Behavior Whatever Happened to UFO's?

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75%) while 15 to 20% contain insufficient data. In other words, what may appear to the untrained observer as strange and unexplainable is in most cases known and explainable.

Taking all evidence which has come to the Subcommittee's attention into account, we find it difficult to ignore the small residue of well-documented but unexplainable cases which form the hard core of the UFO controversy. They represent only a small fraction of the "unidentified" cases and are characterized by both a high degree of credibility and a high abnormality ("strangeness" in Hynek's terminology). Although none of them offers to our knowledge quantitative recordings by calibrated instruments for permanent inspection, they are often called "hard cases."

The Subcommittee has tried to explore the nature of this hard-core residue and found estimates to vary between 10 and several hundred cases, depending in part on a subjective judgment as to the criteria for a "hard case." High credibility is generally accepted for observations by multiple independent witnesses of known and reliable background or by multiple independent sensing systems (reported by multiple independent operators) or both; high abnormality or strangeness, when no known natural phenomena whatsoever seem to fit the observations. It is clear, then, that the hard-core residue represents less than 1% of the total available reports.

Those used to working under controlled laboratory conditions find it difficult to consider seriously any observation which is not available in recorded form for quantitative inspection. As a matter of fact, they make this a criterion for a "hard case." On the other hand, there are those, including some members of this Subcommittee, familiar with the intricacies of research in the complex and uncontrolled laboratory of the atmosphere, who find this less of a deterrent. They discover parallels between the UFO problem and certain atmospheric phenomena which fall in the class of rare events. A rare event always involves at first a question of the reality of a qualitative observation. Later, scientific investigation, usually combining statistics and physics, resolves this question one way or the other.

Although the University of Colorado report deals only with a very small fraction of the existing observational material (less than 1%) , it offers itself enough substance of the described

tion extracted by McDonald is added to some of the cases. In fact, the Subcommittee finds that the opposite conclusion could have been drawn from its content, namely, that a phenomenon with such a high ratio of unexplained cases (about 30%) should arouse sufficient scientific curiosity to continue its study.

The issue seems to boil down to the question: Are we justified to extrapolate from 0.99 to 1.00, implying that if 99% of all observations can be explained, the remaining 1% could also be explained; or do we face a severe problem of signal-to-noise ratio (order of magnitude $ 10^{-2} $)?

In the opinion of the Subcommittee, this question must be asked critically and objectively in each individual case. In cases which do not fit the extrapolation alternative, the further question should be explored: "Do they evidence common attributes?" It appears to the Subcommittee that the University of Colorado group has made no serious attempt in this direction.

If it is already difficult to reach a consensus on what constitutes a hard case, it appears even more difficult to find agreement on the advisability and importance of continued research. As mentioned earlier, it is at this point where the controversy often becomes heated because criteria for such assessment are not well-defined.

Earlier, Condon's statement was quoted that "clearly defined, specific studies . . . should be considered and supported." In this connection he calls attention to "important areas of atmospheric optics, including radiowave propagation, and of atmospheric electricity in which present knowledge is quite incomplete. These topics came to our attention in connection with the interpretation of some UFO reports, but they are also of fundamental scientific interest, and they are relevant to practical problems related to the improvement of safety of military and civilian flying."

The Subcommittee finds this statement of the Condon report a better criterion for support of UFO-related studies than the claim by some ETH exponents that UFO research deserves maximum support as long as there is a ghost of a chance that UFOs are extraterrestrial vehicles, or the opposite claim that proof for the ETH must be provided before serious consideration of the UFO problem is justified. Both opinions strike the Subcommittee as unwarranted.

We have already expressed our disenchantment with arguments about

origin of UFOs, since there is not sufficient scientific basis at this time to take a position one way or another. However, in view of the infancy of our scientific and technological knowledge (approximately one century), the Subcommittee would agree with this statement by Condon: "We must not assume that we are capable of imagining now the scope and extent of future technological development of our own or any other civilization, and so we must guard against assuming that we have any capacity to imagine what a more advanced society would regard as intelligent conduct." On the other hand, we find no convincing basis for his statement, "It is safe to assume that no ILE (intelligent life elsewhere) from outside of our solar system has any possibility of visiting Earth in the next 10,000 years." (When does one start counting?)

The question arises whether there is a need at all to speculate on a specific hypothesis, such as ETH, in order to decide on the significance of a scientific problem, or whether any known phenomenon in nature is worth investigating. We think it is, but we recognize at the same time that the UFO problem may require expensive tools of technology. Therefore, the question of cost, priority, and relative importance of this problem within the total spectrum of research cannot be overlooked.

There is an interesting parallel between the history of the UFO problem and the history of weather modification ("rainmaking"). After almost 20 years of taboo by the scientific community, weather modification has now achieved scientific recognition due to the fact that some courageous, high-caliber scientists entered the arena. This has resulted in a revision of the viewpoint of the National Academy of Science.

The UFO Subcommittee feels that the ETH, tantalizing though it may be, should not be dragged into this consideration as it introduces an unassessable element of speculation; but the Subcommittee also strongly feels that, from a scientific and engineering standpoint, it is unacceptable to simply ignore substantial numbers of unexplained observations and to close the book about them on the basis of premature conclusions.

The immediate question is how to attack the UFO problem without the pitfalls of past attempts. There is little doubt that the short-time, one-shot approach of an ad hoc team is neither promising nor economical. This is es-

Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81R00560R000100010011-9