Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/155

Rh

Substituting these values in (6) we get

EDITORIAL NOTE:

We present this experimental report as an integral part of the Shaver Mystery because (1) Mr. Graham's own work proved so parallel to the Shaver Mystery that it was the cause of his contacting us to present us with his thought-provoking material, which, to forestall the accepted authority certain to be quoted at us, is NOT in accordance with that accepted authority.

Shaver says "empty" space is not empty. It is filled with his "exd." (Finely divided matter which had "disintegrated"; and from which matter can itself be reintegrated.) He says its "velocity" is what we call gravity—that is, the effect we notice is due to the friction of its passing through matter, the specific mention being in this case ourselves and the earth. He also says that "velocity" is present only near matter.

The reader will note the startling similarity of this statement to that just made for the first time anywhere by Mr. Graham in his experiment to determine an ether drift in a downward direction. (The in-flow of ex-disintegrance in matter Mr. Shaver has postulated.)

Reason (2) is that both Mr. Shaver and Mr. Graham inform us that their initial source of information is "outside" themselves. Mr. Shaver from his "caves" with their "telaug thought-records," "voices," "rays" (one of which we have photographed), teleportation and materializations in visible form—and Mr. Graham in a sort of intuitive manner not entirely within the form of logical reasoning power.

Reason (3) is that your own editor's studies have convinced him of similar things (and many hundreds of readers have, without persuasion of any kind, advanced similar opinions in many strange guises from "voices" to just plain deduction).

If this experiment can be verified, it is PROOF of the accuracy of Mr. Shaver's concepts in this particular matter, no matter how we accept the METHOD by which he claims to have gained them.

Your editor has PERFORMED this experiment, has witnessed an inexplicable thing that MUST be explained. If the theories of ether drift, exd, or what have you, DO NOT explain it, then indeed will the BETTER explanation need POSITIVE DEMONSTRATION. The burden of proof, it is said scientifically, lies on the claimant. We have claimed these things, and now we have PROVED them by what we (with our meagre equipment and knowledge) consider at least TENTATIVELY satisfactory evidence which can and must be expanded beyond all reasonable doubt. Since we have accepted the burden of proof—we ask those claimants of the opposite theory—that there is no ether drift, nor exd—to come forward with positive proof of error or inadequacy in the experiment we have performed.

ADDITIONAL EDITORIAL COMMENT:

Recently we made the statement in an editorial, and to a group of fans who polled many on their opinions on future space flight, that we considered flight to the planets impossible. We said that, basing our statement on the present "accepted authority" on such things as the ether. Because we believe there IS an ether drift, and that it exists ONLY near bodies of matter and not in space, no space ship could overcome the resistance of that drift and reach another planet, WITHOUT