Baker report, 1968 congressional hearings

Dr. Sagan. So some comparison analysis has been made for example of the magnesium flares. A magnesium flare has an
abundance of impurities?
Dr. Harder. It would hardly be 99.9 percent purity.
Dr. Sagan. That is what I meant.
Dr. Harder. Yes, that is right.
Mr.Roush. Dr. McDonald
Dr. McDonald. Both Dr. Hall and Dr. Sagan remarked in different contexts on the intense emotional factors that
predispose some people to certain systems of belief, and I would like to remark on that to be sure that some perspective is
maintained on that part of the problem.
In the witnesses I have interviewed -- I have intentionally stayed away from those who immediately show a very strong
interest in a salvation theory, or something like that -- so I have cut down my sample right at the start.
I would want to leave the point strongly emphasized that though there are a few people, and some of them rather visible
and vocal, who are emotional about the problem and tie it to almost religious beliefs, the body of evidence that puzzles me,
that bothers me, and I think demands much more scientific attention, comes from people who are really not at all emotional
about it; they are puzzled by it, they are reliable, a typical cross-section of the populace. They have not built any wild
theories on it.
In fact, let me mention one important sighting in New Guinea. I didn't interview the witness in New Guinea, out in
Melbourne, Australia. An Anglican Missionary, Rev. William B. Gill, was teaching the school in New Guinea, and when
he and some three dozen mission personnel saw an object hovering offshore with four figures visible on top of it, even this
minister didn't begin to put any religious interpretation on it. He said this is what he saw, and he wrote very careful notes
about it. It is that kind of evidence, and not evidence that comes from people with emotional factors predisposing them to
system [sic] beliefs that impress me.
Mr. Roush. Let's have the psychologist speak here for just a moment.
Dr. Hall. Thank you.
I welcome that clarification.
The point I was making was not that the witnesses generally are emotional and precommitted to a position at all, but that
the people who are interpreting the evidence after it has been gathered are usually precommitted beyond the point of
rationality, and it is a very important distinction that you brought out.
The primary problem of witnesses, it seems to me, is this reluctance to report based apparently on a feeling that they will
be ridiculed -- that their evidence is not welcome -- and I guess I can't resist telling the little story from the Wall Street
Journal, quite recently, of a man who had five pet wallabys in Westchester County. A wallaby
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is a miniature kangaroo. These five wallabys escaped, and rather than upset people he didn't report this, he waited for
people to tell him that they had seen them. And nothing happened for days and days.
Well, when they were finally relocated and caught then lots of people started admitting, yes, they had seen these wallabys,
but after all, if you see a tiny kangaroo loping across the road in New Rochelle, you are reticent to report it.
Mr. Roush. Dr. Hynek again.