Keith wrote:
"Some of the authors you quote are not so convinced of their (waves)
reality."

Symbols merely represent reality but are important to the exchange of
ideas just the same. The effects seen on transmission lines are reliably
explained and predicted by wave action. In one of my physics classes
over a half century ago, the prof asked another student a question about
atoms. The reply was that the student had never been inside an atom.
Neither the prof nor anyone else seemed impressed with the retention of
the student, but the prof agreed that he had never been inside an atom
either, but found atomic theory useful.

Terman is as reliable as anyone I know of, and he says:
"The voltage and current existing on a transmission line as given by
Eqs. (4-6) can be conveniently exprerssed as the sum of the voltages and
currents of two waves, one traveling toward the receiving or load end of
the line, and is called the "incident wave" because it is incident upon
the load. The second wave can be thought of as traveling from the load
toward the generator end of the line; it is termed the "reflected wave",
and is generated at the load by reflection of the incident wave."

Terman has no qualms, it seems, but says "regarded as traveling". Those
aren`t weasel words. Terman is more direct on page one in the opening
sentance:
"Electrical energy that has escaped into free space exists in the form
of electromagnetic waves."

How else could their energy be transferred at the speed of light?

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI