DR. CARL SAGAN AND UFO'S

In the files of the A.P.R.O Bulletin,  a newsletter of one of the first UFO organizations, the name of Dr. Carl Sagan pops up. In the 1962-63 issues he is mentioned in relation to some interesting statements. When considered against his timeline, his career, and his involvement with the U.S.A.F. Project Blue Book, it becomes intriguing.

Editor, researcher, Coral E. Lorenzen brought to the newsletter of A.P.R.O. a strong scientific bent, a well-read and educated woman, she and her husband set a standard for investigative research in to the phenomenon. They pushed for strong scientific looks in what they called U.A.O.'s

In the May 1962 edition there was a piece about Sagan , of the University of California at Berkley, who stated "that Mars is the most likely abode of life in our solar system." His comments were part of a "Voice of America" science lecture broadcast (APRO Bulletin, May 1962, pg.1).

He was identified as one of the few astronomers willing to "extend himself into a discussion of the likelihood of space visitors..."   On November 16, 1962, he made comments as an astronomer at Harvard, that Earth might have been visited many times in the past and that artifacts might exist of those visits, He presented the idea "provisionally" but with an open attitude of discussion and serious dialogue. (APRO Bulletin, March 1963). 

In 1966, he is a member of a U.S.A.F. Project Blue Book "ad hoc" scientific committee. This was known more formally as "SPECIAL REPORT OF THE USAF SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD AD HOC COMMITTEE TO REVIEW, PROJECT "BLUE BOOK" or the "O'BRIAN COMMITTEE." 

If we look at Sagan's professional career we can discover that in 1960-1962 he was a Miller Fellow at Berkley, University of California.

In 1961 he maneuvered a Colloquium at Harvard with the aid of Menzel and Whipple that he parlayed into a teaching post 1963-1968.  He was, however, denied tenure with some rumors he was too "out there" and others murmuring about him being self-aggrandizing or too modern in his thinking. 

It is intriguing that he is at Harvard during that tenure on the ad hoc committee. The institution from which Donald Menzel had operated for decades working behind the scenes in military and government positions of high secrecy and classifications.  Menzel's first book in 1952 on UFO's is believed to have been part of a government debunking program and his second one on the same subject shows up as galley proofs in Project Blue Book files. 

Was the eager young astronomer being groomed to replace Menzel on the Project? Sagan, while maintaining strict scientific standards, still managed to raise the bar as far as making it possible to think realistically about possibilities. A young, strong scientist, with a more modern, less hide-bound adherence to the past imaginative and open minded enough to consider that there might be more to be learned, would not work well with the paradigm under which Project Blue Book had operated since its birth.

Sagan's ability to put into everyday language the reality of possibilities of life "out there" impacted the lives of countless young scientists.

In retrospect there are still two types of scientists and government leaders. One is a Sagan open to possibilities, unafraid of where answers might lead, and able to flex with new concepts. The other is a Menzel, tied to an old, inflexible, and mired field of study that has closed itself off from all new ideas and is afraid of what the answers might reveal. 

Which one are we today?