The Saucer's Unique Spin

 As I wander ever deeper into the world of UFO sightings I keep finding ever more interesting parcels of information. For instance, a Japanese astronomer noted, in 1949, a giant explosion on Mars (December 9 I think). He theorized that it had to be an atomic explosion because of the size of the dust cloud. Were the saucers coming from Mars?

There are hosts of these small things that roll across the pages.

That aside, I found fascinating the question  "why the flying saucer?" Why the unique shape for this particular craft that was spotted so many hundreds of times. Buried in the text of "Flying Saucers from Outer Space" was a short essay in the guise of a Q/A with the author and a Canadian scientist. 

Set aside the possibilities of visual anomalies, and wander back to the 1950s, fresh from World War 2 when jet engines were barely 5 years old and the Atomic Age only just beginning. Bi-planes, single engine, jet planes, all have a distinctive reasoned shape. But the saucers that suddenly appeared. Why the saucers? Its that shape that gives them their speed.

The saucers all moved at tremendous speeds. They changed colors, blue, red, what have you and even though the footage from those days we have these saucers doesn't show it (see below), they seem to spin.

The saucers are able to achieve such considerable speed because they use a magnetic sink to propel themselves forward. This "sink" creates a flux in the earth's magnetic sphere into which the craft is propelled. The sink also provides the ship with electrical power. A ring built around the ship, giving it the distinctive saucer shape, channels the energy through and behind it, again propelling it forward. The craft must spin in order to avoid building up too large a charge. The changing colors are a reflection of the speed that craft is achieving.

It reads a little better than that and like really cool science fiction, something you might find in the upcoming Star Siege, but what is really fascinating is the amount of energy put into trying to decipher what was being seen.

I love this concept, though I'm not sure how grounded in science a magnetic sink is or what it would mean for travel through the atmosphere. It sure would explain a lot though!

Regardless of why, there certainly were alot of saucer sightings in the 1950s.