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

angular-size estimating. The objects, Mrs. Hoch said, moved up and down in bobbing manner as they progressed
slowly westward along the ridgeline. Occasionally they tilted, glinting in the late-afternoon sun as if metallic. No
sound was mentioned by any witness except one young boy whose attention wast drawn to the object by a
"ricocheting sound", as he put it. DiPaolo's observations were made with 7x35 binoculars; he also described the
objects as metallic in appearance and shaped like a saucer upside down. His attention had been called to it by
neighborhood boys playing outside. Mrs. Amelia Berry, in another part of Trinidad, evidently saw the objects
somewhat earlier, when they were farther east, circling near Fisher's Peak, but she was uncertain of the precise time.
She saw only two, and remarked that they seemed to "glitter", and she described them as "saucer shaped", "oblong
and narrow". Mrs. J. R. Duran, horseback-riding with a 12-year-old son on the opposite (north) side of town also
saw two objects, "flat on the bottom, and domed on top, silvery", when her son called them to her attention. She
described them as "floating along slowly, bobbing up and down, somewhat to the west of Fisher's Peak. She, like the
other witnesses, was positive that these were not airplanes. No one described anything like wings or tail. A number
of witnesses were so close that, had this been an unconventional helicopter, its engine-noise would have been
unmistakable.
Discussion:
Notwithstanding differences in the witness accounts (more of which would emerge from a more complete
recounting), the common features of the observers' descriptions would seem to rule out known types of aircraft,
astronomical, meteorological, and other explanations.
7. Case 15. Redlands, Calif., February 4, 1968:
A still more recent multiple-witness case of great interest was well documented by three University of Redlands
professors shortly after it occurred on the evening of 2/4/68. APRO plans a fairly detailed summary report. Dr.
Philip Seff kindly sent me a copy of the witness-testimony he and his colleagues secured in interviewing about
twenty out of an estimated hundred-plus witnesses to this low-altitude sighting in a residential area of Redlands.
Because I understand that Dr. Harder will be giving a fairly detailed report of this case to your Committee, I shall
give only a much- abbreviated version. At 7:20 p.m., many persons went outdoors to investigate either (a) the
unusual barking of neighborhood dogs, or (b) a disturbing and unusual sound. Soon many persons up and down
several streets were observing an object round in planform, estimated at perhaps 50-60 feet in diameter, moving
slowly towards the east northeast at an altitude put by most witnesses as perhaps 300 feet. Glowing ports or panels
lay around its upper perimeter and "jet-like" orange-red flames or something resembling flames emanated from a
number of sources on the undersurface. A number of odd physiological effects were remarked by various witnesses,
and the animal-reactions were a notable feature of this case. The object at one point rose abruptly by some hundreds
of feet before continuing its somewhat "jerky" motion to the east. It then hovered a short time and moved off with
acceleration to the northwest.
Discussion:
The Redlands University trio inquired concerning radar detection , but were informed that the nearest radar was at
March AFB, Riverside, and the beam clearing intervening ridges could not detect so low a target over Redlands. An
interesting aspect of press coverage of UFOs, a very characteristic aspect, is illustrated here. The local Redlands-
area papers carried only short pieces on the event; beyond that no press coverage occurred, as far as I have been able
to ascertain. Evidently even the state wires did not carry it. (I think this fact deserves very strong emphasis. One has
to see national clipping-service coverage, drawing upon many small-town papers, to gain even a dim glimpse of the
astonishing number of UFO reports that occur steadily, but go unreported on state and national wires so that none
but very diligent UFO investigators have any appreciation of the true frequency of UFO sightings. This is no "press
clampdown", no censorship; wire editors simply "know" that there's nothing to all this nonsense about UFOs. A
local story will be run simply for its local interest, but that interest falls off steeply with radial distance from the
observation site.) Thus, we must confront a situation, developed over 20 years, in which over a hundred citizens in a
city of about 30,000 population can see an utterly unconventional aerial machine just overhead and, almost by the
time the dogs have stopped barking, press and officialdom are uninterested. Dr. Seff told me just last week that he
had encountered a Redlands University coed who had seen the object (he hadn't interviewed her previously), and she
seemed still terrified by the incident. I believe that your Committee must recognize an unfilled scientific obligation
to get to the bottom of such matters. 8. Many other multiple-witness cases could be cited, some from my own
interviewing experience, far more from other sources within this country and abroad. An October 28, 1954 sighting
in Rome was estimated to have been viewed by thousands of people, one of whom was U.S. Ambassador Clare