The dreamers always must precede the doers across new horizons.

The ethical scientist has opinions, preconceptions, but dares not acknowledge them even to his colleagues.  To the professional scientist all new ideas are theoretical until they are supportable with conclusive evidence.

There is no conclusive evidence about "flying saucers."  Most men of science, therefore, have expressed either disdain or disinterest in the subject.  The handful of bona fide scientists who did want to speculate on UFOs found themselves in the uncomfortable company of pseudoscientists, commercial cultists, pulp booksellers and crackpots.

Last December's issue of the respected Journal of Aeronautics and Astronautics changed all that.  In this technical publication the bigwigs of the esteemed AIAA subscribed to this very meaningful conclusion:  "UFO phenomena cannot be resolved without quantitative scientific study; this matter merits the attention of scientists and engineers."

Suddenly such men as Dr. James McDonald felt less alone.  Dr. McDonald, a physicist, of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, University of Arizona, has been in the forefront of those few respected voices urging "quantitative study."

Inevitably now the evidence he and others have collected will be properly evaluated.

Dr. Allen Hynek, head of the department of astronomy, Northwestern University, now freely confesses his own "conversion."  He says, "I can no longer dismiss the UFO phenomenon with a shrug."

Other respected professional voices join the rising chorus.  For Medical Times, Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz, eminent psychiatrist, examined scores of UFO "observers," decreed that they are not psychotic, not suffering hallucination, not publicity-seekers.  "More, on the contrary, fearing ridicule, are embarrassed to testify to what they saw."

Notably, Dr. Schwarz and his colleagues find among mental patients a total absence of any such "observations."  So, concludes Dr. Schwarz, "These reports are neither conscious nor unconscious fabrication.  What they say they saw they think they saw!"

For no man is this now-official "recognition" more rewarding than for Dr. McDonald.  He believes "UFOs constitute the greatest scientific problem of the times."  He believes this matter has been "mishandled for 20 years"

University of Arizona physicist James E. McDonald is trying to persuade the United Nations to begin a global study of Unidentified Flying Objects.

At the request of Secretary-General U Thant, McDonald briefed the U.N. Outer Space Affairs Group in New York last week.  An appointment with U Thant was canceled at the last minute because the war in the mideast reached a crisis point in the Security Council.

"Apparently U Thant is very much interested in the problem," said McDonald, senior physicist of the UA Institute of Atmospheric Physics.

McDonald began correspondence with U Thant on UFOs following reports that delegates of some smaller nations, particularly African, have become concerned about increased sightings.

A leading atmospheric physicist, McDonald has been studying UFOs the last year and has come to the conclusion that they are the No. 1 scientific problem of the day.

McDonald told the U.N. committee last Wednesday that the most "acceptable hypothesis for the quite astonishing number of creditably-reported low-level close-range sightings of machine-like objects is that they are some form of extraterrestrial probes."

He added: "I know of no other current scientific problem that is more intrinsically international in character than the problem of the nature and origin of UFOs."

"Scientists all over the world have been misled by over-confidence in the quality of the research on UFOs by the U.S. Air Force," he said.  "First among the jobs is to erase the ridicule which has placed the UFOs on the shelf as a 'nonsense problem'."

McDonald said: "Because of the current official, journalistic and scientific ridicule, there has been almost no scientific attention given to the problem."

If it should be proved untrue that UFOs represent reconnaissance of the earth from outer space, alternative hypotheses will be "even more bizarre," he said.

As one technique where worldwide cooperation can be effective, McDonald suggested coordinating the search of the skies by radar on the different continents.

McDonald said there have been unexplained radar sightings, as well as a large number of observations, where hovering UFOs have caused electromagnetic disturbances.

Above all, he said, it is necessary to find if there is a global pattern to the sightings which have accelerated greatly in number during the last two decades.

A Russian member of the U.N. group, taking may notes, told McDonald: "We are seriously concerned with the problem."  The group is a secretarial organization for the committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

In his efforts to persuade his own countrymen to take UFOs seriously and to begin a large-scale scientific study of them, McDonald has talked to numerous groups, most recently including technical people at the headquarters of the Federal Aviation Agency and a regional meeting of the Civil Air Patrol.

Next week he leaves for Australia to study meteorological problems.  During his visit he will interview persons who have reported seeing UFOs.  There is considerable interest in the problem in Australia.