Foreword

Mankind has always enjoyed a good mystery, something which opens the door into a realm beyond the mundane; a realm wherein may lie all manner of mysterious and mind-boggling entities. Tales of the supernormal never fail to appeal and there is within most of us a secret wish that at least some of these far-fetched stories may possess a kernel of truth.

The UFO mystery, therefore, could not fail to exert a powerful and widespread appeal. Here is something stepping straight from the pages of the wildest science fiction directly into reality - or so it seems to many people. Needless to say, books sounding more like science fiction than anything purporting to be factual have been presented as sober fact, and have proven extremely popular because of this. Likewise, a host of new religious cults have sprung up, basing their beliefs upon messages allegedly received, by chosen individuals, from a kindly race of spacemen - pilots of flying saucers which are what UFOs really are.

On the other hand, an equal and opposite reaction has developed, often assisted by the same kind of emotive reaction which is seen among the believers. It is as if questions about the existence of UFOs, like questions concerning religious topics, divide people into two sharply opposing camps — the believers and the non-believers. The parallel with religious questions should be borne in mind; both touch on the existence or non-existence of something extra-mundane and it seems to be the willingness or otherwise to admit to something over and above the everyday world which arouses, more than anything else, people's deepest hopes and fears.

This present work, hopefully, steers a middle course. It is not intended to comfort those who are feverishly searching for evidence that will make belief in flying saucers scientifically respectable, but neither is it a negative work designed to assist the scoffer in his non-belief. There are sufficient books available for either class of reader. The present book is for those who suspend belief and disbelief alike until sufficient evidence has been amassed and analysed to allow either affirmation or rejection to be rational assent or non-concurrence rather than emotional belief or disbelief.

The UFO problem will be treated in the manner of any unsolved puzzle, i.e. as a problem which may have a solution within the framework of scientific knowledge (already acquired or yet to be acquired), and not as a mystery upon which we may only look and wonder.

However, this is not to dogmatically affirm that science, still less physical science, holds a ready answer to the problem. Neither is it to say that the problem must be reduced to some-thing mundane. There may well be genuine 'new empirical information' (in Professor Hynek's words) encountered in UFO phenomenon and, if this is true, science and even our conception of the universe itself may be in for some very rude shocks. It may even be discovered that the scientific explanation confirms the cultist's beliefs, or that the phenomenon is found to involve something far more revolutionary than even the wildest cultist had ever dreamed. We shall just have to wait and (hopefully) see.

In the chapters which follow I shall attempt to present the UFO as a phenomenon to be studied. That is to say, I shall keep preconceived ideas about the nature of the phenomenon to a minimum and concentrate on what we know, or what we think we know, about these strange apparitions, thereby building up a picture (albeit a sketchy one) of the real, or, at least, the reported-as-real, UFO whereby the various speculations concerning the nature of the phenomenon can be tested.

In the true sense of the term, therefore, I hope this will be a 'scientific' book about UFOs.

D.S.