Word: saucerful
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Plain Reasoning. Some saucer reports are hoaxes; some are products of imagination. Others have come from glimpses of such ordinary objects as weather balloons, aircraft and even sheets of newspaper carried aloft by the wind. But Menzel became convinced that, in spite of such false alarms, competent and honest observers had been seeing unusual sights that needed explaining. He determined to find out by plain scientific reasoning what it was they...
...such thing is a spot of light. It is easy to swing the beam of a searchlight (across high clouds, for instance) and make its bright spot seem to travel at many thousand m.p.h. The spot of light moves silently and it can change direction as abruptly as any saucer...
This common condition, Menzel believes, is responsible for many of the saucer sightings (see diagram). The warm air overhead turns downward the light from bright objects, such as street lights or auto headlamps. If the "interface" is too turbulent, it can form no visible image, but if it is just steady enough, it will create bright images that seem to sweep rapidly across the dark sky. This is the explanation, says Menzel, for the famous "Lubbock Lights,"* which have been taken for interplanetary space ships flying in formation. They may be the images of a string of lights...
...special kind of flying saucer, says Menzel, has been seen four times, just after the launching of a big "sky hook" balloon. They appear as roundish objects, apparently at a great height. He believes that they are caused by the balloon itself when it rises through a thin layer of warm air at a thousand feet or so (see diagram). As it rises, it punches a hole in the layer. Cold air flows in, forming a blob of denser air that acts as an imperfect lens. Observers on the ground see a small moving image of the balloon above...
...ballerina or a Hindu maharanee or a toothless hillbilly, she takes her assorted lumps and pratfalls with unflagging zest and good humor. Her mobile, rubbery face reflects a limitless variety of emotions, from maniacal pleasure to sepulchral gloom. Even on a flickering, pallid TV screen, her wide-set saucer eyes beam with the massed candlepower of a lighthouse on a dark night...