Ancillary Mercy полностью

Meanwhile, around the time of the Lear publicity, Keyhoe received a letter from Hermann Oberth in response to an inquiry. Oberth was even more prominent than William Lear in the history of aviation and aeronautics. He is generally considered to be the most brilliant and visionary of the three pioneers of modern rocketry (along with American Robert Goddard and Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky). In 1922, Oberth’s doctoral thesis on rocketry was rejected. A year later, he earned worldwide acclaim when he published it as Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen (The Rocket into Planetary Space), followed by a longer version in 1929. Oberth argued that it was feasible for rockets to be “built so powerfully that they could be capable of carrying a man aloft,” even above the Earth’s atmosphere. This book provided much of the mathematical foundation for space travel. During the 1930s, Oberth took on the young Wernher von Braun as an assistant in his rocketry research, and during the war assisted von Braun on the V-2 rocket. During the early 1950s, Oberth designed anti-aircraft missiles for the Italian navy. Around 1953 or 1954, according to Frank Edwards, the West German government hired him to head a commission studying UFOs. As a result of this study, Oberth had made a statement, during the summer of 1954, that UFOs were “conceived and directed by intelligent beings of a very high order. They probably do not originate in our solar system, perhaps not even in our galaxy.” Like William Lear, Townsend Brown, and Wilbert Smith, Oberth decided that UFOs were “propelled by distorting the gravitational field, converting gravity into useable energy.”¹⁴⁷

In a letter to Keyhoe, Oberth explained his electromagnetic propulsion theory which he believed was the true explanation for UFO propulsion. With the ability to create their own gravitational fields, UFOs would be able to do all the things witnesses had attributed to them: hover motionless above the earth, accelerate at tremendous speed, and make violent turns that would cause ordinary aircraft to disintegrate. Within the year, Keyhoe published these thoughts in his next book.¹⁴⁸

Oberth’s views did not hinder him from being hired in July 1955, under a Paperclip contract, to work for the army in Huntsville, Alabama, where he joined much of the old Peenemünde crew. It is hard to say just what Oberth did at Huntsville. According to the definitive study of the origins of space travel by Frederick I. Ordway III and Mitchell R. Sharpe (1979), Oberth worked on “a number of complex projects” dealing with “advanced space studies,” mostly classified secret. He prepared several analyses of the stability of satellite orbits, and seems to have done some work on designing a prototype of a lunar module. Oberth’s own book, Man into Space, written in 1957 during his Huntsville years, reads like a layout of the Apollo program and beyond, with discussions of satellite rockets, “the spaceman’s equipment,” designs for space stations, a “moon car,” and other interesting topics. He remained in the U.S. until 1959. Writers and biographers of Oberth politely ignore his unfortunate interest in flying saucers. A 1962 biography gave passing mention of his beliefs on the subject. None of the dozens of biographies and homages to him on the World Wide Web today mention it, either.¹⁴⁹

UFO-related news continued to seep out in 1955. The Los Angeles Examiner ran a piece by Dorothy Kilgallen on May 22, in which she reported from London that British scientists and airmen had examined the wreckage of a “mysterious flying ship.” These investigators were convinced that UFOs were not optical illusions or Soviet inventions, but extraterrestrial. Kilgallen wrote that her source was “a British official of cabinet rank who prefers to remain unidentified.” Still, the informant told her:

We believe on the basis of our inquiries thus far, that the saucers were staffed by small men—probably under four feet tall.... It’s frightening but there is no denying the flying saucers come from another planet.

Kilgallen’s account was soon reprinted in several journals and books, including the New York Journal American, Flying Saucer Review, Morris Jessup’s UFO Casebook of 1956, and other books through the years.¹⁵⁰

Jerome Clark emphasized that Kilgallen’s statement has never been substantiated. It depends on one’s perspective of the problem. In May or June, one of Harold Wilkins’ legion of informers wrote to him on UFOs and the British government. According to Wilkins’ seemingly well-placed source: