Documents / Hearing transcript
This is the printed transcript of an April 5, 1966 hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services on unidentified flying objects. Air Force Secretary Harold Brown testified that 9,501 of 10,147 sightings from 1947 through 1965 had been identified and that no threat or extraterrestrial evidence had been found. The record includes the Scientific Advisory Board ad hoc committee report recommending university studies and the Air Force's marsh gas explanation for the Dexter and Hillsdale, Michigan sightings. Members also questioned J. Allen Hynek and Maj. Hector Quintanilla about the Exeter, New Hampshire case.
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5998 The third and by far the smallest group of evaluations is categorized as "Unidentified." A sighting is considered unidentified when a report apparently contains all pertinent data necessary to suggest a valid hypothesis concerning the cause or explanation of the report but the description of the object or its motion cannot be correlated with any known object or phenomena. TYPES OF UFO IDENTIFICATIONS AND EVALUATIONS There are various types of UFO sightings. Most common are reports of astronomical sightings, which include bright stars, planets, comets, fireballs, meteors, auroral streamers, and other celestial bodies. When observed through haze, light fog, moving clouds, or other obscurations or unusual conditions, the planets, including Venus, Jupiter, and Mars have been reported as unidentified flying objects. Stellar mirages are also a source of reports. Satellites are another major source of UFO reports. An increase in satellites reported as UFO's has come about because of two factors. The first is the in- crease of interest on the part of the public; the second is the increasing number of satellites in the skies. Positive knowledge of the location of all satellites at all times enables rapid identification of satellite sightings. Keeping track of manmade objects in orbit about the earth is the responsibility of the North American Air Defense Command space detection and tracking system. This sophisticated electronic system gathers complex space traffic data instantly from tracking stations all over the world. Other space surveillance activities include the use of ballistic tracking and large telescopic cameras. ECHO schedules are prepared by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center at Greenbelt, Md., and schedules of the south-north Equator crossings are prepared by the Smithsonian Institution at Cambridge, Mass. From the data produced by these agencies, satellites mistakenly reported as UFO's can be quickly identified. Some of these are visible,to the naked eye. Aircraft account for another major source of UFO reports, particularly during adverse weather conditions. When observed at high altitudes and at some dis- tance, aircraft can have appearances ranging from disc to rocket shapes due to the reflection of the sun on their bright surfaces. Vapor or condensation trails from jet aircraft will sometimes appear to glow fiery red or orange when reflect- ing sunlight. Afterburners from jet aircraft are often- reported as UFO's since they can be seen from great distances when the aircraft cannot be seen. The Project Blue Book Office has direct contact with all elements of the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Agency civil air control centers. All aerial refueling operations and special training flights can be checked immediately. Air traffic of commercial airlines and flights of military aircraft are checked with the nearest control center, enabling an immediate evaluation of aircraft mistakenly reported as UFO's. However, since many local flights are not carried, these flights are probable causes of some reports. Balloons continue to be reported as UFO's. Several thousand balloons are released each day from military and civilian airports, weather stations, and re- search activities. There are several types of balloons—weather balloons, ravvinsondes, radiosondes, and the large research balloons which have diameters up to 300 feet. At night, balloons carry running lights which cause an unusual appearance when observed. Reflection of the sun on balloons at dawn and sunset sometimes produce strange effects. This usually occurs when the balloon, because of its altitudes, is exposed to the sun. Large balloons can move at speeds of over 100 miles per hour when moving in high altitude jet windstreams. These balloons sometimes appear to be flattened on top. At other times, they appear to be saucer- shaped and to have lights mounted inside the bag itself due to the sun's rays reflecting through the material of the balloon. The Balloon Control Center at Holloman Air Force Base, N. Mex., maintains a plot on all military upper air re- search balloons. Another category of UFO evaluations labeled "Other" includes missiles, reflec- tions, mirages, searchlights, birds, kites, spurious radar indications, hoaxes, fire- works, and flares. Aircraft, satellites, balloons, and the like should not be reported since they do not fall within the definition of an unidentified flying object. CONCLUSIONS To date, the firm conclusions of Project Blue Book are: (1) no unidentified flying object reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever
Hearing transcript, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 88 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.