“Barber Publishes New Science Novel” from the July 24, 1958 Door County Advocate
Barber Publishes New Science Novel
The space age has come to Sturgeon Bay. A local barber, Lloyd Londo who has a shop on the west side, recently published privately a science fiction novel. Wielding a pen with the same facility with which he flourishes a comb and scissors, Londo rapped out a tale that starts in Sturgeon Bay and ends on a planet out of sight on the other side of the sun.
The book is entitled “Theory of Flight” and was written under the pen name of Jacques Casolet. It is an unusual book, combining prose and poetry. Each chapter starts with a page-long poem giving a summary of major events in the chapter.
The story starts in Sturgeon Bay with Casolet's discovery of his theory of flight. As he was a member of the Civil Air Patrol here during the war, he is flying along in a light plane when suddenly he is engulfed in a rain cloud. A bolt of lightning flashes and Casolet is thrown to the side of the plane opposite the flash.
The author says, “The plane, I reasoned, had been drawn into the vacuum made by the lightning's destruction of the atmosphere along its side.
“Had I had a lighter than air craft, I would have followed the vacuum of the flash indefinitely. As it was, the clouds, or atmosphere, were sucked into the vacuum and the side action of the plane was only momentary; but had I a non-gravitated plane and could produce a flash of lightning similar to the natural lightning (thus creating a vacuum) I would be capable of following the vacuum pocket in any direction of my choosing.
“I would then have a simple and new theory of flight. It was upon this accidental incident that I started to build my flying saucer.”
Of course, to make his theory of flight work, Casolet had to have a ship that was not attracted by the earth’s gravity. This was made possible by a discovery scientists had made in the field of nuclear fission. Casolet says, “. . . by fission of U235 and U238 a new element or neutron, without gravity to the earth and attracted only by the sun, had its birth.”
Equipped with his theory of flight and a fortune of 16 million dollars left to him by a relative, Casolet goes to Canada to construct his space ship in an old lumber mill on the family estate.
With the help of colorful French-Canadian workers, Casolet builds a saucer-like ship which travels forward into a vacuum caused by lightning-like flashes produced by huge batteries.
After the ship is completed, Casolet goes out one morning to test it. It works beyond his wildest expectations and soon the ship is orbiting around the sun in the same orbit that the earth follows, but traveling faster than the earth.
Before long another planet, "Earthal," comes into sight. It is in the same orbit as the earth but earthlings never see it because it is always on the other side of the sun.
As Casolet approaches Earthal, a swarm of space ships comes out to meet him and forces him to land.
Casolet finds the residents of Earthal much the same as people on earth but they are much more advanced. They speak a language that appears to be a mixture of English and Latin.
Casolet learns that the Earthalites have long made use of his theory of flight. In fact they use the principal of gravitation to the sun in many different ways.
Their problem is that as they use up the elements that cause gravity to the sun, their orbit around the sun becomes greater. Under such circumstances, Earthal will eventually become too cold to sustain life. When that happens, the Earthalites plan to invade the planet Earth to make it their home.
Although he Is allowed a certain of amount of freedom on Earthal, Casolet is virtually a prisoner. He spends his time writing his story.
As the story ends, Casolet is a passenger on an Earthalite space ship flying over the planet Earth. He manages to throw his written account overboard, thus accounting for its eventual publication.
His last observation is: “. . . Earth was still trying to force heavy, gravity controlled planes through the air, a theory that I had long since deemed and proved to be against the laws of nature and science.”
If you are interested in reading the book, it is available at some local outlets. If you can’t find one, the author will undoubtedly be able to tell you where to get one.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
[The original manuscript is at Harvard: https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990115888650203941/catalog
A copy book is kept at the library in Sturgeon Bay, but it may not be checked out: https://infosoup.bibliocommons.com/v2/search?query=Jacques%20Casolet%20Theory%20of%20Flight&searchType=smart
Though copyrighted, https://books.google.com/books?id=ZB0hAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA122, from a cursory search it appears to have never been renewed.]
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