Documents / Hearing transcript

House Armed Services Committee hearing on UFOs, April 5, 1966

Internet Archive · 1966-04-05 · 37 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is an excerpt from the record of the April 5, 1966 House Armed Services Committee hearing on UFOs, which the Internet Archive holds. It includes correspondence about the September 3, 1965 Exeter, New Hampshire sighting involving Raymond E. Fowler, Project Blue Book and the Exeter police officers, plus a letter on the matter from Minority Leader Ford. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Major Hector Quintanilla and Secretary Harold Brown testify. They say the police officers' observation remains unidentified and that no radar data or jet scrambles were involved.

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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 bead 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, 19601
FIRST UFO's OF SEASON ARE SroitTE
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 caOdbiJts 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 MICHIOAN CEDS AND OFFICIAL SIOHT MYSTERIOUS OBJECT
HILLSDALE, MIcH., 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 untdenHfled 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 ciffl defense director, said
the object dimmed its lights when police cars approached, brightened again when
they went away, and dodged an hitport 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 shabe as roughly

Cases discussed

  • The Exeter Incident 1965
    Route 150 in Kensington, N.H., on September 3, 1965; Officers Bertrand and Hunt; regarded as unidentified

About this file

Hearing transcript, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 37 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.