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.
“The Unexplained Files”2 pages
6071 The CHAIRMAN. How many, doctor? Dr. HYNEK. With about 32 people. I talked with some of these briefly, but spoke with at least 15 persons in considerable detail. These two sightings, although separated by some 65 miles, were a localized phenomenon. They were in the swamp area. No individ- ual that I talked to, and no group of persons, could agree that they has seen anything either enter or leave the swamp. There were several isolated reports by people who said that yes, they saw a bright light come, but they could not get any general support or concurrence on this, from the others. Witnesses did agree that they saw a glow, and red, yellow, and green lights in the swamp area in both cases. So I said to myself, "What is common in swamps?" And I researched this ques-tion with the aid of several professors at the University of Michigan. They have been very helpful to me in this, since an astronomer doesn't know about swamps; he usually has his eyes a little higher than that. They informed me, and I later found in several books, that marsh gas resulting from the spontaneous igniting in air of such gases as methane, H 2 S, PH 3 , phosphine, and particularly important, P21 - 14, an impurity in phosphine, is a common occurrence and produces what appears to be glowing lights of different colors. Since then I have had several letters from people saying "What are they getting all excited about in Michigan, I have seen these things since I have been a kid on the farm." As these gases are ignited, they can pro- duce red, yellow, and green glows. There is nothing mysterious about these colors. The lighting goes out here, and goes on here, thus giving the im- pression of motion. The light was moving smoothly, they said, notfollowing the train which was bumpy, and they also rose some dis- tance and came down. They were reportedly observed for a period of 2 1 / 2 to 3 hours. In a book, "Light and Color in the Open Air," it is pointed out that swamp lights commonly known as will-o'-the-wisp, fox light, and so forth, can be observed for several hours, sometimes all night. And the conditions were just right for it in Michigan. In both cases, the winds were reasonably calm. Had there been high winds, it is unlikely these glows would have taken place. Furthermore Michigan had experienced an unusually mild winter. They tell me there wasn't much snow. However, the swamp had been covered by ice. Now, in a swamp rotting vegetation produces these marsh gases. When a thaw comes, it seems entirely logical to me, that these gases would bubble up, and be spontaneously ignited, and you would see these things. To me it is a logical explanation. I said in my pressrelease I couldn't prove it in a court of law but it seems to me to be a very logical explanation. The CHAIRMAN. NOW, Mr. Ichord. Then I will come over to the other side. Mr. 'CHORD. Let me first differentiate, Mr. Chairman, my position from the chairman, and Mrs. Rivers and also Mr. Nedzi. I am neither a believer nor a disbeliever. I am from Missouri, and I have got to be shown. The CHAIRMAN. You go right ahead.
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.