link submitted by Richard Rehman

February 26, 2006

Richard.Rehman@QuadriviumResearch.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8949469271181885482&q=life+beyond+earth

Video of a symposium held at Boston University on November 20, 1972 that explores the implications of the possible existence of extraterrestrial life within the galaxy and the universe. Phil Morrison participates.

Paul Shuch

May 11, 2005

n6tx@setileague.org

http://www.setileague.org/editor/martians.htm

(original posted at the above website, with image of envelope)

Hungarians as Martians: the Truth Behind the Legend

by Philip Morrison

13 January 1998

Dear Paul,

I hope you are on good terms with Dr. SETI. I have a rather delicate matter to send to him via you. I do not want this to be a matter of discussion now, but to stay in the archives and minds of the League until sometime when it is again relevant.

The story he cites (winter 1998 issue of SearchLites) of Fermi and Szilard is simply a folk tale, a delightful one perhaps, that grew in postwar Los Alamos , if McPhee is to be trusted. I know this because I am indeed the originator of the theory of Martian origin of the Hungarians. Of course the talents and energies of famous examples were taken as evidence; there, folk lore and history concur. But my reasoning was far different and I believe more cogent. Why would Martians come to the Danube ? Is it nicer there than on advanced Mars? Nor would they be fearful of the barbaroi.

No, the answer is clearer. The Martians simply were planning, at least on a contingent basis, the eventual need to occupy Earth. Such an expedition is extraordinarily difficult beyond all history. It is naive - this was a wartime story with the tone of that era - to suppose that the first Martians on Earth would be the combatants of the forces of conquest. Even just across the channel to Normandy an invasion was not like that. The Allies knew a great deal about Europe before the landing, and had strong covert support already in place. The earliest Martians to come to Earth were indeed sent as the first intelligence assets. They would plan for a safe base, a large number on staff, and a long lead time to learn all about this planet. A few months or years would not do; you need a millennium or two, and a nation with a strange language provides the safest long-term cover. Their unconcealed intelligence, beauty (recall the Gabors!), and energy are clearly beyond earthly level. (The gypsies are a false note; that people are surely emigrant refugees from Rajasthan in northwest India , whose own language is close to Rajastani. They reached Romania before they came to Hungary , and indeed were found over all Europe west to Spain and Britain .)

Why strong Hungarian interest in nuclear weapons? Easy; they were finally organizing to divide earthkind in a way that would weaken us profoundly. Szilard began to propose the A-bomb a few years before fission was known. The discovery of fission showed that it was necessary to set the bait. The very threat of a long nuclear war would make us simpletons much easier targets. Their superiority in such simple issues as weapons was not at risk. Get going on high strategy; the time has arrived! They did, and it almost worked, nor is the last word said.

I made up and told my tale widely at Los Alamos in 1945 or maybe 46, first probably to Stan Ulam, long before the McPhee contacts, and indeed before Szilard ever came to Los Alamos , if he ever got there. (I am not certain whether or not he came postwar either; possibly he did.)

My high point in this long-elaborated spoof was telling the great Hungarian aerodynamicist Theodor von Karman, who enjoyed it greatly. "I do not deny", he said, at Cornell some years postwar. This is documented, if not dated, by my aerodynamical friend and associate of Karman, William R Sears, writing in Physics Today in 1986, and in his 1994 autobiography called A Twentieth Century Life, publisher Parabolic Press, PO Box 3032 , Stanford Ca 94309. You would like Sears' book a lot.

I am pleased enough with this funny story not to lose it to local rumors recorded by a writer who wasn't there at the time. It is a delight to see just how fiction has slowly turned into slightly implausible folklore. There is of course nothing important about the credit; that is why I do not want you to print my version in rejoinder. Please, no controversies! But I thought you'd enjoy having the truth discreetly on hand, just in case.

with best wishes and a happy New Orbit to all of you,

Phil M.

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/morrison.html

a brief excerpt from: SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS (Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, US Senate, 82nd congress, 2nd session, Sept. 8, 9, 10, 23, 24, 25, and Oct. 13, 1952 (US Govt Printing Office, 1952)

===============================================

Mr. Morris. Did you contribute an article to the Scientific Amercan ?

Dr. Morrison. I have had it published. I don't know if you call that contributing or not.

Mr. Morris. Did you write a review of a book by an Englishman named P.M.S. Blackett, entitled "Fear, War, and the Bomb?"

Dr. Morrison. I reviewed P.M.S. Blackett's book for the Herald Tribune and for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists .

Mr. Morris. And you praised that book?

Dr. Morrison. I said that book had many excellent things in it. I also criticized an amendment. I wrote an honest review of the book.

Mr. Morris. Mr. Chairman, may that review of Dr. Morrison of P.M.S. Blackett's book entitled "Fear, War, and the Bomb" be put into the record?

The Chairman. It may be made part of the record.

(The material referred to follows:)

"BLACKETT'S ANALYSIS OF THE ISSUES"
by Philip Morrison
[ Bulletin of Atomic Scientists , February 1949]

It is 3 years since the writing of the first extensive political work of the atomic scientists: One World or None . Now the same publishers put out the American edition of a book by another scientist, the distinguished. well-informed, and earnest P.M.S. Blackett of Great Britain. As a contributor to the first book, I feel no proprietary pangs in urging all those who bought or borrowed it--and there were many--to get hold of the Blackett book.

It is written at a sadder time, and perhaps a wiser one. It is written by a man whose experience is both that of a physicist and that of a military man, and who is no American, but an Englishman, willing to take a somewhat more critical position on the issues of the day than almost any American scientist has publicly done. It is a book which does Professor Blackett credit for its thoughtfulness and scope, even though as he himself points out it is by no means "the whole truth." Read it if you wish to have an opinion on the issues of atomic energy.

My piece in One World or None was the description of the effect of a single atomic bomb on New York City. It is a frightening article, as I have many times tested by direct observation. Yet it is a major thesis of the Blackett book--and I believe a correct thesis--that even a thousand bombs will not of themselves decide the issue of a major war. We said there is no defense, and we meant it. It is still true. But we spoke in a different language from the language of Blackett. We did not speak in terms of strategy, in terms of overall economies, in terms of production and territorial conquest. We spoke of the impact of the bomb on the homes and the hopes of men and women.

I wrote of the lingering death of the radiation casualties, of the horrible flash burns, of the human wretchedness and misery that every atomic bomb will leave near its ground zero. Against this misery there is indeed no real defense. Neither our oceans nor our radar nor our fighters can keep us intact through another major war. But--and I quote Blackett (p. 159): "The very effective campaign, largely initiated by the atomic scientists themselves, to make the world aware of the terrible dangers of atomic bombs, played an important part in bringing pressure to bear on the American Government to propose measures to control atomic weapons and to take them out of the hands of the military."

My 40 Years of SETI

by Philip Morrison

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/redocuments/1945/450716-morrison.html

I observed the Trinity shot looking toward Zero from a position on the south bank of the base camp reservoir directly beside the larger water tank. There were three distinct stages in the process I saw, which I describe consecutively as follows:

1. Instantaneous glow and ball of fire

At time T = -45 seconds I lay prone facing Zero wearing ordinary sun glasses and holding in one hand a stop watch and in the other the welding glass issued by the stockroom. I watched the second-hand until T = -5 seconds when I lowered my head onto the sand bank in such a way that a slight rise in the ground completely shielded me from Zero. I placed the welding glass over the right lens of my sun glasses, the left lens of which was convered by an opaque cardboard shield. I counted seconds and at zero began to raise my head just over the protecting rise. During this motion the gadget went off while I was looking at it or possibly a small fraction of a second before. What I saw first was a brilliant violet glow entering my eyes by reflection from the ground and from the surroundings generally. I had not raised my head quite enough to provide a clear vision of Zero. Immediately after this brilliant violet flash, which was somewhat blinding, I observed through the welding glass, centered at the direction of the tower an enormous and brilliant disk of white light. The sensation lasted for such a short time and the light was so great that I cannot be sure of the shape observed. I remember it only as a well-marked vaguely round pattern. This disk was a true white in color, even through the welding glass which makes the sun's disk distinctly deep green. On subsequently looking at the noon sun through these glasses I have been led to estimate this initial stage of the gadget as corresponding to a color much whiter or bluer and a brightness several times greater than that of the noon sun. I felt a strong sensation of heat on the exposed skin of face and arms, lasting for several seconds and at least as intense as the direct noon sun.

It should be noted that my eyes were adapted to twilight or perhaps even to somewhat brighter light because of the use of the radio dial light I had made just previous to the T -45 second signal.

2. Growth of the mushroom

For a time which I guess to be less than two seconds the bright disk produced an after effect in my eyes which spoiled the details of the following process. I quickly realized that my vision was improving, that the image was becoming much fainter and less white. I then took off the welding glass and several seconds later the sun glasses as well. Beginning at T = +2 to 3 seconds, I observed the somewhat yellowed disk beginning to be eaten into from below by dark obscuring matter. Meanwhile the whole surface of the plain was covered with matter being thrown up into the air as the motion continued outward from Zero. In a matter of a few seconds more the disk had nearly stopped growing horizontally and was beginning to extend in a vertical direction while its appearance had transformed into that of a bright glowing distinctly red column of flame mixed with swirling obscuring matter. The column looked rather like smoke and flame rising from an oil fire. This turbulent red column rose straight up several thousand feet in a few seconds growing a mushroom-like head of the same kind. This mushroom was fully developed and the whole glowing structure complete at about 15,000 feet altitude. I do not recall whether this stage was reached before or after the arrival of the shock. At T +30 I realized the shock was due very soon and I huddled closer to the ground in anticipation of a severe shock. The arrival of the air shock at T +45 on my stop-watch came as an anti-climax. I noticed two deep thuds which sounded rather like a kettle drum rhythm being played some distance away. I remember the sound as being without any important high frequency components as cracks, etc. There was no earth tremor perceptible to me at any time. The ground on which I was lying was a very loosely packed dike of mud.

3. Appearance of the smoke cloud

After the passage of the shock I stood up to watch the end of the mushroom. The red glow died out and the mushroom appeared as a column of smoke or cloud hanging over Zero. In a matter of another minute or so the smoke had arranged itself in three rather well defined oblique clouds forming roughly a vertical Z. The lowest cloud was quite well defined, and stretched north at a slight angle. At a couple of thousand feet, it appeared to bend around almost double and to stretch about southeast for a somewhat greater distance. This second cloud again seemed broken off rather sharply and a large cloud gradually spread with less and less well defined shape from the upper end of the second step. This process was nearly complete when the upper cap was spread over most of the bowl at a height of about 30,000 feet. There was a strong impression of definite layers in the wind structure, and there were even some water vapor clouds which seemed to mark the boundaries between winds of different directions. The completion of this stage took many minutes until finally the cloud was rather well dispersed toward north 10,000 at a rather low level, had overspread at an intermediate level all the way to the Oscuro mountains, and on a higher level was drifting slowly south and southeast.

Other observations:

After T = +50 seconds, I distinctly smelled upon standing up a faint but marked odor of ozone or corona discharge ionization.

At T +15 minutes or more I observed Zero through a battery commander's periscope set of 8-power. Not much detail was visible in this region. A sort of dust haze seemed to cover the area. A remarkable amount of heat shimmer was noticed on the horizon directly above the Zero area. It was shortly after this that I saw the Jumbo tower was missing.

Size and distance figures mentioned here are based on judgments of angular size and the assumption of 18,000 yards distance from Zero to base camp.