 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
|
|
A Testable Astronautical Theory for UFO Events
by T.R. Dutton
March 2003
[N.b. See also T. R. Dutton's Puzzling Global Reports of Strange Aerial Craft]
Major changes in human thinking have sometimes resulted from innovative work carried out by lone individuals working in isolation. Understandably, the reactions of professionals operating within the boundaries of established knowledge are initially hostile towards such work. This article is about work to probe phenomena currently regarded as taboo by the pillars of modern science. As a result, it has suffered hostility and summary dismissal for more than twenty years. Nevertheless, as will become apparent, the discoveries being claimed have resulted from long-term objective and detailed processing of the best available data. It is hoped that, some day, they may be considered to be of significance.
Human Limitations
A Quaker philosopher, Isaac Penington, wrote in 1653:
All truth is but a shadow except the last, except the utmost; yet every truth is true in its kind. It is substance in its own place, though it be but a shadow in another place ....Surely, no truer words have ever been written. Each human generation is trapped within its accumulated knowledge-base and paradigms. This situation is changed only gradually as the old foundations are replaced by new discoveries. Most people are averse to sudden changes.
The dangers of making discoveries ahead of their time have been adequately demonstrated throughout history. What is considered acceptable in a given Age seems to be determined more by political and personal considerations rather than philosophical ones – and even scientists are not exempt from such pressures.
There has been no more effective way to incite outrage and ridicule from modern scientists than merely to mention that one has been researching U.F.O. phenomena. That despised acronym has become to many scientists like a red rag to a bull. Concerted attempts seem to have been made during the past thirty years to relegate the topic to the realms of science fiction. Nevertheless, such unexplained happenings have continued to occur all over the world and, despite the much-quoted Condon Report's recommendations1 to the contrary, they surely merit thorough investigation and rationalisation.
During 1998, science writer and SETI author, Edward Ashpole, and I co-authored an essay for a competition being promoted by The National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), Las Vegas. Edward Ashpole's suggested title for the essay was "The Scientific Search for Evidence of Extraterrestrial Intelligence in the Solar System".2 He would write a "supporting science" rationale to preface my contribution, which would be a summary of the nature and the results of my thirty years' objective analysis, and global synthesis, of reports of unidentifiable aerial craft, collected from a period of more than a century. Much to our shared satisfaction, we were informed, some months later, that our essay had been selected to be one of three first prize winners of the competition. Furthermore, the NIDS people wanted to display the winning essays on their web site, and to bring them to the attention of leading academics and SETI specialists. So far, there have been no enquiries from any of those people as a result of the publishing of that essay. That has to be surprising in view of the profound nature of the discoveries being claimed. Could it be, given the prevailing attitudes, that they are being regarded as heretical and definitely unfit to be promoted by open debate?
This
article is yet another attempt to break through into that exclusion zone.
It will describe the manner in which the discoveries were made and will
place them within the context of the past fifty years. Finally, the main
discoveries will be listed for consideration. Having been arrived at through
objective and painstaking analysis and synthesis of the best evidence
available, if they are eventually validated by other researchers, they
will change several existing scientific paradigms.
The Hynek Contribution
The late Dr. J Allen Hynek,
an American professor, was the Director of the Lindheimer Astronomical
Research Center at Northwestern University and Chairman of that university's
Astronomy Department when his book The UFO Experience: A Scientific
Enquiry3 was published during 1972. Prior to that he had
been the official astronomical consultant to the U.S. Air Force's Project
Blue Book, a project set up to investigate all American UFO reports
and, subsequently, he had become a member of the University of Colorado's
team created in 1966 to take over Blue Book files from the USAF. That
team, headed by Dr. Edward U. Condon,
produced the Condon Report (1968), which concluded negatively. The conclusion
was not shared by all the members of the team and Prof. Hynek was one
of those dissenters. He wrote his book to set the record straight and
to share his own view of the topic. His book is almost essential reading
for anyone wishing to come to terms with the discoveries about to be claimed
in this article.
The original term "flying saucer" was eventually replaced by Unidentified Flying Object (U.F.O.) to describe mysterious aerial objects being reported by eyewitnesses. That change had the effect of clouding the issues quite effectively. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the name "flying saucer" had indicated that the object being reported had had the appearance of being an aerial craft of some kind, even though many were not saucer-shaped. When SAC (strange aerial craft) were placed under the "UFO" heading, they became rarely-occurring items within a plethora of all sorts of things in the sky that members of the general public had been unable to identify. Whether that change of categorisation had been made deliberately to mislead, or not, it certainly provided the cynics with sufficient evidence to enable them to assert that UFOs were the results of inadequate observation - and any craft-like things were just figments of imaginations over-stimulated by sci-fi books and films.
Offsetting
these dismissive assertions in his book of 1972, Dr. Hynek defined six
categories for the UFOs he had investigated in his official role with
the U.S.A.F.: Subsequently,
the last of these categories was brought into public focus by Steven Spielberg's
famous (but fanciful) film of the same name. Hynek was the UFO advisor
to Spielberg and his services were recognised when he was given a short
walk-on part in the climax scene of the film. Unfortunately, that film
opened the topic to a flood of even more fanciful films and TV series
and these have played their part in further devaluing UFO research as
a serious scientific pursuit. By the year
1967 I had settled with my wife and small son in Bramhall, a Cheshire
village on the fringes of the large Greater Manchester conurbation. During
the late summer of that year the local press began to feature reports
of strange aerial craft received from residents in the South Manchester
area. As the weeks passed, the reports became more frequent.
Prior to all
this, during the period 1959-1963, I had been a member of the Special
Projects Office, Weapons Research Division (WRD), A.V.Roe & Co. Ltd.,
located at Woodford Airfield, near Bramhall, Cheshire. My work in that
think-tank had involved participation in feasibility studies of advanced
space launchers and, also, analysis of photographs of existing launchers
(American and Russian) to determine their performance capabilities. Our
long-term objective had been to explore means by which a more economical
launcher system might be produced to enable Britain to maintain a Space
Programme. Unfortunately, all that came to an end when new owners, Hawker
Siddeley Dynamics, Ltd. decided to close WRD, beginning with the closure
of the Special Projects Office during 1963. I had then been pleased to
accept a transfer to the Wind Tunnels Department of Hawker Siddeley Aviation,
Ltd., at the same airfield site. This was still my application when those
reports of strange things in the sky began to create newspaper headlines.
The analysis
of craft characteristics revealed a number of commonalties effectively
defining them as being technological objects demonstrating capabilities
beyond human achievement. Even though a variety of shapes was evident,
all had appeared to have been propelled in the same puzzling manner. They
had operated silently, close to the treetops, in radar clutter, and had
sometimes been witnessed to depart, finally, by streaking upwards with
very high accelerations, before being lost to view in seconds - thereby
again avoiding detection by the radar systems then in service. It was
found that the sites visited had mostly occupied a narrow, 35 miles wide,
magnetic north-south band, with the newly opened M6 motorway lying near
its centreline and that large man-made topographical features, capable
of being seen from high altitude, had occupied all the sites visited.
Taking all this evidence together, it seemed logical to conclude that
a developing part of NW England had undergone detailed survey by non-human
agencies. The evidence pointed towards space as being the likely source
of those agencies.
After having
drawn so much from the data already collected, I decided to continue monitoring
British reports and to analyse them progressively. This spare-time study
continued until 1973. All the early findings had been, by then, vindicated
and there was felt a desperate need to be able to begin a study of similar
reports gathered from all over the world. Only in that way would it be
possible to recognise any planned activities from space - it being hoped
that, as within Britain, evidence of planned surveillance might become
evident in other parts of the world. Next began
the process of collecting data to check whether new reported events seemed
to confirm (or otherwise) the model created from the historical database.
The reasons
why those people already familiar with astronautical techniques would
have found themselves considering an unfamiliar scenario were these:
No humanly-produced
spacecraft of the present time could possibly emulate this activity.
Furthermore, the timings and dates of the reported SAC events in the
atmosphere had indicated that
It was all
rather incredible - and that was why testing was so essential.
To date,
almost 1,000 additional selected cases have been processed through
the computer programmes. The checking has been done in various ways.
Sometimes I obtained a batch of sightings from a given area (e.g. the
San Luis Valley, Colorado) and this facilitated graphical as well as
numerical checking of the data.
Graphs are
computer-produced for a specified location and the computer selects
up to seven optional real-time paths in space (selected from the programmed
global set) that could be used to access that site. As the programmed
timing options available to the perpetrators are linked to celestial
markers, the available times for delivery and retrieval of probes
associated with the identified paths are predictable, and change
from day to day with the movement of the Earth round the Sun. The timings
graph displays a series of lines representing those times, throughout
any year, for the set of available access paths identified.
Superimposing
actual (reported) time and date for each event on this arrangement of
lines shows how close the reported time is to the nearest prediction
at that date. If this is done for all the other reports in the same
batch, it can then be seen if a particular path and/or orientation has
been favoured to access that location. Such indications can aid in-the-field
observations.
Of the additional
cases processed, over 60% (600+) of the reported times have correlated
within 20 minutes of the nearest predictions. In considering that result,
it must be remembered that surprised eyewitnesses do not usually look
at their watches immediately on seeing a strange thing in the sky. In
other words, some of the times given will have been given with hindsight
and from memory. [One special exercise, with data not included in the
main checking sample, checked a set of random times against the same
number of collected recorded times for a given area and showed that
about 20% (60) of the random times had not occurred within 1 hour of
any predictions, whereas all the actuals had qualified within that timescale.]
A further
characteristic of the SAC seems to be revealed by these results:
Examination
of a significant number of alleged Close Encounters accompanied by a
period of witness amnesia (now known as a CE 4s) has shown that the
time at the beginning of the encounter and the time when restoration
is experienced often correspond to the predicted times for two consecutive
overhead passes of a hypothetical mothership. This implies that
All of these
claimed discoveries are now in great need of rigorous scientific investigation.
In view of their potential importance and the weight of evidence supporting
them, they surely warrant that kind of response, but to date there has
been little movement in that direction.
One notable
exception has been the interest shown by an Irish astronomer who, having
had much success in being in several right places at the right times,
as a result of using my timing information, is now setting up a special
observatory in a remote area of Ireland. The observatory will be equipped
with advanced equipment to record and analyse the strange recurring
UFO phenomena in the skies of that region. Mr. Eamonn Ansbro,
FRAS, is a member of the SETV group of
SETI scientists, whose aims are to search for evidence of ET vehicles
in the Solar System. This caused
me to examine the nature of the swirled patterns produced by the flattened
wheat and barley stalks. In this I was aided by near-overhead photographs
of small circle specimens donated by Mr. F.C. Taylor (also now well-known
as an aerial photographer) and by accurately measured drawings from
Mr. Andrews. By analysis of the swirl patterns in each of the cases
presented to me, I was able to discover a vortex law that applied to
them all. That law did not apply to any natural vortex. When
it was written into a computer program for my PC, I discovered the swirled
patterns had almost certainly been produced by a piece of technology
- a rotating line-scanner. The stalks in the specimens examined
had clearly been laid down as a series of strips. The computer program
not only produced the correct swirl pattern but, also, the same number
of strips observed in each case. This finding supported my initial observation
that the stems had not been flattened by mechanical means and pointed
instead towards a focused beam of high-frequency radiation, such as
might be produced by a scanning airborne laser. However, the true nature
of the beam is still unresolved, because not only would it have to have
the ability to heat the plant cells, transiently, at the base of the
stems, it would also have to be able to apply gentle overpressure in
order to sweep the crop down in the beam's direction of travel, without
causing damage. In my view, this is a form of technology not yet developed
by Man, and the discovery gives credibility to the idea that genuine
crop formations are the result of SAC activity.
Furthermore,
on several occasions these mysterious circles had been witnessed being
laid down, without visible cause, in daylight. The time of each of those
events, on the dates given, correlated very well with the nearest predicted
SAC time for that local area. Over the
period of computerised development, 1988-2001, several research papers
were written to record investigations into various offshoots of the
main theory. They were listed in the bibliography of a major paper7
produced during early 2001, the purpose of which was to place on record
all the major steps which led, ultimately, to the derivation of the
astronautical theory. That bibliography also listed all the earlier
papers and the NIDS essay. To offset
this effective censorship by exclusion, during 1994, following up a
1992 offer from an ex-aerospace colleague, Roy Rowlands, I recorded
the first of a series of three videos8 with the primary purpose
of bringing together all the main threads of the work for posterity's
sake. The final Part 3 was recorded during June 1999. Although this
video trilogy is available in Britain through a local distributor, the
major distributors do not consider it to be commercially viable - and
that may well be the case. Unfortunately lacking any distributor in
the U.S.A., the videos are not currently available in American NTSC
format.
Edward Ashpole,
in his book of 1995/6, The UFO Phenomena,9 devoted
an entire chapter to the basics of the Astronautical Theory and requested
a sky search by astronomers. The only person to respond, who was adequately
equipped to carry out meaningful searches, was Eamonn Ansbro, the Irish
astronomer referred to earlier. Edward Ashpole has continued to promote
the work in various ways up to the present day.
•Nocturnal
Lights - Strange lighting formations seen at night.
• Daylight
Discs - Objects witnessed in daylight, often disc-shaped.
• Radar-Visuals
- Objects seen and also picked up by radar.
• Close
Encounters of the First Kind (CE 1) - strange object seen at close
quarters but leaving no physical evidence of its visit.
• Close
Encounters of the Second Kind (CE 2) - As for the First Kind but
with physical evidence left behind.
• Close
Encounters of the Third Kind (CE 3) - Alien creatures reported
in association with a strange (usually craft-like) object at close quarters.
A Personal Quest
Introduction to the UFO scene occurred, for me, during my final years
(c.1953) at Grammar School. One day, a school friend who shared my intense
aeronautical interests handed me a book. He asked me to read it and to
give him my opinion of it. It was the controversial Leslie/Adamski book,
Flying Saucers have Landed.4 When I handed it back,
my view of it was that it was very fanciful. Nevertheless, that book made
me wonder whether there might be better ways of flying than those we already
knew about and set me thinking along those lines. Particularly, it focused
my attention on the nature of Gravity. Two years later I had realised
my ambition to become accepted as a trainee engineer in the British aircraft
industry. One of my new-found friends re-introduced me to the UFO topic
when he handed me a book by the late Major Donald Keyhoe, a retired U.S.
Marine with contacts in the Pentagon. The book's title was The Flying
Saucers are Real.5 That book certainly opened my eyes to
the possibility that alien technology could be visiting this planet and
it caused me to keep my mind open to new information.
Investigations
Begin
Having the background just described, I was naturally curious to know more
about the strange aerial craft (SAC) being vividly described by the eyewitnesses
during 1967 and began to carry out private investigations of them. Most
of the witnesses had been deeply shocked by the sight of large, noiseless,
craft hovering or moving slowly over their homes and surroundings, usually
at very low altitudes. Furthermore, the craft had sometimes glowed in the
darkness and/or displayed multitudes of brilliant lights. There were also
several sightings of craft-like objects during daylight. As my investigations
of local events progressed, I learned that similar reports were being recorded
in the Stoke-on-Trent area of Staffordshire. Subsequently, in 1968, I was
able to incorporate some of those events into my database after the limited
publication of an in-depth report6 produced
by two Stoke-based amateur astronomers, Roger Stanway and Anthony Pace.
Having selected some fifty convincing cases from this combined database,
I progressed into analysis of craft characteristics and a survey of all
the sites from which reports had been received during that exciting period
occupying the months between July and December.
The Global Study
Through an association I had established with the Manchester-based investigations
group D.I.G.A.P. (Direct Investigations Group for Aerial Phenomena), I
was able to create a global database by selecting the most significant
reports from two independently-produced comprehensive catalogues. The
earliest report selected for a global distribution exercise occurred in
1865. However, when the exercise developed to consider the dates and times
of the recorded events, the original database had to be reduced because
some records did not provide sufficient information. The earliest case
qualifying for the timing exercise occurred in 1885 and the number of
cases selected had been reduced from 450 to 368. Then followed years of
processing. Several unproductive attempts to synthesise the data used
up many hours of precious spare time, but each attempt seemed to point
towards another possibility to be investigated. By 1980 a discernible
global pattern of activity had emerged from all this, strongly indicating
that some sort of programmed, automated, surveillance had been carried
out over a period of some 86 years - and was being continued. All the
evidence seemed to suggest that the small SAC seen in the atmosphere had
been delivered to, and retrieved from, the targeted locations by larger
craft operating mainly in space. Further intensive study of the possibilities
during the early 1980s led to the recognition of a coherent strategy.
This finding was then presented for consideration during an invited lecture
to B.U.F.O.R.A. (British UFO Research Association) in May 1987. No lasting
follow-up resulted from this, possibly because many present at that lecture
did not have the necessary background required to understand the rudiments
of astronautics and astro-navigation. Even if anyone there had had that
kind of knowledge, they would have found themselves faced with a very
unfamiliar scenario. In view of that probability, I felt the need to develop
the work, so as to enable testing to be carried out, using new data.
Development by Computer
Until a PC was purchased during 1988, all the work had been done manually.
Then began work to write computer programs for the PC that would encapsulate
mathematically the features of the model derived by slide-rule and graphs.
By 1990 the essential programs had been written and tested.
Summary of Claimed Discoveries
It is now possible to bring together all the elements of the Astronautical
Theory for SAC/UFO Events, a theory encapsulating the following discoveries:
Testing by Amateurs
Amateur direct observation groups, using supplied information from me,
are sometimes reporting very high success rates. The category Close
Encounters of the 5th Kind (CE 5) has been created by Dr. Steven Greer,
founder and active member of the controversial Center for the Study
of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI). Dr. Greer and his rapid reaction
teams have visited many UFO activity areas in the world and claim to
have witnessed SAC at close quarters on several occasions. The CSETI
mission objective is to establish direct communications with the visiting
craft. Light signals from powerful hand-lamps have been used, and it
is alleged that signals have been returned by lights on the visiting
craft during encounters. It is also claimed that some of those CSETI
encounters were facilitated by the use of timing graphs they had received
from me.
Yet more cause for outrage
For the sake of completeness, it seems important to record the author's
investigations into the nature and cause of crop-circles. The 1987 BUFORA
lecture resulted in a request, from someone present in the audience,
that I might visit Southern England to view the strange circles appearing
each summer in the crop fields of that region. That person was Colin
Andrews, who is now a well-known celebrity. My first encounter with
those enigmas occurred in August 1988 - and from the evidence presented
to me then, I knew that the genuine items could not have been produced
by any kind of mechanical means.
Documentation by the Author
Over the thirty-six years of this study, the author has documented progress
as it has occurred, at first in papers presented to B.U.F.O.R.A. during
the 1970s. After the discovery of a programmed activity from space during
1979/80, he began to set down the details of the study in the form of
a book, believing that only in that way could all the facts be presented
together. The manuscript was completed during 1984, but it then failed
to attract a publisher. The next attempt was the paper produced for,
and delivered to, B.U.F.O.R.A. during May 1987.
Closing Comments
In view of all that, it seems to be significant that, over the years,
I have been unable to publish anything in scientific journals, that
the British national press has always declined to publish anything about
the work and that I have never received further enquiries following
my few brief appearances on British television. Why did information
sent to our Ministry of Defence (MoD), via MoD author, Nick Pope, fail
to stimulate a request for more details? Once again, I have to suspect
that I have discovered things that some people in high places think
should be kept to myself.
References
1. D. S. Gillmor (Ed.) Final Report of the Scientific
Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. Univ. of Colorado under contract
to the U.S.A.F. (1968).
2. Dutton/Ashpole. "The Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligences
in the Solar System," Winner, NIDS Essay Competition, 1998. http://accessnv.com/nids/DuttonAshpole
essay. shtml
3. J .A. Hynek. The UFO Experience - A Scientific Enquiry. Abelard-Schuman
Ltd. (1972).
4. D. Leslie/G. Adamski. Flying Saucers Have Landed. Neville
Spearman, Ltd. (1954 &1970). Paperback, Futura Publications, 1977, 1978.
5. D. E. Keyhoe. The Flying Saucers are Real. New York: Fawcett
(1950).
6. R. H. Stanway/A. Pace. "UFOs, Unidentified, Undeniable," Newchapel
Observatory, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. Report, February, 1968.
7. T. R. Dutton. "Puzzling Global Reports of Strange Aerial Craft (SAC)/
A comprehensive Technical Assessment and a Testable Theory/ 1. Early
work and the derivation of an Astronautical Theory. Paper, March 2001.
Read on-line.
8. Dutton/Rowlands. We are DEFINITELY not Alone. Video series
Pts 1,2 &3 (4.5 hours) PAL. 㿓 inc p&p (UK only). UK Distributor:
Horizon Video, P.O. Box 3, Torquay, Devon, United Kingdom.
9. Edward Ashpole. The UFO Phenomena. Headline Book Publishing
1995 & 1996 (Paperback).
About the Author
T. Roy Dutton CEng., MRAeS, MIMechE, is an innovative professional aeronautical
and mechanical engineer, who served for almost 37 years within the British
aircraft industry before his early retirement in 1991. Through his versatility
(which enabled him to survive several reorganisations) he gained a wide
experience of many aspects of the industry whilst serving at the same
site. His career began with future Space applications and afterwards
encompassed aircraft R&D, Aerodynamics, Performance, Design and Programme
Control activities. Before his voluntary retirement at 55 he was a Principal
Engineer, Future Projects Department, BAe PLC, Manchester Division,
based at Woodford Airfield, Cheshire. He has a life-long vocational
interest in aerospace matters in addition to a wide range of other interests
besides, some of which this article encompasses. He is currently engaged
in the design, building and testing of a large radio-controlled surface-skimming
flying boat model, of novel design, with hoped-for future commercial
applications - and has several other innovative concepts still waiting
to be investigated. He is happily married, has one married son and now
has three teenage grandchildren.
Also on this site:
Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy & Sustainable Living
Encyclopedia of History
Transport Concepts & Designs (partner site)