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
6063 stifled; and it matters when the American people are denied the right to know what kind of powers they may be up against. Persistence in this dogmatic atti- tude will only tend to deteriorate public morale if not the public trust in the Air Force when irrefutable proof of the existence of these objects manifests itself. Those behind this official "blackout" should be displaying real responsibility to all of us by desisting from the practices of ridiculing sincere witnesses and belittling sightings that defy explanations and at least extend public acknowl- edgement of some credence to the evidence that abounds. Instituting a policy of dealing honestly, for a change, with the people would prepare the way to a mini- mum of possible panic (assuming this to be the basic reason for the censorship) upon arrival of that "moment of proof." (Please, excuse the pun.) Consider the contrast of the disrespect shown Americans to the consideration extended the citizens of Argentina and Chile. For example, on August 3, 1965, the radio and TV stations of Santiago, Chile, alerted the populous to view the three luminous discus hovering over the city for some 25 minutes before moving slowly away. With the hope that we may yet receive such courtesy instead of treatment as children, I respectfully urge that you consider the undertaking of a hearing intothis despicable situation. Until this condition is brought out into the open, much of the news media will continue to refrain from giving the UFO's serious consider- ation they so justly deserve.All statements made in this letter can be substantiated by the National Investi- gations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) located at 1536 Connecticut Avenue NW., Washington, D.C. Documented evidence and authentication re- quired to support the assertion that a censorship does in fact exist will be put at the disposal of your committee by NICAP upon request. Respectfully yours, JOHN R. GRAY, Huntington Beach, Calif. [From Life magazine, Apr. 1, 1966] A WELL -WITNESSED "INVASION”—BY SOMETHING FROM AUSTRALIA TO MICHIGAN, A FLURRY OF EERIE UFO SIGHTINGS Call them what you will: flying saucers, unidentified flying objects (UFO's), optical illusions, or the first symptoms of the silly season. They are back again—and seen by more people than ever before. Some are greenish and iri- descent, like the mystery thing that swooped down over Perth, Australia. several weeks ago. Others are football shaped and aglow with pulsating lights. Last week the manifestations seemed almost to have reached the proportions of an invasion. Near Ann Arbor, Mich., 52 witnesses, including a dozen policemen, saw 5 strange objects hovering over a swamp. The next day a glowing thing floated over a small college in Hillsdale, Mich. and was sighted by 87 students. an assistant dean and the local civil defense director. Whatever the explanation of the peculiar phenomena—seen and described similarly by so many—something surely was in the air. "IT WASN'T No HULLABILLUSION,” SAID THE FARMER, AND 52 AGREED (By Paul O'Neil) DEXTER TOWNSHIP, MICH.—Frank Mannor has never believed in flying saucers. Hasn't any need of them. Wishes he'd never seen one. Frank should have been born in the day of Dan'l Boone. Since he wasn't, he's on the unemployment. Still, he's a happy man. Or was. He is a husky, grizzled fellow of 47 who has 10 children, a well of water with an outside pump, a solidly build privy, a TV set and a battered refrigerator with the coil on top. Four disembodied automobiles rest beside his white, tumble- down, two-story farmhouse in the open country 12 miles northwest of Ann Arbor. They provide parts for his good car. He has an ancient schoolbus for hunting expeditions. He also has six dogs. The dogs started it all. When they began "barkin' and bellerin' " at 8 o'clock that Sunday night, Frank ran outside— even though he was wearing his suit pants—and looked east into swampland from the rise of ground on which the house is built. He saw lights and a faint red glow "like cigarets being smoked."
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.