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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6019 to west flight pattern in a straight line with an elevation of about 100 above the tree-line. Both officers had read a little an UFO's. Neither would venture an opinion as to what the object was but Officer Bertrand stated that it was definitely not an airplane or helicopter and that in his opinion that it was an intelligently constructed and operated vehicle. No sound was heard by the witnesses, even at close range but apparently the animals in the nearby barn of Carl Dining could hear or sense something that frightened them as during sighting No. 2 and No. 3 they whinnied and kicked their stalls. The dog which belonged to people acrow the road was barking furiously. No interference was noticed on the police radi• nor were the lights and ignition of the cruiser affected. Neither officer would estimate the object's speed but stated it was very slow. No scorched marks or indentations were found in the field. Both officers agreed that their signed state- ments and names could be used by NICAP in connection with the report. SIGHTING ACCOUNT NO. 4 At 3:30 a.m. e.d.t., Officer Hunt sighted what appeared to be the same object hovering in the distance while at the Route 85-100 bypass in Exeter. He radioed Officer Bertrand who told him it was probably a star. Shortly after this he looked for it again but it had disappeared. Since there was little detail in this sighting I did not bother to probe for details. SIGHTING ACCOUNT NO. 5 To add to the excitement the police and others told me that an unidentified hysterical man tried to call the police during these early morning hours to re- port a UFO. He dialed the operator from a pay station in Hampton, N.H., and excitedly asked the operator to connect him with the police as he had been chased by a "flying saucer." Before the call could be put through to the police, the tele- phone connection went dead. Neither the man or the particular Hampton pay station could be traced. MILITARY INVESTIGATION Officer Bertrand informed me that soon after they made their report of sight- ing No. 3 to Desk Officer Towland they notified Pease AFB, Portsmouth, N.H., of the sighting by phone. Later Pease AFB phoned back and arranged for the police officers to be interviewed. At around 9 a.m. that same morning, a USAF major and lieutenant in uniforms arrived, questioned them and drove both Bertrand and Hunt out to the Carl Dining 'field where they had sighted the UFO. They asked more questions and returned with the police officers to the station. The USAF officers asked the police to try to keep the sighting from the press so as to avoid alarming the local people. The police told the USAF officers that it was too late for this as several reporters already had the story: (One had driven from Manchester on a motorcycle complete with black jacket, helmet, and goggles. I heard privately that he gave the police quite a start when he came into the station looking like a man from outer space.) Bertrand told me that most of the questions asked were the same as I had asked. The USAF team were particularly interested in the size and shape of the object. One question that stuck in Bertrand's mind was that they wanted to know if the chickens on the Carl Russell residence next to the field were awakened and alarmed during the sighting. (Apparently they were not disturbed as they were not heard during the sighting although they may have and just were not heard as the chicken house is probably 300-400 yards, at leagt from where Musearello and Bertrand were standing in the field.) Three interesting items told to the police were that (1) that a USAF check had revealed no aircraft in the area during the time sighting No. 3 occurred; (2) that Pease AFB had been receiving other UFO reports in the New Hamp- shire area almost nightly during the previous week: (3) they mentioned a sighting which took place in late July concerning an automobile coming upon a UFO hovering over the road in front of them. I have the details and hope to look into it. After returning Officers Bertrand and Hunt to headquarters, both the major and lieutenant returned to the sighting area and questioned residents living near the field. Mrs. Muscarello told me that two USAF officers had questioned her son at length and that a U.S. Navy officer also came to the house and asked several questions about the sighting.
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.