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.
6004 (Discussion off the record.) The CHAIRMAN. We are going to decide what the future is going to be. I am talking about this testimony now. If there is no reason for them not being here, let them in here. Secretary BROWN. This letter is unclassified. Some of the ques-tions you ask may lead to classified material. Mr. SCHWEIKER. Are all the files unclassified? The CHAIRMAN. Let them come in and listen to the testimony. When we get into the questions we will decide. Open the doors. Mr. Secretary, we will let you start. You gentlemen who have come in, the Secretary is explaining a letter he is sending to the committee. You gentlemen of the press, TV, and radio, whatever you represent, listen. That is the best way to find out. Go ahead.(Secretary Brown repeats his statement previously read to the com- mittee.) The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, I have before me some pages from Life magazine. I don't know what the date is, but it is recent. Mr. KELLEHER. Two weeks ago, I think. The CHAIRMAN. TWO weeks ago. It mentioned 10,000 -odd sightings of these mysterious objects. I note it has a picture. Have you seen this? I will pass it on to you. Secretary BROWN. Yes, I have seen the picture. The CHAIRMAN. Here are two pictures. One taken in Oregon in 1950 and the other taken 4 years later in France. They both look very much alike. Actually it looks something like a battleship. Then here is something on another page here that is alleged to have been seen in Michigan, and it is even sketched here with an antenna and all that goes with it. Here is my question: Responsible, well -trained people, like pilots - 1 think some B-52 people, Mr. Kelleher? Mr. KELLEHER. I don't recall that. I do remember sightings by commercial pilots. The CHAIRMAN. Certainly commercial pilots have reported all kinds of things. How do you explain away these clearly defined mysterious things that these responsible people allege having seen. How do your experts reconcile this? Secretary BROWN. I will turn this over to my experts in a moment, Mr. Chairman. However, I should like to say this: We haven't explained all of the reported sightings which we have investigated. We have explained 95 percent of them i but are not sure about the other 5 percent. There are possible explanations for the other 5 percent in most cases. How- ever, since we can't prove that our findings are the correct explana-tions they are regarded as sightings which have not been completely accounted for. The CHAIRMAN. Well, now, does anybody, in authority or of stature, allege that these things, whatever they may be, have come from other planets or from somewhere outside of this universe?
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.