Baker report, 1968 congressional hearings

Automaster 16mm movie camera equipped with a 3" telephoto lens, loaded it, focused it at infinity and began shooting.
There was no reference point above the horizon so he was unable to estimate absolute size, speed or distance. He reports
that one of the objects reversed its course and proceeded away from the rest of the group; he held the camera still and
allowed this single object to pass across the field of view of the camera, picking it up later in its course. He repeated this
for three passes.
During the filming, Newhouse changed the iris stop of the camera from f/8 to f/16. The density of the film can be seen to
change markedly at a point about 30% through the sequence. The camera was operated at 16 fps.
The color film (Daylight Kodachrome) after processing was submitted to his superiors. The Navy forwarded the film to the
USAF-ATIC where the film was studied for several months. According to Al Chop (then with ATlC and presently with
DAC) Air Force personnel were convinced that the objects were not airplanes; on the other hand the hypothesis that the
camera might have been out of focus and the objects soaring gulls could neither be confirmed nor denied. Mr. Chop's
remarks are essentially substantiated by Capt. Edward Ruppelt, reference (1) then head of Project "Blue Book" for ATIC.
A 35mm reprint of the Newhouse "Utah" film was submitted to Douglas Aircraft Company for examination. Visual study
of the reprints on the Recordak and astronomical plate measuring engine revealed the following: The film comprises about
1,200 frames; on most of the frames there appear many round white dots, some elliptical. The dots often seem clustered in
constellations, or formations which are recognizable for as long as seventeen seconds. A relative motion plot (obtained
from an overlay vellum trace on the Recordak) of two typical formations are presented. The objects seem to cluster in
groups of two's and three's. On some frames they flare up and then disappear from view in 0.25 seconds or less and
sometimes they appear as a randomly scattered "twinkling" of dots. The dot images themselves show no structure; they are
white and have no color fringes. Examination under a microscope shows the camera to be well focused as the edges of the
images are sharp and clear on many of the properly exposed frames (of the original print). Angular diameters range from
about 0.001,6 to 0.000,4 radians. Their pattern of motion is essentially a curvilinear milling about. Sometimes the objects
appear to circle about each other. There are no other objects in the field of view which might give a clue as to the absolute
motion of the cluster.
In the overlay trace, the frame of reference is determined by a certain object whose relative motion during a sequence of
frames remains rather constant. This object is used as a reference point and the lower edge of the frame as abscissa.
Assuming the camera to have been kept reasonably uncanted, the abscissa would be horizontal and the ordinate vertical. In
the overlay trace, the particular frame itself is used as the reference. Assuming the camera was held steady (there is an
unconscious tendency to pan with a moving object) the coordinate system is quasi-fixed. It is realized that both of these
coordinate systems are in actuality moving, possibly possessing both velocity and acceleration.
No altitude or azimuth determination can be made because of lack of background. The only measurable quantities of
interest are therefore the relative angular distances between the objects and their time derivatives. Graphs of two typical
time variations of relative angular separation and velocity are included (in Baker and Makemson (1967)). The relative
angular velocity is seen to vary from zero to 0.006,5 radians per second. The relative angular acceleration had a maximum
value of 0.003,6 radians per second squared. Supposing the
*At the time he had already logged some 2,200 hours as a chief photographer with the Navy.
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camera was kept stationary the average angular velocities for the object moving across the field are 0.039 and 0.031
radians per second. The angular velocities in these sequences sometimes vary erratically from 0.07 to 0.01 radians per
second. This variation may be attributed in part to camera "jiggling" and in part to the object's motion. The decrease in
average angular velocity could be due to the object's having regressed between filmings just as was reported by Newhouse.
Also the average image diameter decreases about 30% over the entire film, indicating a possible over-all regression of the
objects.
The following tabulation indicates the hypothetical transverse component of relative velocities and accelerations at various
distances. It is noted that the transverse velocity may be only a fraction of the total velocity so that the numbers actually
indicate minimum values.