"For about two months I tried to write an op-ed piece," Scarry says. But she feared the article would sound too crazy coming from an English professor.

"I've written other articles about the military before, and I've had no trouble getting them published," she says.

But she knew that in such a high-profile case, an English professor needed carefully documented research to be taken seriously.

"The more I researched it, the more it seemed like a plausible possibility," she says.

The article, published in a special issue of the Review, caused a media buzz. When the major newspapers picked up the story, they often emphasized that she was a "Harvard professor" without mentioning her specialty.

Some critics attacked both her theory and the idea that she was qualified to write an article about such a technical subject.

"I note from the paper itself that Elaine Scarry is professor of 'Aesthetics and General Theory of Value,'" wrote one critic. " I don't know whether her noted authorship includes any titles of relevance to air investigation or EMI."