To tell you the truth, I do not know what the UFO was, it could have been a weather balloon as was described, even though the behavior and appearance seemed odd. Whatever it was, it triggered my imagination into high gear.

I imagined a sort of a "What If" scenario. What If we could build a craft that could float or fly through the atmosphere of any planet, and What If we also had the means to travel to distant planets and were able to explore them.
What If we were able travel to a planet that happened to have violent cannibalistic beings on it, would we land and say "take me to your leader" or would we simply observe, record their behavior, leave and let others know what is going on there.

In any case, my imagination was fired up, so I studied all types of UFO reports to see if they contained any information that would be valuable in developing the type of craft that could fly in space and air.

I did not understand any of the "technically" oriented descriptions, such as "magnetic" or "gravitational" drives, at the time they simply seemed absurd to me, how could a magnet or gravity be used to move anything upwards in the air.

The chemical rocket propulsion was the pinnacle of progress in space flight at the time. Ion propulsion had not been developed yet for space propulsion.

But then I did not understand what magnetic or gravitational fields were, so I studied the theories and formulated my own ideas where there was no "official" explanations.

The ion propulsion that is used for the "lifters" has been around for a long time, I constructed several such experiments back in the late 1950s. The effect seems very feeble compared to propellers or rockets but there may be a way to increase the efficiency.
I did know at the time that the air pressure at sea level was about 14 lb. per square inch, then if you have a 20 ft., diameter "saucer" and if it was possible to take all the air away from the top surface, the "saucer" would be able to lift a LOT of weight. (I'm sure RL could do the Pi r squared thingie and the inch to foot conversion and tell us exactly how much weight could be lifted:)
Even if all the air was not taken away from the top surface but only reduced sufficiently in density, the "saucer" would be able to hover or go upwards in air.

There are various ways that air can be put into motion. Has someone somewhere figured a better way to fly?
I do not know, but I can explain some radical ways that might make it possible.