Case file · Disclosure & CE-5
Donald Menzel
Harvard astrophysicist (1901–1976), director of the Harvard College Observatory, and the first prominent scientist to debunk flying saucers.
1953 CE · 42.38, -71.13 · status: explained
The account
A pioneer of solar and stellar physics, Menzel wrote 'Flying Saucers' (1953), 'The World of Flying Saucers' (1963) and 'The UFO Enigma' (1977), explaining reports as stars, planets, aircraft and atmospheric effects such as mirages and temperature inversions. He told the House committee in 1968 that all sightings had natural explanations.
The sceptical view
Ufologists argued that he forced natural explanations onto cases that did not fit them; even his own 1955 'mirage of Sirius' sighting has been reinterpreted as Saturn.
Connections in the atlas
- Flying Saucers
- Donald Menzel
- House Science and Astronautics UFO symposium
- Carl Sagan
- Philip J. Klass
- Washington D.C. flap
- Kenneth Arnold sighting