Fifty Years of UFOs

John Spencer

(Extract)

The Space Race

On Saturday 5th October 1957 Americans woke up to headlines that missed their intellect almost entirely and struck a visceral fear deep down. The Soviet Union - home of anything but the free, a stranger to Mom's apple pie and the centre of hated communist influence - had put a satellite into orbit above the earth. Sputnik 1, less than two feet across and weighing no more than the average man, with a few antennae looking like cat's whiskers, was bleeping its way around the earth; Man's first artificial satellite. When they had gone to bed the night before the American people had been secure in the knowledge the heavens had been made up entirely of stars, planets, asteroids and meteors created solely by God; over breakfast coffee that morning they discovered that one new item had been added to the list - an item made by it's communist enemy. Scientist C P (later Lord) Snow referred to Americans as having 'technological conceit' which he thought was in part based on their belief that science and totalitarianism were incompatible. Sputnik shocked them out of that belief. British historian D.W. Brogan once commented that the Americans had grown up with 'the illusion of American omnipotence'. He observed that 'nothing is so shocking for the Americans as to be potentially defeated'.

This American fear was probably best summed up by one 'man-in-the-street' comment to a reporter who asked him if he admired the Russian achievement. "No, definitely not," he commented bitterly. "I say we should have been the first ones to have it if there's such a thing."

Officials in America - for the most part in the military - dismissed Sputnik 1 fairly lightly and for good reasons. They had the intellectual overview. It was in effect, as some said, just 'a hunk of iron' or 'a silly bauble'. It was initially dismissed by the president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, himself a military man, as an event of 'scientific interest' and, famously, he refused even to interrupt a game of golf to discuss the matter. In fact, in 1996 documents were declassified that showed that Eisenhower knew that America had the technology to launch something similar to Sputnik, but that he was afraid to be the first to fly an object over enemy territory. He gambled that after the Soviets had launched Sputnik he would gain, by default, permission to fly spy satellites over their territory. His gamble totally failed in the public's perception and his presidency lost credibility. The American public believed that America was behind and that it was a military failure; and they blamed the leading military figure - the President himself.

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Within the Air Force Sputnik 1 was also met with a shrug of the shoulders at the most. Plans were well under way to launch a small satellite into orbit perhaps in 1958 as a contribution to International Geophysical Year. And, as stated above, they could have done it earlier if they had chosen to. Those in the Air Force knew well what the President knew of course; a rocket - so what! They had been flying rockets - rocket planes - for over a decade. Chuck Yeager had broken the so-called 'sound barrier' 10 years earlier in one. Plans were well under way for the X15, and later an X15B, which would be an aircraft-like rocket capable of flying into space orbiting the earth and landing again on a runway. Most of the test pilots at Edwards Air Force Base where this work was under development had flown rockets many times in their careers.

But - and it was a huge 'but' that the President miscalculated - the public didn't see it that way at all. They had no intellectual overview to comfort them. They didn't know the technology was there. They didn't see the political problems. They saw it quite differently. Americans looked upwards, into the realm of the heavens, and saw that the Soviets were there - and the Americans weren't! Some primeval chord was struck. The Soviets were over their heads and could rain down terror upon them. Their one intellectual appreciation of Sputnik 1 was that it did mean that the Soviets had rockets capable of delivering an intercontinental ballistic missile into the heart of America. Almost immediately Americans appreciated Sputnik 1 as the first hammer blow in a new war - the war for control of the Realm of the Gods. Senate majority leader Lyndon Johnson described space as 'the high ground' and indicated that he believed those who controlled 'the high ground' would win the war just as in ancient battles those who had fortified the high ground had had the advantage over their attackers. The first reference to a 'space race' was made in an editorial in The New York Times and was not, as many have believed since, a reference to a race into space between the Americans and the Soviets based purely on a competition of technology but came about because of another reference in the editorial to the United States being in a 'race for survival'. After a later Soviet satellite launch into orbit John McCormack, House Speaker heading the House Select Committee on Astronautics, commented that the United States faced 'national extinction'. He said, 'It cannot be over emphasised that the survival of the free world - indeed, all the world, is caught up in the stakes.' 'The space race' was therefore another phrase that first hit viscerally rather than intellectually.

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The government and the military were pushed by such public opinion to a response which was to attempt to launch an American satellite into orbit on a Vanguard rocket just two months later. Possibly rushing the procedures a little, it rose a few inches, collapsed backwards and exploded. 'Kaputnik!' was the inspired newspaper banner.

Here in 1997 it is perhaps difficult to appreciate the effect of these events 40 years ago. Today the space shuttle has made space travel almost 'commonplace' but in 1957 the only space travel had been in science fiction and to the vast majority of people looked as if it would remain there. Science fiction itself was viewed as almost laughable escapism and the few serious examinations of a future in space were widely and easily dismissed. The Astronomer Royal, Dr Richard Van Der Riet Woolley, prior to the launch of Sputnik 1, had commented that space travel was 'utter bilge'. Astonishingly enough Dr Woolley even later reaffirmed that belief although there had been by then several successful unmanned excursions into Earth orbit (1). And indeed by the time of Dr Woolley's 'reaffirmation' the Soviet's Luna 1 had passed within 4,000 miles of the moon and subsequent Lunas had struck the moon and photographed its far side. Despite that, Dr Woolley commented, "I said it was 'utter bilge' when I arrived 41/2 years ago and it remains 'utter bilge'." By the time Dr Woolley left office as Astronomer Royal in 1971 the manned lunar landing programme was well under way. It was not one of astronomy's most successful predictions. However, Dr Woolley may have been prodded into a somewhat polarised viewpoint by the comments at the time of Professor R. Bracewell of California's Stanford University who had speculated that other worlds might be sending robot reconnaissance vehicles to study us.

In short, a respectable scientist, publishing his work in respectable scientific journals, was giving credence to the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs. In that one moment of time, when Sputnik 1 was in orbit, the possibilities for UFOs as extra-terrestrial visitors seemed to become that much more likely. What had been feared merely due to post-war nerves now seemed to take on the air of the probable. And in the next few years, and particularly by the time cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had flown in space, the concept of space travel was, obviously, widely accepted. Perhaps more subtly - for the purpose of our investigation - we must recognise that for the first time it could be proven that life could exist in outer space. Agreed it was only a few dogs, monkeys and a couple of people in specially controlled environments - effectively taking a part of the Earth's environment up with them - but to the public the recognition was that living creatures could exist in outer space. Many of the realms of science fiction had suddenly become science fact and the UFO concept of aliens coming from other planets suddenly looked awfully likely. And like most things that go from being unlikely to likely for many people it quickly became almost a certainty. Suddenly those UFO things were somebody else's Sputniks, Mercuries and Voskhods and the people in them were somebody else's Yuri Gagarins and Alan Shepherds. For many, flying saucer reports suddenly looked as if they deserved more serious examination than had previously been given.

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UFO interest was reaching out beyond its initial devotees.

The space race (the race for survival!) and the continuing Cold War were inexorably linked through 1957 to 1964 and formed a vivid contextual background for UFO claims in those years. If fear of Soviet weaponry had forced the American government and military to initially view UFOs as physical and trigger off among the UFO devotees a belief in the 'physical and extraterrestrial' - as shown in chapter one - then the space race and the Cold War somehow strengthened those images and that connection. For example, consider the 'leader' to a newspaper article entitled 'Flying Saucers - Fact or Fiction' and sub-headed 'Are They Watching Us Now?'. It starts: "The triumphant flight into space of U.S. astronaut, Scott Carpenter last week - following on earlier successful Russian and U.S. orbits - has again focused attention on other planets, as man reaches for the moon. Perhaps it's not all one-way traffic. For years strange objects and mysterious lights have been seen ... is it possible that in this tremendous age of science and spacemen that the objects seen are indeed 'flying saucers' - proof of life on other planets? "

In fact UFOs were given a 'shot in the arm' by the space race. Robert Chapman, Science Correspondent of the 'Sunday Express' commented, "It was not until the launching of Sputnik 1 in 1957, when people generally had a new reason for looking up at the sky, that UFO reports made a fresh impact on the public Press" .

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