Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World
Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World
THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD the Name of Science. Here was Wilhelm Reich uncovering the key to the structure of galaxies in the energy of the human orgasm; Andrew Crosse creating microscopic insects electrically from salts; Hans Horbiger under Nazi aegis announcing that the Milky Way was made not of stars, but of snowballs; Charles Piazzi Smyth discovering in the dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh a world chronology from the Creation to the Second Coming; L. Ron Hubbard writing a manuscript able to drive its readers insane (was it ever proofed? I wondered); the Bridey Murphy case, which led millions into concluding that at last there was serious evidence of reincarnation; Joseph Rhine's 'demonstrations' of ESP; appendicitis cured by cold water enemas, bacterial diseases by brass cylinders, and gonorrhoea by green light - and amid all these accounts of self-deception and charlatanry, to my surprise a chapter on UFOs. Of course, merely by writing books cataloguing spurious beliefs, Mackay and Gardner came across, at least a little, as grumpy and superior. Was there nothing they accepted? Still, it was stunning how many passionately argued and defended claims to knowledge had amounted to nothing. It slowly dawned on me that, human fallibility being what it is, there might be other explanations for flying saucers. I had been interested in the possibility of extraterrestrial life from childhood, from long before I ever heard of flying saucers. I've remained fascinated long after my early enthusiasm for UFOs waned - as I understood more about that remorseless taskmaster called the scientific method: everything hinges on the matter of evidence. On so important a question, the evidence must be airtight. The more we want it to be true, the more careful we have to be. No witness's say-so is good enough. People make mistakes. People play practical jokes. People stretch the truth for money or attention or fame. People occasionally misunderstand what they're seeing. People sometimes even see things that aren't there. Essentially all the UFO cases were anecdotes, something asserted. UFOs were described variously as rapidly moving or hovering; disc-shaped, cigar-shaped, or ball-shaped; moving silently or noisily; with a fiery exhaust, or with no exhaust at all; 68
Aliens accompanied by flashing lights, or uniformly glowing with a silvery cast, or self-luminous. The diversity of the observations hinted that they had no common origin, and that the use of such terms as UFOs or 'flying saucers' served only to confuse the issue by grouping generically a set of unrelated phenomena. There was something odd about the very invention of the phrase 'flying saucer'. As I write this chapter, I have before me a transcript of a 7 April 1950 interview between Edward R. Murrow, the celebrated CBS newsman, and Kenneth Arnold, a civilian pilot who saw something peculiar near Mount Rainier in the state of Washington on 24 June 1947 and who in a way coined the phrase. Arnold claims that the newspapers did not quote me properly . . . When I told the press they misquoted me, and in the excitement of it all, one newspaper and another one got it so ensnarled up that nobody knew just exactly what they were talking about . . . These objects more or less fluttered like they were, oh, I'd say, boats on very rough water . . . And when I described how they flew, I said that they flew like they take a saucer and throw it across the water. Most of the newspapers misunderstood and misquoted that, too. They said that I said that they were saucer-like; I said that they flew in a saucer-like fashion. Arnold thought he saw a train of nine objects, one of which produced a 'terrific blue flash'. He concluded they were a new kind of winged aircraft. Murrow summed up: 'That was an historic misquote. While Mr Arnold's original explanation has been forgotten, the term "flying saucer" has become a household word.' Kenneth Arnold's flying saucers looked and behaved quite differently from what in only a few years would be rigidly particularized in the public understanding of the term: something like a very large and highly manoeuverable frisbee. Most people honestly reported what they saw, but what they saw were natural, if unfamiliar, phenomena. Some UFO sightings turned out to be unconventional aircraft, conventional aircraft with unusual lighting patterns, high-altitude balloons, luminescent 69
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Aliens<br />
accompanied by flashing lights, or uniformly glowing with a<br />
silvery cast, or self-luminous. The diversity of the observations<br />
hinted that they had no common origin, and that the use of such<br />
terms as UFOs or 'flying saucers' served only to confuse the issue<br />
by grouping generically a set of unrelated phenomena.<br />
There was something odd about the very invention of the<br />
phrase 'flying saucer'. As I write this chapter, I have before me a<br />
transcript of a 7 April 1950 interview between Edward R.<br />
Murrow, the celebrated CBS newsman, and Kenneth Arnold, a<br />
civilian pilot who saw something peculiar near Mount Rainier in<br />
the state of Washington on 24 June 1947 and who in a way coined<br />
the phrase. Arnold claims that the newspapers<br />
did not quote me properly . . . When I told the press they<br />
misquoted me, and in the excitement of it all, one newspaper<br />
and another one got it so ensnarled up that nobody knew just<br />
exactly what they were talking about . . . These objects more<br />
or less fluttered like they were, oh, I'd say, boats on very<br />
rough water . . . And when I described how they flew, I said<br />
that they flew like they take a saucer and throw it across the<br />
water. Most of the newspapers misunderstood and misquoted<br />
that, too. They said that I said that they were saucer-like; I<br />
said that they flew in a saucer-like fashion.<br />
Arnold thought he saw a train of nine objects, one of which<br />
produced a 'terrific blue flash'. He concluded they were a new<br />
kind of winged aircraft. Murrow summed up: 'That was an<br />
historic misquote. While Mr Arnold's original explanation has<br />
been forgotten, the term "flying saucer" has become a household<br />
word.' Kenneth Arnold's flying saucers looked and<br />
behaved quite differently from what in only a few years would<br />
be rigidly particularized in the public understanding of the<br />
term: something like a very large and highly manoeuverable<br />
frisbee.<br />
Most people honestly reported what they saw, but what they<br />
saw were natural, if unfamiliar, phenomena. Some UFO sightings<br />
turned out to be unconventional aircraft, conventional aircraft<br />
with unusual lighting patterns, high-altitude balloons, luminescent<br />
69
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