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.
6009 The CHAIRMAN. What you have recommended is being done now? Dr. HYNEK. It is about to be done, I believe. The CHAIRMAN. Is about to be done? Dr. HYNEK. Yes. I should like to make one comment: The puzzling thing is that one would think many more people would see these flying objects than do. There should be many more wit- nesses. We should see a craft, if it actually exists as a tangible thing, and we should see it go from point to point. This doesn't seem to happen. Also, there should be far more radar sightings. During the international geophysical year, I was in charge of the optical satellite tracking program, and you would think with the surveillance that the astronomers placed on the sky, if these objects existed as tangible objects, surely these astronomers would have seen more than they did. It is a dilemma. It is a puzzle, as you say, as to how responsible people can report such objects, and that they are not obvious to scientists. The CHAIRMAN. An then they see them and they disappear and they don't know where they go, and they land in these remote places where there is no intelligence to procure? Dr. HYNEK. I Would say SO, yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. We don't know where they go, who they have on board, we see them a few moments, and then they are gone. This is the end of that. This is what puzzles me. I am not going to ask further questions, because I am not knowledgeable with respect to the varying reports that have been made. So I will turn it over to some of the experts, and I will start with Mr. Bates. Mr. BATES. Mr. Chairman, I don't know—if I have to qualitfy on that basis. But, Secretary Brown, you indicated no one of scientific knowledge in your organization has concluded these phenomena come from extra- terrestrial sources? Secretary BROWN. That is correct. We know of no phenomena or vehicles, intelligently guided, which have come from extraterrestrial sources. I excluded meteors, which do come from extraterrestrial Sources. Mr. BATES. Is this your conclusion, Doctor? Dr. HYNEK. This is also my conclusion. I know of no competent scientist today who would argue the sightings which do puzzle intel- ligent people. Puzzling cases exist, but I know of no competent scien- tist who would say that there objects come from outer space. Mr. BATES. Then what you are looking for is an explanation in nat- ural phenomena, thus far you have not determined the factors involved in it? Dr. HYNEK. Yes. Mr. BATES. But the interesting thing, of course is we have so many prominent people in the scientific world here who have taken a position, a rather strong position—I have here a letter from a constituent of mine. He is a project administrator or engineer in the MINUTEMAN program. That is a responsible position, would we say? General McCoNNELL. Yes. Mr. BATES. On the basis of scientific ability he has been given a rather important position toward the security of this country; is that correct?
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.