James E. McDonald statement, Symposium on UFOs, House Committee on Science and Astronautics

observed facts. Nash has stated to T.M. Olsen (author of Ref. 11) that one of the most accurate accounts of the facts
has been given by Menzel (Ref. 25), adding that Menzel's explanation seems entirely out of the question to him. A
half-dozen witnesses on the ground also saw unknowns at that time, according to official investigators.
The objects had definite edges, and glowed "like hot coals", except when they blinked out, as they did in unison just
after the first six were joined by the latter two. When the lights came back on, Nash and Fortenberry saw them
climbing westward, eight in line, north of Newport News. The objects climbed above the altitude of the DC-4 and
then blinked out in random order and were seen no more.
Discussion:
Menzel explains this famous sighting as resulting from a searchlight playing on thin haze layers, an almost entirely
ad hoc assumption, and one that will not account for the amber color, nor for the distinct edges, nor for the final
climb-out of the objects. The rapid motion, abrupt course- reversal, and the change from negative to positive angles
of elevation of the line of sight to the unknowns seem to preclude any meteorological-opti explanation, and there is,
of course, no possibility of explaining cases like this in terms of ball lightning, meteors, balloons, or many of the
other frequently adduced phenomena. Nash has stated that he feels these were "intelligently operated craft." This
case is officially "Unidentified".
9. Many other pilot-sightings, both recent and old, could readily be cited. Not only civilian pilots but dozens of
military pilots have sighted wholly unconventional objects defying ready explanation (see esp. Ref. 10 and Ref. 7
for many such instances). Thus, the answer to the question, "Why don't pilots see UFOs?" is; "They do."
WHY ARE UFOs ONLY SEEN BY LONE INDIVIDUALS, WHY NO
MULTIPLE-WITNESS SIGHTINGS?
It is true that there are more single-witness UFO reports than multiple- witness cases. But, to indicate that by no
means all interesting UFO reports entail lone witnesses, consider the following examples:
1. Case 9. Farmington, N.M., March 17, 1950:
In the course of checking this famous case that made short-lived press headlines in 1950, I interviewed seven
Farmington witnesses out of a total that was contemporarily estimated at "hundreds" to "over a thousand." (Refs. 5,
25) It became clear from my interviewing that the streets were full of residents looking up at the strange aerial
display that day. It was not only a multiple-witness case, but also a multiple object case. My checking was done
seventeen years after the fact, so the somewhat confused recollective impressions I gained are not surprising. But
that unidentified aerial objects moved in numbers over Farmington on 3/17/50 seems clear. One witness with whom
I spoke, Clayton J. Boddy, estimated that he had observed a total of 20 to 30 disc-shaped objects, including one red
one substantially larger than the others, moving at high velocity across the Farmington sky on the late morning of
3/17/50. John Eaton, a Farmington realtor, described being called out of a barbershop when the excitement began
and seeing a high, fast object suddenly joined by many objects that darted after it. Eaton sent me a copy of an
account he had jotted down shortly after the incident. A former Navy pilot, Eaton put their height at perhaps 15,000
ft. "The object that has me puzzled was the one we saw that was definitely red. It was seen by several and stated by
all to be red and travelling northeast at a terrific speed." Eaton also spoke of the way the smaller objects would "turn
and appear to be flat, then turn and appear to be round", a description matching an oscillating disc-shaped object. No
one described seeing any wings or tails, and the emphasis upon the darting, "bee-like" motion was in several of the
accounts I obtained from witnesses. I obtained more details, but the above must suffice here for a brief summary.
Discussion:
This once-headlined, but now almost forgotten multiple witness case has been explained as resulting from the
breakup of a Skyhook balloon (Ref. 25). Skyhooks do shatter at the very low temperatures of the upper troposphere,
and occasionally break into a number of smaller pieces. But to suggest that such fragments of transparent plastic at
altitudes of the order of 40-50,000 ft could be detected by the naked eye, and to intimate that these distant objects of