ics. The International
Astronautical Federation is a world-wide federation of such societies.

Mr. Durant has spent many hours studying UFO reports in the Project
Blue Book files and many more hours discussing them with scientists
the world over--scientists who are doing research and formulating the
plans for space flight. I asked him what he'd heard about the UFO's
during the past several years and what he thought about them. This
was his reply:

This past summer at the Annual Congress of the IAF at Innsbruck, as
well as previous Congresses (Zurich, 1953, Stuttgart, 1952, and
London, 1951), none of the delegates representing the rocket and
space flight societies of all the countries involved had strong
feelings on the subject of saucers. Their attitude was essentially
the same as professional members of the American Rocket Society in
this country. In other words, there appear to be no confirmed saucer
fans in the hierarchy of the professional societies.

I continue to follow the subject of UFO's primarily because of my
being requested for comment on the interplanetary flight aspects. My
personal feelings have not changed in the past four years, although I
continue to keep an objective outlook.

There are many other prominent scientists in the world whom I met
while I was chief of Project Blue Book who, I'm sure, would give the
same answer--they've not been able to find any proof, but they
continue to keep an objective outlook. There are just enough big
question marks sprinkled through the reports to keep their outlook
objective.

I know that there are many other scientists in the world who,
although they haven't studied the Air Force's UFO files, would limit
their comment to a large laugh followed by an "It can't be." But "It
can't be's" are dangerous, if for no other reason than history has
proved them so.

Not more than a hundred years ago two members of the French Academy
of Sciences were unseated because they supported the idea that
"stones had fallen from the sky." Other distinguished members of the
French Academy examined the stones, "It can't be--stones don't fall
from the sky," or words to that effect. "These are common rocks that
have been struck by lightning."

Today we know that the "stones from the sky" were meteorites.

Not more than fifty years ago Dr. Simon Newcomb, a world-famous
astronomer and the first American since Benjamin Franklin to be made
an associate of the Institute of France, the