Wow, that's gotta be the darnedest thing I've heard all week!
This, along with what Laura just posted about Wolfgang Pauli and his excursions into metaphysics (in this thread: http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=13665.0 ), really makes me wonder about what other bright minds of the past had either metaphysical or fortean leanings.
These parts stood out for me:
[quote author=Anthony Bragalia]Within documents that were located in the Special Collections library at Oregon State University (where Pauling earned a degree in Chemical Engineering and where his papers are now archived) are found portions of UFO studies by Pauling that he composed in July of 1966. He marks these papers as "CONFIDENTIAL." It is unknown if these were private studies- or if Pauling was conducting his analysis on the phenomena secretly on behalf of an agency or contractor of the U.S. Goverment.
Pauling examines several aspects of UFOs and offers ideas about the phenomena that were advanced many years later by others. He explores "evidence of present-day observers," "a study of historical reports," and a
"study of the possibility that extraterrestrial sentient beings have been in contact with the earth over a long period of time." Interestingly, he also alluded to the idea of Panspermia- a concept advanced by his friend, DNA discover Francis Crick, years before Crick did so. Pauling envisions "the extraterrestrial origin of man and some or all of the organisms on earth."
{...}
When Pauling died, it was discovered that he had maintained a massive library of UFO books. The archivist at Oregon State University who now stores these volumes characterizes them as "well-worn." They include such titles as Incident at Exeter, The Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects and The Flying Saucer Story.[/quote]
