!! spellx done
7  World's End Postponed
   How a Random Question About Science Ballooned into a
   Cosmic Collision
   The Washington Post, Sunday, September 4, 1966

     "Asteroid Perils Earth; H Bomb Attack Studied" was the
headline of a front page story that appeared in some newspapers
July 27.  It went on to say:  "Sydney, Australia (UPI) - A Sydney
University physicist said today the United States, Britain and 
Russia are studying the possibility of using a nuclear rocket
to prevent an asteroid from smashing into earth.

     "Professor Stuart Thomas Butler said any microscopic deviation
in the orbit of the asteroid Icarus could put it on a collision
course with earth, causing 'a collossal force impact of great
destruction' equal to the power of 1000 hydrogen bombs.

     "An asteroid is a small planet with a diameter ranging from a
fraction of a mile to nearly 500 miles.  Butler, a 44 year old
professor of theoretical physics at Sydney University, said Icarus
is nearly a mile wide and presently is on a 'near collision' course
with earth.  It will pass within four million miles of earth in June,
1968, he said".

     The story was not unnoticed in my community.  The buzz of
anxiety (happily mixed with skepticism) in common talk reminded me
of Orson Welles's "War of the Worlds' radio broadcast of 28 years ago.

     One would think that a story about cosmic collisions would have
a follow-up, but one looked for it in vain in the papers that
headlined it.  I was later delighted to find that The Washington
Post had snubbed the first story but had later used the Smithsonian  
Observatory's inevitable and correct reassurance that this was
humbug -- a story, incidentally, written and distributed by UPI in
Cambridge, Mass.

     But how did the first story originate?  Was Dr. Butler
a charlatan or a naive publicity-monger?  I wrote him, and now
quote his reply full.  It speaks for itself.

     "Dear Prof. Lederberg:    

          The news item to which you refer could not have been
          more embarrassing.  Its origin is amazingly simple.

          I was telephoned by a local reporter who had been asked
          to follow up some insignificant mention of the asteroid
          Icarus which had appeared in his newspaper.  My reply was
          that he could get all the information he required from an
          article that appeared in Scientific American in the April
          issue of 1965.

          He subsequently rang back to ask whether I agreed with the
          material contained in the article.  My reply was that I
          was not an astronomer but that Scientific American  was a
          reliable journal in which articles were in general accurate.
          He then referred to some paragraph in the article relating
          to the possibility of us being able to deviate the orbit
          of Icarus and asked whether in fact this could be achieved.
          My laughing response was that if, in the dim, distant
          future, this were deemed necessary, presumably by that time
          something might be attempted.

          Period!!!

          I was not contacted further and only woke up to the fact
          some days later that I was being attributed with having
          made the remarks that you yourself saw.  All mention of
          Scientific American had apparently long since been for-  
          gotten. 

          I hope this is of assistance to you.

                                        Yours sincerely,
                                        Stuart Butler."

     Dr. Butler has my respect and sympathy.  So does a reading public
already inflicted with enough anxieties about mass homicide in Vietnam
or Texas.

     The incident has too much thoughtlessness to be overlooked as a
playful prank.  In the frenzy to meet deadlines, and with their 
limited resources of technical expertise, the local papers must rely
on their common sense and on the wire services.

     I find it hard to believe that any responsible journalist would
have credited the story.  If it had any merit as news, rather than 
sensationalism, it would have cried out for verification from NASA
in Washington or from any reputable observatory.

     Unfortunately, such sensationalism goes on all too often in
science news-reporting and erodes the confidence of serious-minded
scientists in speaking to the press.  This hardly helps the public
form an accurate picture of scientific enterprise or of its findings;
it only degrades journalism.

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