SATELLITE-TRACKING PROGRAM — HAYES 339 



The confidence of these reporters was urgently needed. First, 

 the Observatory wanted to see in print stories that were accurate 

 in fact and reassuring in tone. This was a particularly difficult task 

 both for the scientists and for the reporters because the latter, with 

 little background information, had to write intelligent and intelligible 

 stories in a matter of minutes. Second, the Observatory wanted to keep 

 to a minimum stories that would arouse further fear and anxiety among 

 the public. When someone telephoned a newspaper — as frequently 

 happened — and said that he had seen a gigantic flying saucer over his 

 house, the paper had the choice of printing the story or of calling the 

 Observatory for its opinion. More and more the newspapers did the 

 latter. Then the Observatory would say that the report was ex- 

 tremely exaggerated and that probably the man had seen a weather 

 balloon or something of that sort. Inquiries made directly to the 

 Observatory were handled in a similar manner. 



How hysterical was some of the response, and how necessary the 

 calm reassuring word of the Observatory, can be judged from 

 events in November. One evening a spectacular red aurora — one of 

 the most startling ever recorded by astronomers — frightened thou- 

 sands of people. The Observatory received hundreds of telephone 

 calls, as did also the newspapers. People thought that the Russians 

 were painting the sky red or that they were sending a rocket toward 

 the moon, or that a hydrogen bomb had been exploded — there seemed 

 to be no end to the menaces that were seen in this quite natural 

 phenomenon. Through replies to the individuals and statements to 

 the press, the Observatory was able to calm the public by telling them 

 what was actually happening. 



A similar incident occurred later that winter when the planet Mars 

 seemed to be close to the moon. The Russians made one of their pe- 

 riodic announcements that they were going to send a probe to the 

 moon, and suddenly people saw this little dot of light and became wor- 

 ried. Many had never even seen the planet before Sputnik I went up. 

 Again, the Observatory sent out reassuring statements. Both these 

 incidents served to dramatize one of the major results of Russian 

 Sputnik I. Millions of people who literally had never before bothered 

 to observe the night skies became increasingly knowledgeable of 

 astronomical matters. 



From the first, the Observatory held press conferences daily, at 

 9 a.m. and at 3 p.m., and these went on for several months. Some 

 newspaper reporters deliberately asked odd questions designed to trap 

 Whipple and Hynek into foolish or melodramatic answers. The con- 

 ferences were an attempt to establish some kind of order and to give 

 the principals an opportunity to speak under organized conditions 

 and without improper competition among the papers. 



