Joel Hildebrand Universitv of California ~eikeley,94720
I I
The UFO Controversy in America Much ado about nothing?
Science, in its issue of August 22,1975, devoted two pages to a review of a hook on this "controversv". The reviewer stated that "At least three possible explanatibns exist for these baffling third one is "Tbevare in fact, not of this -renorts."The . world, constructed by an alien technology, and capable of seeminelv feats as .. eaueed hv ... imoossible . - our understandine of science." In what follows, I suggest a critique for judging whether hvnothesis three is indeed a "~ossihleexplanation . . . for these baffling reports." One of mv arandsons, when a . young. lad, read in a how' mnzazinr a l k t ..Space Cadefs."who hopped ahout in space ships irnm one celesrial budv runnorher. An oflicial unihrm was on sale a t certain stores.-~econsulted me about travel in space, and I made some calculations with him that I here repeat and amplify. I use laws of motion that have been found by engineers, physicists, and astronomers to describe the motions of all physical bodies, from baseballs to distant stars so accurately that it is hardly probable that they would not apply also to "UFO's." I do not assert that anything is impossible, because modern . ohvsicists have adonted the "Uncertaintv Princinle" . of Heisenberg, which convinces us that our laws and theories can have onlv widelv various deerees of orobabilitv. Now it is ekremeiy improhabie tbat there is anywhere on Earth an undetected establishment from which "flvina ~P 'ires i n space oulbioe the Cjolnr \\'hat aI1o1l1~ I ) S S : ~ Ihunching .i\.atem'.' The tlewesr and thwc,fcm most r)nrhut)leone would bk a planet revolving about the nearest fixed star, Alpha, in the constellation Centaur, distant 4',$ light-yr from the Sun; that is, light, travelling a t 186,000mils requires 4% yr to'make the trip from Alpha Centauri to Earth. The probability tbat Centaurean astronomers know we are here seems pretty slim, because ours cannot know that Alpha even has any planets, and even if, by some miracle, they could locate us, how prob-
able is it that they would want to spy on us? They could not travel a t the speed of light, because an infinite thrust would be required to attain that speed. Let us assume a speed 50that of light, 18,600mils. That is still pretty fast. A non-stop, round trip a t that speed would last 90 yr. What do you guess to he the life expectancy of a Centaurean? The trip would have to last even more than 90 yr, because of the time necessarv. to eet " un.to cruisine- soeed . under anv acceleration a Centaurean could tolerate. A man weighing 150 lb would be pushed by a force of 300 lb continuously for nearly 3 wk while being accelerated a t twice the force of gravity. In order to maintain that acceleration, fuel would have to be carried sufficient to create a continuous thrust of twice the weight of the vehicle and its load. And the lo~isticsof food. water, laundry, books, and games for the crewwould have to he provided for. Im~robahilitiespile up, don't thev? The probability that the top four piaying cards in a well X ;150 X i/qg which is 1in shuffled pack will be aces is $2 X 270,725. If you multiply your most optimistic estimates of prohability for fulfilling all of the requirements for the arrival of a vehicle from outer space, you will get a numher very close to zero. Can you not imagine an explanation that seems far more probable than hypothesis number three? How about reflections from clouds in the night sky? An airplane a t 40,000 feet? An untrained observer "seein' things a t night," like Eugene Field's little boy who has overeaten? A "report" invented by a person who wants to get his name into newspapers? Why call it an "UFO" when you do not even know that it is an object? The "invincible doctor" William of Ockharm in Surrey, who lived in the first half of the 14th century announced a urinciple that is observed by modern scientists: "Essentia i o n s&t multi~licandapraeter necessitatem." I translate it freely as: Do n i t multipl; a series of vanishingly small probabilities in order to account for a phenomenon for which simple explanations can be found.
Volume 53, Number 10, October 1976 / 625
