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

against the wind," seems reasonable. The cruising speed of a Constellation is around 300 mph, so during the
reported 10 minutes' duration of the crew's sighting, they moved about 50 miles relative to the air, so it would have
been impossible for them to have kept a weather balloon in sight for this long. Furthermore, it was about 1.5 hours
after scheduled balloon- release time, so that even a small balloon would have either burst or passed to altitudes too
high to be visible. Finally, with flow out of the southwest sector from surface to above 20,000 ft, any balloon from
Grenier AFB would have been carried along a trajectory nowhere near where the TWA crew spotted the "large,
white-colored, disc-like object" overhead. 5. In my files are many other "balloon" cases from the past twenty years,
cases that ought never have been so labeled, had the evaluators kept relevant quantitative points in mind. To ignore
most of the salient features of a sighting in order to advance an easy "balloon" explanation is only one more of many
different ways in which some very puzzling UFO observations have been shoved out of sight.
WHY AREN'T UFOs EVER TRACKED BY RADAR?
The skeptic who asks this question, and many do, is asking a very reasonable question. With so much radar
equipment deployed all over the world, and especially within the United States, it seems sensible to expect that, if
there are any airborne devices maneuvering in our airspace, they ought to show up on radars once in a while. They
do indeed, and have been doing so for all of the two decades that radar has been in widespread use. Here, as with so
many other general misconceptions about the true state of the UFO problem, we encounter disturbingly large
amounts of misinformation. As with other categories of UFO misinformation, the only adequate corrective is
detailed discussion of large numbers of individual cases. Only space limitations preclude discussion of dozens of
striking radar-tracking incidents involving UFOs, both here and abroad; they do exist.
1. Case 35. Fukuoka, Japan, October 15, 1948:
A very early radar-UFO case, still held as an official Unidentified, involved an attempted interception of the
unknown object by an F-61 flying near Fukuoka, Japan, at about 11:00 p.m. local time on 10/15/48. The official file
on this incident is lengthy (Ref. 42); only the highlights can be recounted here. The F-61 (with pilot and radar
operator) made six attempts to close with the unknown, from which a radar return was repeatedly obtained with the
airborne radar. Each time the radarman would get a contact and the F-61 pilot tried to close, the unknown would
accelerate and pass out of range. Although the radar return seemed comparable to that of a conventional aircraft,
"the radar observer estimated that on three of the sightings, the object traveled seven miles in
approximately twenty seconds, giving a speed of approximately 1200 mph."
In another passage, the official case-file remarks that
"when the F-61 approached within 12,000 feet, the target executed a 180 degree turn and dived
under the F-61."
adding that
"the F-61 attempted to dive with the target but was unable to keep pace."
The report mentions that the unknown
"could go almost straight up or down out of radar elevation limits,"
and asserts further that
"this aircraft seemed to be cognizant of the whereabouts of the F-61 at all times..."
The F-61 airmen, 1st Lt. Oliver Hemphill (pilot) and 2d Lt. Barton Halter (radarman) are described in the report as
being