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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.
“University of Colorado”1 page
WHY AREN'T THERE NUMEROUS PHOTOS OF UFOs IF THEY REALLY EXIST? Here is a question for which I regard available answers as still unsatisfactory. I concede that it does seem reasonable to expect that there should, over the past 20 years, be substantially more good photos than are known to exist. Although I do not regard that puzzle as satisfactorily answered, neither do I think that it can be safely concluded that the paucity of good photos disproves the reality of the UFOs. Many imponderables enter into consideration of this question. 1. Some general considerations: If one had reliable statistics on the fraction of the population that carried loaded cameras with them at any randomly selected moment (I would guess it would be only of the order of one per cent) and had figures bearing on the probability that a UFO witness would think of taking a photo before his observation terminated, then these might be combined with available information on numbers of sightings to attempt crude estimates of the expected number of UFO photos that should have accumulated in 20 years. Then one would need to weight the data for likelihood that any given photo would find its way to someone who would make it known in scientific circles, and then this figure might be compared with the very small number of photos that appear to stand the test of the exceedingly close scrutiny photos demand." A general rule among serious UFO investigators with whom I have been in touch is that the UFO photo is no better than the photographer (Hall). Many hoax photos have been brought forth. A UFO photo can be sold; this attracts hoax and fraud to an extent not matched in anecdotal accounts. Many photos have been clearly established as fraudulent in nature; far larger numbers seem so suspicious on circumstantial grounds that no serious investigator gives them more than casual attention. An interesting, even if very crude check on the likelihood of securing photos of UFOs from the general populace is afforded by fireball events. on April 25, 1966, a fireball rated at about magnitude -10, arced northward across the northeastern U.S. From the total geographic area over which this fireball was visually detected, the population count is about 40 million persons. According to one account (Ref. 43), 200 visual accounts were turned in, and I infer that only 6 photos were submitted. The fireball was visible for a relatively long time as meteors go, about 30 seconds, and was, of course, at a great altitude (25 to 110 km). That 6 photos were submitted (at time of publication of the cited article) from a potential population of sighters of 40 million might seem to argue that perhaps we really cannot expect to get many photos of UFOs. However, one of the principal reasons for citing the foregoing is to bring out the difficulties in drawing any firm conclusions. A phenomenon lasting 30 seconds scarcely permits the observer time to collect his wits and to swing into photographic action if he does have a loaded camera. UFO sightings have often extended over much longer than 30 seconds, by contrast, affording far better opportunity to think of snapping a photo. But, on the other hand, sighting a UFO in daytime at close range, judging from my own witness-interviewing experience, is a far more disconcerting and astonishing matter than viewing a brilliant meteor. Thus one can go back and forth, with so little assurance of meaningfulness of any of the relevant weight factors that the end result is not satisfactory. I simply do not know what to think about the paucity of good UFO photos, though I do feel uncomfortable about it. 2. Case 40. Corning, Calif., July 4, 1967: A case that may shed at least a bit of light on the paucity of photos involves a multiple-witness sighting near dawn at Corning, Calif., on 7/4/67. I have interviewed four witnesses who sighted the object from two separate locations involving lines of sight at roughly right angles, serving to confirm the location of the object as almost directly over Highway 5 just west of Corning. Jay Munger, proprietor of an all-night bowling alley, was having coffee with two police officers, Frank Rakes and James Overton, when he spotted the object through the front window of his place. All three rushed out to the parking lot to observe what they described as a large flattened sphere or possibly football- shaped object, with a brilliant light shining upward from the top and a dimmer light shining down from the underside. The dawn light was such that the object was visible by reflected light even though the object's beams were discernible. It appeared at first to be hovering almost motionless at a few hundred feet above ground, and all three felt it lay about over Hwy. 5 (which estimate proved correct from sightings made on the highway by the
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