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In 1989, I read in a newspaper report, an ‘alien UFO’ landed on the
American aircraft carrier, Nimitz. There were pictures to prove it. The
spaceship looked vaguely familiar. It had a flattened, lenticular upper
structure and three tall legs. For a moment or two I thought I had seen
something of the kind in a film but then common sense came to my aid. It
was much more likely that the film was based on the information about the
Nimitz incident, which had been hushed up, the report said, by the Bush
administration for fear of causing worldwide panic. After all, the news
and the pictures had now reached the public in spite of the official cover-up
and the film makers could have got hold of the details by clandestine methods
before that.

It is reassuring, however, that such fears of global panic seem to be
exaggerated. Straining as hard as possible, I could hear no drumming of
feet and not a single wild cry of ‘Make for the hills! Aliens have landed
in the Eastern Pacific!’ The sturdy refusal of the British public to be
rushed into hasty action has never been more graphically demonstrated.

But, of course, the incident happened three years ago and a long way
away. It was different for the crew of the aircraft carrier. They were apparently
terrified as the craft touched down, emitting lightning-like flashes as
it did so. The ship’s defence systems had been paralysed before the aliens
arrived. It only goes to show how sophisticated the aliens’ equipment must
be, because the carrier suddenly lost all radio contact and could not receive
or transmit messages, though, at the same time, its tracking systems locked
on to an object in the upper atmosphere, the spaceship. Then, worse still,
‘almost every other mechanical device on the ship . . . even aircraft, failed
to operate’. The aliens themselves failed to see one machine already flying.
That must be the explanation for the photograph of the spaceship on the
carrier’s deck taken from the air.

Four non-humanoid figures, encased in glass-like capsules, floated out
of the vehicle and demanded to see the captain. They spoke in mechanical
English and what they said while floating about concerns us all. They had
been monitoring our culture and had come to warn us of imminent disaster
if we did not do something about the environment. They said that the damage
being wreaked on the ozone layer would soon be irreparable, that destruction
of the Brazilian rainforest would drastically upset the Earth’s ecological
balance and that Westerners must change their diet, cutting down on meat
and eating more cereals, nuts and fish. After this delivery, the terrified
crew must have recovered, for the spaceship was smuggled to Cape Canaveral.
What happened to the four floating aliens has not been revealed to this
day.

My reaction to this report will not be welcome in some quarters. I say
to the intruders: ‘Aliens go home. We have had enough of this flitting about
in Earth’s vicinity, sticking your noses in (if you have any) where they
aren’t wanted.’ Admittedly no panic has followed these uncalled-for activities
which have been going on for far too long. That is not to say it is ruled
out for the future. Worldwide panic set off by a bunch of interplanetary
busybodies is the last thing we need.

We have managed to find the hole in the ozone layer without any help
from beings from other planets, in glass capsules or not. Long before the
landing on the Nimitz, we were agitated about the ozone layer and the rainforest,
thank you very much. If any alien is mechanically reading this make no mistake.
When we want your guidance on what to eat, we’ll ask for it. Take your advanced
technology and your old-hat warnings back to where they came from, that’s
my advice. And if possible, do us a favour – clear off before the corn circle
season starts.

* * *

We all know about Sir George Cayley and his early experiments in flying
and the story of his manservant’s resignation after stepping from the wreck
of a machine. Most of us would be able to name Otto Lilienthal, the German
aeronautical engineer, as another pioneer. But a casual glance at an encyclopedia
published in the first years of this century showed that the development
of flight fascinated many more individuals. ‘In 1843, Mr Henson invented
a flying machine.’ No doubt some readers of this magazine know who Mr Henson
was and what sort of machine he invented.

They might also know the details of Mr Simmonds’s flying machine, combining
an umbrella and a kite, Mr Linfield’s steam flying machine and another machine
constructed by Mr Maxim, tried at Bexley, Kent, which is reported to have
conveyed him and two companions ‘with water and fuel a distance of about
500 feet’ in 1894. Mr Maxim described his experiments at the society of
arts later that year.

The entry that interested me more than the others was that about Mr
Percy Pilcher, ‘inventor of a machine, after four previous ascents, killed
by a fall while experimenting at Stamford Hall, Market Harborough, 30 September
1899′. Stamford Hall is a stately home not far from where I live. Perhaps
a visit to it, if the place is open, will reveal more about Mr Pilcher’s
fate and his machine.

* * *

There is, I am informed, a book of Mnemonics, published by Eyre Methuen
and it has been around since 1972. All the entries were contributed and
they scare me for two reasons. One is that they demonstrate the depth and
width of my ignorance. They also confirm my inability to remember the things,
let alone what they are supposed to remind me of. For example, ‘Little men
in short black mackintoshes.’ Even if I could recall that on demand, I would
never be able to handle the names of the arteries branching off the aorta
of a frog that it stands for.

I admit I was foxed for some time by a mnemonic to distinguish the waxing
and waning Moon. ‘If its crescent fits the natural curve of the right hand
() then it is increasing (the ‘right’ has an ‘i’). The curve of the left
hand (C) fits a decreasing Moon (‘left’ has an ‘e’).’

The compilers could have used a mnemonic for aid in spelling hypotenuse,
which appears as ‘hypoteneuse’ throughout.