The faulty eye

By Noel S. Williams

Special to The Times

Nothing against the nice folks in Stephenville, Texas, who recently spotted a UFO, but it's a bit bewildering when upstanding citizens insist they've seen a UFO ["Air Force's UFO reversal doesn't fly," Times, News, Jan. 24]. They may otherwise be reputable, but their close encounters are probably as fictitious as films like "The Day the Earth Stood Still." I do like it when Klaatu exhorts humans to pursue peace and Gort vaporizes our weapons of mass destruction, but the inconvenient laws of physics make me dubious this could happen outside Hollywood.

The unidentified part is explainable: Light's properties create all manner of illusions, especially with the sun low on the horizon. There's plenty of space debris, but maybe the unidentified objects are more banal, like a series of military flares hovering silently beneath some cirrus-like trail of condensed water vapor.

Then again, it may just be a squadron of F-16s on maneuvers, unbe-

knownst to the public-affairs officer from a nearby base.

It's the speed of light being the absolute speed limit that makes me suspicious of these sightings. Under this immutable law, it would be miraculous if we could even communicate with ET, let alone meet it. Indeed, light from Earth would have reached extraterrestrials so long ago that, when they started their voyage to check us out, the dinosaurs were likely roaming deep in the heart of Texas.

Maybe that's why the UFO in Stephenville vanished so quickly: Its occupants were expecting T-Rex — not us weird-looking humans. Still, after such a long ride, you'd think they'd at least say Hi.

While I'm a bit dubious of UFO sightings, I hold out hope there may be some unknown laws of physics that enable time travel via some mysterious cosmic hole in hyperspace. So come on, ET, forget Stephenville's cornfields and come have a nice latte at the Space Needle.