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This is the prepared statement James E. McDonald, a senior physicist at the University of Arizona's Institute of Atmospheric Physics, submitted to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics for its July 29, 1968 Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects. He draws on hundreds of witness interviews and weighs eight hypotheses. His conclusion is that UFOs are probably extraterrestrial surveillance devices. He argues that scientists have wrongly neglected the subject and urges much more scientific investigation and further Congressional hearings.
5. Case 5. Willow Grove, Pa., May 21, 1966:
Skipping over many other pilot observations to a more recent one which I have personally checked, I call attention
to a close-range airborne sighting of a domed-disc, seen under midday conditions by two observers. One of them,
William C. Powell, of Radnor, Pa., is a pilot with 18,000 logged flight hours. He and a passenger, Miss Muriel
McClave, were flying in Powell' s Luscombe in the Philadelphia area on the afternoon of 5/21/66 when an object
that had been first spotted as it apparently followed an outbound flight of Navy jets from Willow Grove NAS made
a sharp (non-banking) turn and headed for Powell's plane on a near-collision course. As the object passed close by,
at a distance that Powell put at roughly 100 yards, they both got a good look at the object. It was circular in planform
and had no wings or visible means of propulsion, both witnesses emphasized to me in interviews. The upper domed
portion they described as "porcelain-white", while the lower discoid portion was bright red ("dayglow red" Powell
put it). It was slightly below their altitude as it passed on their right, and Powell pointed out that it was entirely solid,
for it obscured the distant horizon areas. His brief comment about its solidity and reality was, "It was just like
looking at a Cadillac." He estimated its airspeed as perhaps 200 mph, and it moved in a steady, non- fluttering
manner. He estimated its diameter at perhaps 20 feet. Miss McClave thought it might have been nearer 40 feet
across. Each put the thickness-to- diameter ratio as about one-half. After it passed their starboard wing, Powell could
see it only by looking back over his shoulder through a small aft window, but Miss McClave had it in full view
when suddenly, she stated to me, it disappeared instantaneously, and they saw no more of it.
Discussion:
Powell flies executive transports for a large Eastern firm, after years of military and airline duty. I have discussed
the case with one of his superiors, who speaks without qualification for Powell's trustworthiness. At a UFO panel
discussion held on April 22, 1967 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors , Powell was
asked to summarize his sighting. His account is in the proceedings of that session (Ref. 30). I know of no natural
phenomenon that could come close to explaining this sighting. The visibility was about 15 miles, they were flying in
the clear at 4500 ft, and the object passed nearby. A pilot with 18,000 hours flight experience is not capable of
precise midair distance and speed estimates, but his survival has probably hinged on not commonly making errors of
much over a factor of two. Given the account and accepting its reliability, it seems necessary to say that here was
one more case of what Gen. Samford described as "credible observers seeing relatively incredible objects". I felt that
Powell's summary of his sighting at the ASNE meeting was particularly relevant because, in addition to my being on
the panel there, Dr. D. H. Menzel and Mr. Philip J. Klass, both strong exponents of meteorological-type UFO
theories, were present to hear his account. I cannot see how one could explain this incident in terms of
meteorological optics nor in terms of ball lighting plasmoids. Here again, we appear to be dealing with a meaningful
observation of some vehicle or craft of non-terrestrial origin. Its reported instantaneous disappearance defies (as
does the same phenomenon reported by J. B. Whitted and numerous other UFO witnesses) ready explanation in
terms of present-day scientific knowledge. Powell reported his sighting at Willow Grove NAS, but it engendered no
interest.
6. Case 6. Eastern Quebec, June 29, 1954:
A case in which I have not been able to directly interview any witnesses, but about which a great deal is on record,
through contemporary press accounts, through the pilot's subsequent report, and through recent interviews by BBC
staff members, occurred near Seven Islands, Quebec, just after sunset on 6/29/54. A BOAC Stratocruiser, bound
from New York to London with 51 passengers, was followed for 18 minutes (about 80 miles of airpath) by one large
object and six smaller objects that flew curious "formations" about it. The pilot of the Stratocruiser was Capt. James
Howard, a highly respected BOAC flight officer still flying with BOAC. At the time, he had 7500 flight hours.
About 20 witnesses, including both passengers and crew, gave statements as to the unprecedented nature of these
objects (Refs. 4, 10, and Associated Press wire stories datelined June 30, 1954).
Discussion:
The flight was at 19,000 ft in an area of generally fair weather, with good visibility, attested by Howard and by
weather maps for that day. No obvious optical or electrical explanation seems capable of accounting for this long-
duration sighting. The objects were dark, not glowing, and their position relative to the sunset point precludes
sundogs as an explanation. Mirage phenomena could not account for the eighty-mile persistence, nor for the type of
systematic shape-changes described by the witnesses, nor for the geometrically regular formations taken up by the Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 55 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.