Frank Scully - Behind the Flying Saucers

BEHIND THE FLYING SAUCERS

Frank Scully

Dedicated to The Scully Circus, our trained fleas from heavenSkip, Syl, Pat, Non, and Mikeand may they some day fly in one.

PUBLISHERS NOTE

We are publishing Behind The Flying Saucers because we believe it to be an exciting, timely, and straightforward interpretation of one of the strangest phenomenon in modern times. It is obvious, of course, that any discussion of flying saucers from whatever point of view is bound to be controversial. This book is no exception, for Frank Scullys conclusions as to the nature of these craft differ sharply from those held officially by the Department of Defense.

However, we are as convinced as any thoughtful publisher can be that Mr. Scully has approached his subject with probity and has interpreted the facts and figures given him with care and caution. In writing this book he has had extensive interviews and assistance from scientists and other experts in such fields as magnetic energy, astronomy, and aerodynamics men who are reputedly high in their profession but some of whose names, as will be apparent in reading this book, must be kept anonymous.

We, like most people, including Mr. Scully, have never seen a flying saucer. But from the mass of evidence as reported in the press and magazines by reputable persons, there is much reason to believe that they actually do exist. What they are, where they come from, or how they fly, we do not presume to know. Mr. Scully attempts to answer some of these questions and were sure that youll find his answers both fascinating and provocative. We did.

AUTHORS PREFACE

BETWEEN THE PEOPLE and government today lies a double standard of morality. Anything remotely scientific has become by government definition a matter of military security first; hence of secrecy, something which does not breed security but fear. If we see anything unusual, even in the skies, we the people must either freeze our lips, like a Russian peasant at the sight of a commissar, or give our names, addresses, business connections, and testimony to be screened and filtered by anonymous intelligence officers.

Feared and respected by many people, these anonymous creatures can deny what we say, ridicule what we say, and sometimes (and in an increasing number of countries) jail us for what we say especially if our timing does not match to the second their intended official pronouncements on the subject.

Just as the communists have made a god of their Uncle Joe, we have begun to deify our faceless spokesman. Both should be fought by free men as word oppressors. Without going into it at too great a length, this all ties up with the loss of faith in formal religion, which forces people to cling to the New Sublimation.

The only way for a free people to fight such encroachments on free inquiry is to say in advance,

What I am telling you will be denied, or This is true but those who say so now will be branded as dreamers, and if they persist, as liars.

It completely destroys American sportsmanship standards when we, the people, stick to the rules while an opposing team of censors who have usurped our rights are permitted, by their own handpicked referee, to pull rabbit-punches on defensive play, hamstring us from the rear if we seem to be running well in an open field, and even machinegun the ball in midair if we are kicking an almost certain field goal.

There is only one thing to do under such a setup. Expose their tactics. Show that more offenses are committed under the word defense than this world dreams of. Insist that what we say is the whole truth, and what they say is not the whole truth.

That may seem a dreadful way to treat our own flesh and blood, our commissioned sons who have been trained for combat but have been assigned in peacetime to espionage and counter espionage.

But since our sons in uniform do not report to us, the people, but to Central Intelligence (which as far as we can make out reports to nobody and is answerable to nobody), how otherwise can we get our current findings to our own friends?

Scientists believe they have suffered more than any other group from the postwar loyalty hysteria but writers cannot be far behind them. The thread of intolerance which runs through our history has now become as thick as a noose to hang us. Under the circumstances, to write a book, knowing not only that you will be ridiculed, but also knowing who will do the ridiculing, and not have a counteroffensive ready, is to be starry eyed and unrealistic.

Rather than be rated dreamers by such obvious interior proof that we are dreamers, it is a good deal smarter to swing first and say that all bureaucrats, whether in tweeds or bogged down with salad dressing, are incompetent time servers, hanging on the public payroll till pensioned or rewarded with a stuffed shirt job in private enterprise (privately endowed universities, naturally, included) and are truth trimmers to boot.

In order to regain this lost freedom we will have to say a pox on both your houses and cease to be brushed off by the perpetual hocus-pocus involved in such phrases of these spokes men as top secret, secret and confidential, restricted, and, withheld for reasons of security.

Such brushoffs are almost invariably followed by a statement from another department of the defense arm, that what we are hiding isnt really worth concealing, that we are defended by old and obsolete equipment, and that, finally, unless we grant them an additional billion dollars for new equipment overnight, we are dead ducks, saucers or no saucers!

Propaganda has made trueandfalse practically obsolete in our language. In fact, if a spokesman has served time in intelligence, it may fairly be said, the truth is no longer in him. Spies cannot even buy or sell lies with skill. If so, why are they being arrested all over the world and almost invariably getting a sentence of fifteen years? Has that become the fair trade practices act on the international level?

Perhaps it would be clearer to readers if I illustrated with a few samples of this dismal wallpaper pattern. On June 24, 1947, businessman Kenneth Arnold of Boise, Idaho, flying his own plane, first reported he had seen several flying saucers in the area of Mt. Rainier, Washington. Reports of other saucers from other areas followed.

Then on August 9, Lieutenant Colonel Donald Springer, assistant to the chief of staff of the Fourth Air Force, decided to stop the nonsense. Despite the fact that his command had an unsolved mystery on its hands concerning molten material claimed to have fallen on Maury Island, and the death of two army pilots who were transporting the material for further examination, Colonel Springer said, as far as he was concerned, there was no basis for belief in flying disks in the Tacoma area or any other.

Newspapers took this as some sort of hint and piped down on the subject. With what result? That by January, 1948, six months after Colonel Springers dismissal of the subject, the Pentagon set up Project Saucer to investigate the hundreds of reports that had been coming in. Fate devoted almost half of its first issue to flying saucers and led off with an article by Kenneth Arnold entitled I Did See The Flying Disks.

Project Saucer proceeded in a quiet unhysterical way for eighteen months before issuing even a preliminary report. The Saturday Evening Post apparently got the idea that the report was going to be negative, so it had Sidney Shalett prepare two articles on the subject for almost simultaneous release with the Air Force report. The articles turned out to be rather long winded recapitulations of various flying saucer case histories previously explored, and the general impression left after reading them was that believers in the actuality of flying saucers appeared as not quite bright.

Shaletts first article appeared in the Post issue dated April 30; the second, May 7. The April 30 issue was on the newsstands several days before April 30, of course. In fact, it was on sale when the Air Force issued its April 27 preliminary report. The Air Force report crossed up the Post. This was in line with the pattern I have previously outlined of making fools of collaborators.