were exploded by the passage of minesweepers. Kittel proposed to go on a
minesweeping sortie, to get the feel of the evidence. His British counterpart refused to go, on the grounds that since
they would only be making one trip the evidence that they were likely to obtain would be highly special to that
particular trip and might colour their general judgement. Kittel at once found out the surprising fact that the
reports of the crews were completely unreliable as regards range and bearing estimation, and that the only part of the
evidence on which he could rely was whether the explosion had occurred to port or starboard. I believe that he managed
to solve the problem of the pattern on this evidence alone, but that his colleague remained perplexed until the end of
the war through accepting the ranges and bearings as accurate.
</p><p>
I have made this discursion into some of my war experience because it is relevant to the flying saucer story in that
it illustrates the difficulty of establishing the truth from eyewitness reports, particularly when events have been
witnessed under stress. I do not, of course, conclude that eyewitness reports must be discarded; on the contrary,
excluding hoaxers and liars, most witnesses have genuinely seen something, although it may be difficult to decide from
their descriptions what they really had seen.
</p><p>
The end of the war brought me an experience that was directly connected with the flying saucer problem. In fact,
although the term was invented in America as the result of something seen by Kenneth Arnold, piloting a private plane
near Mt Ranier on 24 June 1947, the modern scare about strange celestial objects started in Sweden early in 1946. I
was Director of Intelligence on the Air Staff at the time and I had to decide whether or not there was anything in the
story. lam not sure of the incident that started it off, but the general atmosphere was one of apprehension regarding
the intentions of the Russians, now that their post-war attitude was becoming clear. It was, for example, the time of
Winston Churchill's 'Iron curtain' speech. At any rate, a number of stories began about people seeing things in the
sky over Sweden, and this gained such volume that the Swedish General Staff asked the population in general to keep
its eyes open. The result, of course, was an immediate spate of reports. Many of these could be quickly dismissed by
explanations such as wild geese seen at a distance, but one or two were so widely reported that they must have been
something more unusual.
</p><p>
Some of the technical officers on my staff were quite convinced and subscribed to the Swedish explanation that the
objects were long range flying bombs being sent over Sweden by the Russians. Even such a cool headed judge as Field
Marshal Smuts was convinced enough to refer to them in a broadcast talk as evidence of the Russian threat. The belief
was strongly aided by what I think must have been two unusually bright meteors, which were clearly visible in
daylight. One of these led to many reports almost simultaneously, from a wide area of Sweden; an enthusiastic
Intelligence officer joined all the reports up into one track according to the times of the individual reports and
this track seemed to show that the object sometimes hovered and sometimes flew for hundreds of miles within half a
minute. What he had failed to notice was that almost every report said that the object had been seen to the east of
the observer, and this would have been impossible if his track was genuine. The explanation, of course, was that the
individual times of sighting that were reported represented the scatter of errors in the individual watches of the
observers, and that they had all been witnessing one event; this was a large, bright meteor that had appeared over the
Gulf of Finland.
</p><p>
However, such a simple explanation did not satisfy some of my officers, who clearly disapproved of my scepticism. I
pointed out to them that since we had two years before studied the behaviour of German flying bombs, we knew the order
of reliability of such missiles, which was such that 10% or so would come down accidentally through engine failure.
The Russians were supposedly cruising their flying bombs at more than twice the range that the Germans had achieved,
and it was unlikely that they were so advanced technologically as to achieve a substantially greater reliability at
200 miles than the Germans had reached at 100 miles. Even, therefore, if they were only trying to frighten the Swedes,
they could hardly help it if some of their missiles crashed on Swedish territory. The alleged sightings over Sweden
were now so many that, even giving the Russian the greatest possible credit for reliability, there ought to be at
least 10 missiles already crashed in Sweden. I would therefore only believe the story if someone brought me in a piece
of a missile.
</p><p>
I did not have to wait long. The other Director of Intelligence on the Air Staff, an Air Commodore who tended to side
with those who believed in the story, telephoned me to say that while the Swedes had not actually picked up a crashed
missile, someone had seen objects fall from one of the missiles and had collected them. The Swedish General Staff
handed them to us for examination; they were a miscellaneous collection of irregular lumps of material. The piece that
I remember best was perhaps three inches across, grey, porous and shiny, and with a density not much more than that of
water. Charles Frank (now Prof. F. C. Frank of Bristol) and I looked at it and at one another, and laughed; but since
we had been set a silly problem we thought that we would deal with it in a suitable manner, and so we sent the
collection of specimens to the chemical department at Farnborough for a formal analysis. We did not foresee the scare
that was then to arise; Farnborough, instead of sending the report of their analysis directly back to us, sent it to
the technical officers who were among the believers.
</p>
<p>
My Air Commodore friend telephoned me to say that he now had the Farnborough report and that it substantiated the idea
that the specimens had come from something quite mysterious, because one of them contained over 98% of an unknown
chemical element. It was the grey porous specimen that was the cause of the trouble; Farnborough had analysed it for
such elements as iron, manganese and so forth and had found traces of all of them adding up to less than 2%. The
remaining 98% they had been unable to identify. Charles Frank and I were delighted. I telephoned the head of the
chemical department at Farnborough (now a Fellow of the Royal Society) and asked him whether he really believed in the
analysis that his Section had done. When he said that he did, I asked him how he could be satisfied with an analysis
that left 98% of the substance unidentified, and he agreed that it was rather a puzzle. I then asked him whether they
had tested for carbon. There was something of an explosion at the other end of the telephone. Carbon Would not have
shown up in any of the standard tests, but one had only to look at the material, as Charles Frank and I had done, to
see that it was a lump of coke.</p>
<p>
These were the only specimens that were ever claimed to have come from a Russian flying bomb, and the story might then
have died. But by this time it had gone round the world and we received a signal from the British mission in Tokyo
because General MacArthur had asked them to enquire into the story that a missile had fallen in England during the
previous few weeks. The same Air Commodore telephoned me, asking how he should reply to the signal. I told him that,
so far as I knew, nothing like a missile had fallen in England since the end of the war, and to this he replied: "<q>Well,
it might tie up with the Westerham incident</q>." When I asked him what Westerham incident, he said: "<q>Good God, I
was supposed not to tell you about that</q>." And then, of course, he had to tell me.
</p>
<p>
It transpired that on the previous Saturday one of my technical officers had received a telephone call from a man who
said that his name was Gunyon, and that one of these newfangled contraptions had fallen out of the sky into one of his
fields, and that he thought it was the Air Ministry's business to come and remove it. The technical officer concerned
happened to be one of the believers and he saw a chance of convincing his Director that the Russian flying bomb really
existed. He therefore asked farmer Gunyon how to find his farm, and was told that if one drove from Croydon to
Westerham one should look out for a public house called 'The White Dog' and drive up the lane beside it, and that the
farm was at the end of the lane. The technical intelligence resources of the Air Ministry were immediately mobilized
and the two staff cars full of officers set off to find farmer Gunyon. When they got into the right area, they were
disappointed to find no public house of the right name. But, being good Intelligence officers, they realized that the
name may have been mis-heard over the telephone. They therefore enquired whether there were any public houses with
similar names, and they were soon directed to one called 'The White Hart'. They were beginning, in any event, to need
a drink, and they asked the publican whether he knew where farmer Gunyon lived. The pubkeeper did not know anyone by
the name of Gunyon but, again, they asked whether he knew of anyone with a name that they could have mistaken for
Gunyon over the telephone. Happily, he did. There was a farmer called Bunyan about three miles over the hill, and this
astonished juan duly received the full force of Air Technical Intelligence. Ultimately, he satisfied them that he had
not telephoned the Air Ministry and that all his fields were in good order. They returned sadly to London. On the way,
in seeking an explanation, they concluded that their Director had decided to have some fun with them and had made them
waste their Saturday on a wild goose chase, just to teach them a lesson for their credulity. The only satisfaction
left to them, they thought, was not to let their Director know how well he had succeeded, and they had therefore
decided that they would not tell me what had happened. Although I appreciated their respect in giving me credit for
such a happy hoax, I had in fact nothing to do with it, and I still do not know who thought of it. Even after that,
some still believed in a Russian flying bomb, but the scare in Sweden and Britain gradually died down.
</p>
<p>
Even so, la frayeur suédoise avait tant sensibilisé le monde occidental que l'histoire de <a
href="/people/a/ArnoldKennethE/index.html">Kenneth Arnold</a> en <a href="../../../../4/7/index.html">1947</a>
installa une seconde peur en Amérique qui éclipsa rapidement la source principale. <a
href="/people/a/ArnoldKennethE/index.html">Arnold</a> pilotait son propre appareil près du Mont Ranier dans l'état
de Washington le 24 juin, lorsqu'il vit <q>une chaîne de petites choses semblables à des soucoupes au moins de 5 miles
de long faisant des écarts à l'intérieur et à l'extérieur des pics élevés de la montagne</q>. Il n'y a pas de raison
de douter qu'<a href="/people/a/ArnoldKennethE/index.html">Arnold</a> ait véritablement vu quelque chose mais, comme
l'a suggéré <a href="/people/m/MenzelDonaldH/index.html">D. H. Menzel</a>, cela n'aurait pu être rien d'autre que de
la neige swirling off the peaks or small clouds forming over them. L'histoire d'<a
href="/people/a/ArnoldKennethE/index.html">Arnold</a> story triggered off a wave of sightings, with saucers
appearing almost daily over one part or the other of the United States and since the Russians were at that time
considered incapable of making apparitions cruise at such a long range, some other origin had to be found. The United
States Air Force went even further than the Royal Air Force had done and set up an official investigation 'Project
Saucer' on 22 January 1948 (this was succeeded in February 1949 by '<a
href="/org/us/dod/af/amc/atic/projet/grudge/index.html">Project Grudge</a>' and in March 1952 by '<a
href="/org/us/dod/af/amc/atic/projet/bluebook">Project Bluebook</a>', which survives today). Eventually, in January
1953, a special Panel under <a href="/org/us/ic/cia/index.html">CIA</a> and USAF auspices was called to assess the
evidence. The Chairman of the Panel was <a href="/people/r/RobertsonHaroldP/index.html">H. P. Robertson</a>, the
distinguished relativist, and with him were <a href="/people/a/AlvarezLuisW/index.html">L. W. Alvarez</a>, <a
href="/people/b/BerknerLloydV/index.html">L. V. Berkner</a>, <a href="/people/g/GoudsmitSamuelA/index.html">S. A.
Goudsmit</a> et <a href="/people/p/PageThornton/index.html">T. L. Page</a>. They concluded, briefly, that there was no
evidence for any "<q>artefacts of a hostile foreign power</q>", and that there should be a "<q>debunking of the flying
saucers</q>".
</p>
<p>
The verdict of the Robertson Panel did much to restore a critical view of flying saucer stories and to offset the
efforts of publicity seeking charlatans; but the Panel could not, of course, quell the enthusiasts who claimed to
discern in its conclusions a range of motives that included the 'whitewashing' of the United States Air Force and its
inability to cope with the invaders, celestial or otherwise (others even postulated that the unfortunate USAF had
itself started the flying saucer stories by trying out a new secret weapon). If I may interject a personal comment
here, it happens that I knew <a href="/people/r/RobertsonHaroldP/index.html">H. P. Robertson</a> well; he was the
representative appointed in 1943 by the American Chiefs of Staff to decide whether or not we in Britain were being
hoaxed by the Germans regarding the existence of the V-I flying bomb. He was immediately convinced by our evidence,
and we owe him much, both for his personal help and for the promptness of the American technical support that followed
his conclusion. He was always as anxious as anyone I know to establish the truth, and he would never have made an
attempt to suppress it if it proved unpalatable; the same is true of the other members of his Panel who are known to
me. Nevertheless, their findings have recently been criticized again, especially by a distinguished meteorologist, Dr
<a href="/people/m/McDonaldJamesE/index.html">James F. McDonald</a> (1967) of the University of Arizona and by Dr <a
href="/people/h/HynekJosefAllen/index.html">J. Allen Hynek</a> (1966), Director of the Dearborn Observatory of
Northwestern University. Dr Hynek's criticism is the more interesting for the fact that he has been for 20 years a
consultant to the United States Air Force, and he was an associate member of the <a
href="/org/us/ic/cia/projet/Robertson">Robertson Panel</a>. For most of this time he held that saucers were
fictions, and he contributed an article to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1964) that threw much doubt on their
existence. Recently, however, he appears to have changed his mind, and he now believes that there are sufficient
unexplained pieces of sound evidence to justify a new examination. As a result, the United States Air Force has set up
a fresh investigation at the University of Colorado, Boulder, headed by Dr <a
href="/people/c/CondonEdwardU/index.html">Edward Condon</a>, the former Director of the <a href="/org/us/NBS.html">National
Bureau of Standards</a>. The study was initiated in October 1966 and is expected to take 18 months at a cost of 300
000 $.
</p>
<p>
It appears that the Russians, too, have been facing similar doubts, for Air Force General Anatoli Stolyarov has
recently been appointed head of a committee ol investigation <span class="source">[<em>The Times</em>, 13 novembre 1967]</span>.
Again, this comes some years after Pravda had published official denials of flying saucers in 1961.
</p>
<p>
Let us consider the difficulties that face these new investigations. Apart from the liars and hoaxers who have done
much to confuse the issue, and those witnesses who have simply had hallucinations, there are many witnesses who have
genuinely observed something. Some of these witnesses have seen manmade vehicles such as balloons, aircraft, rockets
and satellites, but have misidentified them in unfamiliar circumstances. Others have seen natural phenomena including
mirages, ice haloes, mock suns, Brocken ghosts, lenticular clouds, phosphorescence at sea, ball lightning, Venus and
so forth. Some have seen and have even photographed convincing artefacts such as the detached image of the plane of a
Herald aircraft through complex refraction at the edge of one of the cabin windows. Others have observed unusual
echoes on radar screens such as the 'ring angels' due to the morning flight of starlings.
</p><p>
The foregoing explanations account for the majority of flying saucer reports. The size of the unexplained residue may
be gauged from the statement of the Under Secretary of State for Defence in the House of Commons on 9 November 1967.
Over the period 1 January 1959 to 30 September 1967, 625 reports were received by the <a
href="/org/uk/mod/index.html">Ministry of Defence</a>; 70 remain unexplained after investigation. For comparison,
the American figures, given by the Staff of Project Bluebook in a report of February 1966, are 6817 alleged sightings
in the years 1953—65 inclusive; of these, 1248 were reported too vaguely to allow an attempt at explanation. Of
the remaining 5569, there were 237 for which explanations could not be found.
</p>
<p>
Summarizing the British and American experience, it appears that perhaps 10% of the alleged sightings cannot be
explained. In this residue, it is probable that the majority of witnesses have made substantial errors in their
descriptions. A point of dispute is whether, after such errors have been allowed for, there is enough left that is
unexplained to make us think that there is a gap in our knowledge either of natural phenomena or of an
extraterrestrial invasion of our atmosphere, perhaps by intelligently controlled spacecraft.
</p><p>
Those who have pressed the last explanation, and especially those who have believed in little men from Venus or Mars,
must have been discouraged by the latest evidence regarding surface conditions on those planets. But I doubt whether
they will be any more finally discouraged than were those who believed in the Russian flying bombs over Sweden. Hope
is not the only thing that springs eternal in the human breast. If Earth proves to be the one planet in the Solar
system that supports intelligent life, it is still possible that intelligent beings from a more distant system have
found the way to cross intervening space in small craft without ageing on the long journey; and, although it is
unlikely, it is just possible that the craft are small enough not to have shown up on astronomical or radar surveys.
Jesse Greenstein of Mt Wilson and Palomar Observatories has calculated that a vehicle 100 ft in diameter would easily
show up at a height of 50 miles on any of the 5000 plates of the Palomar Sky Survey.
</p><p>
Perhaps I may be permitted to make some remarks on resolving the confusion of evidence, for I have had to do this
before. In particular, I had to sort out the true from the false in the scare of 1943 about the threat of the German
rocket. In the early stages this was not difficult, since there were few reports, and they were substantially secret
and independent. But as the stories grew, it was almost impossible to tell whether or not a particular report came
from someone who genuinely knew something or whether he was repeating a rumour. By that time there was no question
about whether or not there was a rocket — the question was what it weighed. Finally I found a touchstone —
I would accept a weight only from a report that had also mentioned that liquid oxygen was one of the fuels, which I by
then knew to be true. The result was spectacular; out of hundreds of conflicting reports this touchstone selected only
five, and these pointed consistently to a total weight of about 12 tons with a warhead from one to two tons, in
contradistinction to the 80 tons with a 10 ton warhead that had been mooted. These five surviving reports thus led me
to the correct answer.
</p><p>
Unfortunately, I have not found a similar touchstone for flying saucer reports. We are then left with assessing
probabilities from what we know about the physical world, but we cannot reject the flying saucer hypothesis simply
because it is unlikely. This would merely lead to the danger of repeating the error of the French Academy regarding
meteorites. But are flying saucers simply of the first order of unlikeliness? I think not, for I would apply the same
argument as I used regarding the apparitions in Sweden. There have been so many flying saucers seen by now, if we were
to believe the accounts, that surely one of them must have broken down or left some trace of its visit. It is true
that one can explain the absence of relics by supposing that the saucers have a fantastic reliability, but this adds
another order of unlikeliness. At least the French Academy had some actual meteorites to examine.
</p>
<p>
Je pense que c'est là que le philosophe naturel doit take his stand, for there is a well tried course in such a
situation. This is to apply le "rasoir d'Occam" — les hypothèses de doivent pas être multipliées sans nécessité.
Sur l'ensemble des explications possibles pour un ensemble d'observations, celle avec un minimum de suppositions
devrait être acceptée, jusqu'à ce qu'elle soit prouvée fausse. Autrement one lives in a fearsomely imaginative world
in which rational conduct becomes impossible. There is a story of one of my more eccentric colleagues that will
illustrate what I mean. He was at the time a Fellow of one of the men's colleges in Oxford, but he happened also to
tutor some of the women students in philosophy. One of the girls went into his room for a tutorial one day, only to
find that he seemed not to be there. However, she was accustomed to some of the curiosities in his behaviour and she
was not unduly surprised when, 1 mn ou 2 après qu'elle se soit assise, sa voix boomed depuis dessous la table : <q>Lisez
votre essai !</q> Ce quelle fit, avant d'attendre ses commentaires. Quelque chose qu'elle avait dit lui rappella le
rasoir d'Occam et il poursuivi en lui donner un exemple. Poking sa tête out from under the nappe il dit : <q>En
supposant que je vous dise qu'il y a un tigre derrière la porte, mais que ce tigre a peur de moi chaque fois que
lorsque je vais à la porte pour le voir, il court au loin et se cache au coin. Si je devais vous dire que cela
explique pourquoi je ne vois pas de tigre derrière ma porte, vous diriez que je suis fou — ou, du moins, un peu
particulier !</q> Les soucoupes volantes sont-elles aussi imaginaires que le tigre de mon collègue ?
</p>
<p>
Bien sûr, la difficulté à appliquer le rasoir d'Occam est de décider quelle explication des soucoupes volantes
implique l'hypothèse minimum. Jefferson was committing scientific suicide with the razor when he preferred to believe
that professors would lie. And it is also true that the explanation with the minimum of hypothesis is not always the
right one. I can recall just one occasion when Occam led me astray in this way. This was towards the end of 1943 when
the method of propulsion of the German flying bombs was unknown. I thought that I was able to deduce it from a set of
facts as follows. On the plans of one of the flying bomb sites that had been sent to us by one of our spies, backed up
by what we could see on aerial photographs, there seemed to be one fuel store on each site. Indeed, it was so labelled
on the plan. The store was divided into two parts, and I concluded from the disposition of the entrances and blast
walls that two kinds of fuel were to be used and that the designer was taking unusual precautions to prevent them from
coming into contact. I already knew of two such fuels, hydrogen peroxide and sodium permanganate. These were already
being used in rocket propelled glider bombs, and I even managed to establish that some of the servicing crews for
these particular fuels were being allocated to the flying bomb sites. Moreover, when I checked the volume of peroxide
that could be held in the store, it was enough to propel 20 peroxide rockets to London, and this was consistent with
the storage in the rest of the site for 20 flying bomb bodies. There was therefore no need to postulate any other
engine, on this evidence, for the flying bomb beyond a development of the peroxide rocket engine. Everything was
consistent and had been well supported by evidence. And yet the conclusion was wrong. A more complicated hypothesis
turned out to be right. The peroxide was used merely for firing the bombs from their catapults, and their main means
of propulsion was a new type of engine, the Argus tube, which burned ordinary fuel. The reason that this ordinary fuel
did not show up on the site was that the bombs arrived already filled with fuel from a central store.
</p>
<p>
Dans le même temps, je dois souligner qu'en compensation de ce cas où le rasoir d'Occam led me astray, there were many
instances where it led me to the truth when many other people were confused. The essential thing in applying the Razor
is that one must be completely honest in realizing that, while it dictates the best operational course, it can lead to
the wrong result and one must not cling to the simple explanation to which it leads if subsequent observations s show
that this is incorrect. Il est ici opportun de se souvenir du conseil de Pasteur (1854) :</p>
<blockquote>
<p><q>Les idées préconçues sont commes des lampes-torches qui illuminent le chemin de l'expérimentateur et lui servent
comme guide pour interroger la nature. Elles deviennent un danger seulement s'il les transforme en idées figées
— c'est pourquoi j'aimerai voir ces mots profonds incrits sur le seuil de tous les temples de la science : "Le
plus grand dérangement de l'esprit est de croire en quelque chose parce que l'on souhaite qu'il soit ainsi".</q></p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Keeping all these facts in mind, the balance of the evidence regarding flying saucers as I see it — viewed
against the critical situations in which I used to have to decide on courses of action based on evidence from
eyewitnesses and other sources — is heavily against their being intelligently controlled vehicles. But I also
know that, even if the current American and Russian investigations come to this same conclusion or even a stronger
one, it will not discourage the flying saucer believers. For these investigations are faced with the impossible job,
if flying saucers do not exist, of proving a completely negative case. This is one of the most difficult of all
intelligence tasks, and even if the investigation is as thorough as humanly possible, the flying saucer exponents will
always bc able to conjure new hypotheses that had not been considered.
</p><p>
If known natural phenomena are insufficient to explain everything that has been genuinely seen, the alternative to the
intelligently controlled vehicles is an as yet unrecognized natural phenomenon. This is distinctly possible —
the case may be similar to that of ball lightning, the occurrence of which has long been both asserted and disputed.
But ball lightning has been seen by many observers with a scientific training, including a Deputy Director of the
Meteorological Office. In this it appears (apart from a few recent reports from Russia) to differ from the flying
saucer and since there is no reason to expect that scientists are more likely to be favoured relatively to laymen by
ball lightning than by flying saucers, we may conclude that either the saucers are much rarer even than the
comparatively rare ball lightning, or that the latter has often been mistaken by lay observers for saucers.
</p>
<p>
In coming to a conclusion about the existence of flying saucers, il y a une forte tentation d'être plus que prudent,
parce que s'il se révélait que vous avez tort de nier leur existence l'erreur sera blazoned dans l'histoire de la
science ; mais s'il se révèle simplement que vous avez raison, il y aura peu de crédit à avoir pouvé un cas négatif.
Ma propre position a été que si à un moment quelconque dans les 20 dernières années I had had to take a vital decision
one way or the other according to whether I thought that flying saucers were fact or fantasy, Russian or
extraterrestrial (why has China never been credited, by the way?); I would have taken that decision on the assumption
that they were either a fantasy or an incorrect identification of a rare and unrecognized phenomenon; and while I
commend any genuine search for new phenomena, little short of a tangible relic would dispel my skepticism of flying
saucers.
</p>
<h2>
Remerciements
</h2>
<p>
Je suis reconnaissant pour leur aide à Messieurs Brownlee Haydon, Amrom Katz et Merton Davies de la <a
href="/org/us/RAND.html">Rand Corporation</a> pour m'avoir fourni des copies de la littérature US, et à l'équipe du
<a href="/org/uk/mod/index.html">Ministère de Défense</a>.</p>
<h2>Lectures supplémentaires</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="/people/f/FortCharles/index.html">Fort, C.</a>, 1941, <em>The Books of Charles Fort </em>(New York: Holt
and Co.). A source book for pre-saucer apparitions.
</li>
<li><a href="/people/h/HynekJosefAllen/index.html">Hynek, J. A.</a>, 1964 Encyclopedia Britannica 22, 696 (Chicago:
Benton). </li>
<li><a href="/people/h/HynekJosefAllen/index.html">Hynek, J. A.</a>, 1966, Science, 154, 329.</li>
<li>Lane, F. W., 1966, <em>The Elements of Rage </em>(Newton Abbot: David and Charles). A general account of meteors
and other phenomena.</li>
<li><a href="/people/m/McDonaldJamesE/index.html">McDonald, J. E.</a>, 1967, Paper to the American Society of
Newspaper Editors, 22 April.</li>
<li><a href="/people/m/McDonaldJamesE/index.html">McDonald, J. E.</a>, 1967, Statement to the Outer Space Affairs
Group, <a href="/org/int/onu/index.html">United Nations Organization</a>, 7 juin.</li>
<li><a href="/people/m/MenzelDonaldH/index.html">Menzel, D. H.</a>, 1953, Flying Saucers (London: Putnam).</li>
<li><a href="/people/m/MenzelDonaldH/index.html">Menzel, D. H.</a>, et Boyd, L. G., 1963, <em>The World of Flying
Saucers </em>(New York: Doubleday).</li>
<li>Minnaert, M., 1940, Light and Colour in the Open Air, réédité en 1959 (Londres: Bell).</li>
<li>Pasteur, L., rapporté dans Dubos, R. J., 1964, Louis Pasteur (London: Gollanez).</li>
</ul>
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