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.
“County deputy sheriff”3 pages
6050 However, the two persons who reportedly were closest to the object, Frank Mannor, 47 years old, and his son, Ronald, 19, said it did not appear to touch the ground but sat on a base of fog. Frederick E. Davids, State police commissioner, who is also head of civil de- fense for Michigan, opened an investigation. "I used to discount these reports too, but now I'm not so sure," he said. Mr. Mannor and his son said they had run to within 500 yards of the object. Mr. Mannor said the craft was shaped like a football and was about the length of a car with a grayish yellow hue and a pitted surface like coral rock. "It had a blue light on one end and a white light on the other," he said. "They were pulsating and each of them looked like they had a little halo around it," he said. Other witnesses saw only the lights, but their descriptions, including those of policemen, agreed closely. Stanley McFadden, Washtenaw County sheriff's deputy, said he and Deputy David Fitzpatrick watched the object fly over their car about the same time the Mannors reported it had taken off. Officer Hunawill said four other unidentified flying objects had hovered in a quarter circle over the object in the swamp. [From the Washington Post, Mar. 23, 1966] FIRST UFO's OF SEASON ARE SIGHTED Spring's first flying saucers have sprouted right alongside the forsythia. Scores of people in Michigan have reported strange flying objects since the weekend, and a former fighter pilot says he saw several over his Bethesda home Saturday night. The Air Force, which has investigated more than 10,000 such reports since 1947, sent Northwestern University's Dr. H. Allen Hynek, its top scientific adviser on unidentified flying objects (UFO's), to look into the Michigan reports. The latest was Monday night at Hillsdale College, where a county civil defense director, a former reporter and assistant dean, and 87 coeds say they watched a glowing object zipping around campus for 4 hours. This report coincided with one near Ann Arbor, where about 50 persons— including 12 policemen—said they saw an eerie object cruise over a swamp Sunday night while four sister ships hovered overhead. In Bethesda, retired Air Force Col. Howard T. Wright, of 5119 Newport Avenue, said he and five other persons saw several objects outside his home and they were "definitely not in my imagination, nor were they satellites or airplanes." [From the New York Times, Mar. 23, 1966]EIGHTY-SEVEN MICHIGAN COEDS AND OFFICIAL SIGHT MYSTERIOUS OBJECTHILLSDALE, Mien., March 22 (UPI).—A civil defense director, an assistant dean and 87 coeds reported a glowing object fly past a college dormitory and hover in a swamp for hours. Their description of the object seen here last night tallied closely with that of one seen by more than 50 persons, including 12 policemen, near Ann Arbor,Mich., the previous night. The Air Force dispatched its top scientific adviser on unidentified flying objects to begin an investigation. The witnesses said they watched from the second floor of a Hillsdale College dormitory as the object wobbled, wavered, glowed, and once flew right at a dormitory window before stopping suddenly. Mrs. Kelly Hearn, for 7 years a newspaper reporter before becoming assistant dean of women, assistant professor of English and housemother of the dormi-tory, had the coeds take notes as they watched the object for 4 hours. They and William Van Horn, 41, Hillsdale County civil defense director, said the object dimmed its lights when police cars approached, brightened again whenthey went away, and dodged an airport beacon light. Barbara Kohn, 21, of New Castle, Pa., and Cynthia Poffenberger, 18, of Cleveland were the first to see the object. They described its shake as roughly
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.