Documents / Hearing transcript
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.
6052 [From the Portland (Maine) Evening Ezpress, Jan. 17, 19066 THOSE FLYINGO SAUCERS"-AiR FORCE EXPLAININGs-AWAY OF UFO's DEEPENS MYSTERY (Editor's note: This is the first of a series about UFO's (unidentified flying objects by Bulkley S. Griffin, executive editor of the Evening Express WAsh- ington Bureau. He wrote the stories after visiting the UFO office of the U.S. Air Force.) WASHiNoTON, D.C.-The Air Force handling of the unidentified flying objects (UPO's) continues to be something of a mystery. Its persistent endeavors to explain all the UFO sightings as misidentitlcation of ordinary objects, such as stars and balloons, has become so conspicuous as to raise questioning In the minds of a growing number of citizens. Some of these explanations seem to run counter to both logic and commonsense. Running along with these explainings- away is an apparent Air Force lack of enthusiasm-especially at high levels-to do a thorough job of investigating sightings. Headquarters of the Air Force investigation and conclusions on unidentified flying objects-they call the enterprise Project Blue Book-is at Wright-Patter- son Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. In charge of Project Blue Book is Maj. Hector Quintanilla. Recently this writer has made two more visits to Wright-Patterson to study the files of Project Blue Book and to talk with Major Quintanilla, the architect of the military's final public verdicts on the UFO's. A multitttde of UFO sightings In the last dozen months has kept the Air Force busy trying to explain-away and has rendered the public more conscious and curious than ever about these strange, usually lighted, objects in the sky. The Air Force and the burdened Project Blue Book have often resorted to the expe- dient of lumping a number of sightings together-not naming any particular one-and furnishing a generalized catchall explanAtion. This is what it did'respecting an extraordinary number of sightings in the Southwest around the beginning of last August The very number of the UFO's and of the sighters of them shook some public confidence thereabouts in both the Air Force's, knowledge of the subject and in the good faith of its explainings- away. Extracts from dispatches sent outrat that time by the two ziadhinal wire serv- ices will refresh memories and provide a good idea of the magnitude of the UFO performance. On Tuesday, August 3, the New York Times and other newspapers carried an Associated Press dispatch from Oklahoma City, dated August 2. It began: "Authorities In Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas were deluged last night and early today (August 2) by reports of unidentified objects seen flying in the sky. "The Sedgwick County sheriff's office at Wichita, Kans., said the Weather Bureau had tracked several of thew at altitudes of 6,000 to 9,000 feet. "The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said that Tinker Air Force Base here (Okla- homa City) had tracked four of the unidentified flying objects on Its radar screen at one time, estimating their altitude at about 22,000 feet. A Tinker spokesman refused to confirm or deny the reports of radat' observations " "Reports poured in" from 21 cities and towns, continued the Associated Press dispatch. The 21 are named :°7 are listed in Texas, 3 in New Mexico, 5 in 0kla- home, and 6 in Kansas. The United Press International, in a dispatch in the evening of August 2, named eight States. "Reports of sightings by eye poured in from Kansas, Texas, Okla- homa, New Mexico, Colorado, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Okla- homans probably saw the most." In a dispatch from Oklahoma City dated August 4, the United Press Interna- tional declared that "thousands of persons across the Nation's midlands and Southwest again last night reported seeing mysterious flashing, winking, and sparkling phenomena that sped and sometimes zigzagged across the skies. 'T"he Air Force contends most of the sightings were probably stars or planets. It was the fourth consecutive night of UFO sightings. A lot of people took Issue with the Air Force's claim that they were stars or planets." It can be mentioned In passing that radar does not pick up stars or planets. In one United Press International dispatch it is stated that "Oklahomans prob- ably saw the most" of these sightings. The Oklahoma sightings therefore provide
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.