Baker report, 1968 congressional hearings

4. Markowitz, William, letters dated November 10 and December 6, 1967. According to Markowitz the panel
consisted of H. L. Robertson, L. Alvarez, L. V. Berkner, S. A. Goudsmit, and T. W. Page.
5. Ruppelt, E. J., The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. (Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York,
1956), pp. 286 to 288 and p. 292.
6. The maximum speed (achieved during a dive) of the F-94 is 602 mph, its landing speed is 130 mph, and its
stalling speed is 108 mph.
7. McKinley, D. W. R., Meteor Science and Engineering, (McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1961), page
128.
8. Baker, Robert M. L., Jr., "Future Experiments on Anomalistic Observational Phenomena," J. Astronaut. Sci. XV,
No. 1, January-February, 1968.
[[182]]
The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences Vol. XV, No, 1, pp. 44 - 45 Jan.-Feb., 1968
Future Experiments on
Anomalistic Observational Phenomena
The requirement for additional experiments in the area of anomalistic phenomena is given, based upon the paucity of "hard
data"; relevant data collected by astronomers, meteoriticists, and meteorologists, which would be either overlooked or not
detected; and the possible "filtering" and/or "editing" out of pertinent data by our various space surveillance systems prior
to its evaluation. An experiment involving two cameras slaved to a detection radar is outlined broadly and it is concluded
that such a system should be constructed for use in meteoritic, meteorological, astronautical, psychological, and "UFO"
study programs.
The majority of our astronomical equipment (e.g., conventional photographic telescopes, Baker-Nunn cameras, meteor
cameras, Markowitz dual-rate Moon Cameras, etc.) are special-purpose by their very nature and would probably not detect
the anomalous luminous phenomenon reported by the casual observer if it were indeed present. Their photographic speed,
field of view, etc. put definite limits on their capability to collect data on objects other than those for which they have been
specially designed. Even if such data WCPP collected, the recognition of their uniqueness or anomalous character by an
experimenter is improbable. Examples abound in celestial mechanics of minor planets being detected on old astronomical
plates that had been measured for other purposes and then abandoned. Tombaugh's discovery of Pluto from rather old
astronomical plates in storage is a well-known example. The space surveillance systems are almost programmed to
overlook anomalous data. Any hard-data arising from an object or manifestation that did not move on a nearly two-body
orbit, had a low radar cross-section, or followed an erratic path would most probably be filtered out of the system by
various data-editing, or data-weighting procedures [1], which are inherent in most of our sophisticated space surveillance
systems.
A representative space surveillance radar may have a beam width of 1/6° for detection and require accurate orbital
information good to 0.01° for fine tracking. Needless to say, such radars often miss even well-known spacecraft and would
be completely inadequate for "locking-on" to a hypothetical "UFO." To be sure, advanced radar systems are being
developed for our missile defense systems, such as the ALTAR (ARPA Long-range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar),
TRADEX (Target Resolution and Discrimination Experiments) and the phased array RESER (Re-entry System Evaluation
Radar) system. Although they extend the field of view, they still are developed to filter out anomalous signals. As
Cheettam [2] points out, "Power and aperture will be programmed after a learning measurement cycle to conserve and
efficiently distribute available energy when and where (reentry) targets are estimated to exist."
Not only are conventional sensors almost insensitive to anomalous data, but observations published by trained scientists,
that could be hard-data records of anomalistic phenomena, are often too quickly categorized and then forgotten. The
observation by Mohr [3] in a letter to Science in 1966 gave an account of a "most unusual fly" and described a very
remarkable and almost bizarre event that might or might not have been ball lightning. The Tunguska event of 1908 may
well have been a impacting comet [4] and is usually studied in the context of meteoritics [5], Similarly, the Canadian
fireball procession of 9 February 1913 could have been an ephemeral natural satellite of the Earth [6] or it could have been
something more involved. In most such cases, and as in also the situation in published UFO studies [7], [8], [10],
information-rich hard-data of high quality are rather hard to come by. It therefore suggests itself that a special experimental
program is in order. The scientific method usually dictates experiments in the face of anomalous data and, at the moment,