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
6074 radar sights. This apparently seems to be in disagreement at the present time. Wouldn't that be a classification of what you said we don't have? Dr. HYNEK. No, sir. I said there were several cases where we had a lot of witnesses. It does not have to be a point-to-point situation. When an airliner leaves New York for San Francisco, it is seen over Ohio, Nebraska, and so forth. These sightings were confined to a relatively narrow area. I want to know what happened to these objects. Why weren't they seen over Fort Wayne,Id.? Mr. SCHWEIKER. The fact one officer reports he went to the scene after someone else sighted it, and returned back to the same point,there it was,according to the police officer's testimony. Dr. HYNEK. Yes, sir, but it was in the same area. We don't know what it was. I would like to know what it was. Mr. SCHWEIKER. One of the other witnesses in this story—and all I have to go on is what the reporter's writing says, they did, in fact see it go from point to point, while they were watching it. Dr. HYNEK. Within a relatively narrow area. But I don't recollect whether they saw it leave for distant points. One of the things that seems to be so odd about this particular case is that we did not find horizontal trajectories over any length, as you would expect from a craft. Mr. SCHWEIKER. Is the Beaver County sighting unexplained or is that explainable, this photograph I referred to? Major QUINTANILLA. IS this Mr. Lucci's photo? Mr. SCHWEIKER. Yes, sir. Major QUINTANILLA. We have asked Mr. Lucci to submit the nega- tive for photo analysis, but he has refused to do so. Dr. HYNEK. It needs a double exposure, as we can judge from the print. Major QUINTANILLA. We asked the gentleman to submit the nega- tive for analysis and he refuses to do so. Mr. SCHWEIKER. On what basis? Major QUINTANILLA. I don't know,sir. We requested the negative. Mr. SCHWEIKER. He submitted it to the Beaver Times. They pub- lished it. Maybe these people are a little skeptical about turning over negatives without some assurance. I think we ought to look into that a little bit, because the newspaper claims they saw the negatives,examined by their photographic experts, and they are authentic. Major QUINTANILLA. I have a copy of our letter in my files asking Mr. Lucci to submit the negative for analysis, and he declined to do so. That is all I can say. Mr. SCHWEIKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Schweiker. We will go to Mr. Leggett. Mr. LEGGETT. Mr.Chairman, Mr. Wilson and I want to go on record at this time that we do not believe; we are intelligent people. Mr. BATES. Which Wilson? The CHAIRMAN. We are going to adjourn, and we are going to meet again at 2:30. If there is no reason to hold Dr. Hynek and Major Quintanilla, we will let them be excused. Some people say whenever you all have gone we are going to get down here in executive session • z
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.