The
recent sightings of a 'flying saucer' in parts of Western India has
revived the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) debate. Hard-headed
scientists who used to regard ufology - and ufologists - with
undisguised disdain are now taking a hard new look at the phenomenon.
Minhaz Merchant
August 15, 1978 |
The
recent sightings of a 'flying saucer' in parts of Western India has
revived the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) debate. Hard-headed
scientists who used to regard ufology - and ufologists - with
undisguised disdain are now taking a hard new look at the phenomenon.
Prof D. Lal, director of the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, took a personal interest in the controversy, following widely reported eye-witness accounts by people in Bombay, Udaipur and Ahmednagar, of a 25-km-long, 2-km-wide flying object on April 3. The PRL has now finished examining the pictures taken by an amateur Bombay photographer and the other evidence in a full-scale study - the first of its kind undertaken in India.
Dr J.N. Desai, chief of the investigative team, has made some preliminary calculations: The object's brightness is estimated at one-tenth that of the moon and its velocity at roughly 4 km per second; it was observed for three minutes over a stretch of 1,200 km in Western India at an altitude of 60 km.
Alien Spacecraft: Prof Lal said he would not rule out the possibility of the object being an alien spacecraft. However, he stressed that it could not be a satellite or a rocket because of the time factor involved.
That such largely unsubstantiated hypothesis can gain scientific currency (and capture the public imagination) is an indication that ufologists are back in business.
Dr Jayant V. Narlikar, the world-renowned astrophysicist, who is professor of astronomy at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, said: "Generally speaking, I do not subscribe to a belief in UFOs. Every investigation on the subject in the West has reached a dead-end. There is as yet not a shred of evidence that flying saucers exist. When people claim to have seen such mysterious objects, they are probably just being deceived by common optical illusions."
Illusions: Temperature inversion, for instance, is one natural phenomenon that can bring about optical illusions. The effect gives rise to a sandwich of cold and warm layers of air which cause both visual and radar mirages. Virtually all UFOs recorded on radar screens have now been determined to be mirage effects arising from temperature inversion. Thousands of eye witness accounts of strange moving objects, glowing brightly in the sky can be similarly explained by known scientific effects.
In certain atmospheric conditions, with ice-crystals present in nearby cirrus clouds, a halo forms around the sun making it appear like a glowing, slowly moving flying object. Dr V.S. Venkatavardan, a fellow in the TIFR's Cosmic Ray division, said: "At night, most so-called UFOs are in reality exceptionally bright meteorites or fireballs." The rarely seen Aurora Borealis effect (commonly known as the Northern Lights) is also sometimes mistaken for a flying saucer.
Super Beings: Assuming that there is intelligent life in outer space (an assumption that is, mathematically at least, perfectly valid) which can indulge in inter-planetary travel and is, therefore, technologically far more advanced than human beings, obviously, such 'super-beings' would establish prior radio contact with earth (or, if they were so inclined, jam the world's entire radio communication system) and having disdainfully noted our backwardness, would do either of the two things: conquer us or ignore us. Since the former hasn't occurred and the latter, if it had, would make little difference, it seems likely that the only visitors from outer space, in the near future at least, will be meteorites, comets and shooting stars.
Prof D. Lal, director of the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, took a personal interest in the controversy, following widely reported eye-witness accounts by people in Bombay, Udaipur and Ahmednagar, of a 25-km-long, 2-km-wide flying object on April 3. The PRL has now finished examining the pictures taken by an amateur Bombay photographer and the other evidence in a full-scale study - the first of its kind undertaken in India.
Dr J.N. Desai, chief of the investigative team, has made some preliminary calculations: The object's brightness is estimated at one-tenth that of the moon and its velocity at roughly 4 km per second; it was observed for three minutes over a stretch of 1,200 km in Western India at an altitude of 60 km.
Alien Spacecraft: Prof Lal said he would not rule out the possibility of the object being an alien spacecraft. However, he stressed that it could not be a satellite or a rocket because of the time factor involved.
That such largely unsubstantiated hypothesis can gain scientific currency (and capture the public imagination) is an indication that ufologists are back in business.
Dr Jayant V. Narlikar, the world-renowned astrophysicist, who is professor of astronomy at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, said: "Generally speaking, I do not subscribe to a belief in UFOs. Every investigation on the subject in the West has reached a dead-end. There is as yet not a shred of evidence that flying saucers exist. When people claim to have seen such mysterious objects, they are probably just being deceived by common optical illusions."
Illusions: Temperature inversion, for instance, is one natural phenomenon that can bring about optical illusions. The effect gives rise to a sandwich of cold and warm layers of air which cause both visual and radar mirages. Virtually all UFOs recorded on radar screens have now been determined to be mirage effects arising from temperature inversion. Thousands of eye witness accounts of strange moving objects, glowing brightly in the sky can be similarly explained by known scientific effects.
In certain atmospheric conditions, with ice-crystals present in nearby cirrus clouds, a halo forms around the sun making it appear like a glowing, slowly moving flying object. Dr V.S. Venkatavardan, a fellow in the TIFR's Cosmic Ray division, said: "At night, most so-called UFOs are in reality exceptionally bright meteorites or fireballs." The rarely seen Aurora Borealis effect (commonly known as the Northern Lights) is also sometimes mistaken for a flying saucer.
Super Beings: Assuming that there is intelligent life in outer space (an assumption that is, mathematically at least, perfectly valid) which can indulge in inter-planetary travel and is, therefore, technologically far more advanced than human beings, obviously, such 'super-beings' would establish prior radio contact with earth (or, if they were so inclined, jam the world's entire radio communication system) and having disdainfully noted our backwardness, would do either of the two things: conquer us or ignore us. Since the former hasn't occurred and the latter, if it had, would make little difference, it seems likely that the only visitors from outer space, in the near future at least, will be meteorites, comets and shooting stars.
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