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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
independent witnesses). Their estimates of size varied from a diameter of maybe 50 feet to about 100 ft. It was silent, and the three men all emphasized to me that the quiet morning would have permitted hearing any kind of conventional aircraft engines. All three said they had never before seen anything like it. Munger decided to phone his wife to have her see the thing, and by the time he came back out from phoning, the object had moved southward along the highway by about a quarter of a mile or so. At about that juncture, it began to accelerate, and moved off almost horizontally, passing out of sight to the south in an additional time estimated at about 10-20 seconds. This case is relevant to the photo question since Officer Overton was on duty and had in his patrol car both binoculars and a loaded camera. When I asked him why he didn't try to get a picture of the object, he admitted that he was so astonished by the object that he never even thought of dashing for the camera. I asked Munger to go through the motions that would yield a time estimate of the period he was inside phoning, to get a rough notion of how long Overton, along with Rakes, looked at it without thinking of the camera. The time was thus estimated by Munger as about a minute and a half, possibly two minutes. Discussion: It may be hazardous to try to draw any conclusions from such a case, but I do think it suggests the uncertainty we face in trying to assess the likelihood of any given witness getting a photo of a UFO he happens to see. A colleague of mine at the University of Arizona was out photographing desert flowers on a day when a most unusual meteorological event occurred nearby -- a tornado funnel came down from a cloud. Despite having the loaded camera at hand, despite having just been taking other pictures, and despite the great rarity of Arizona tornadoes, that colleague conceded that it wasn't till much later that the thought of getting a photo rose to consciousness, by which time the funnel was long since dissipated. In the Trinidad, Colo., case of March 23, 1966 (Case 14 above), Mrs. Frank R. Hoch pointed out to me that she had loaded still and movie cameras inside the house, yet never thought about getting a photo. Again, the reason cited was the fascination with the objects being viewed. I think this "factor of astonishment" would have to be allowed for in any attempt to estimate expected numbers of photos, but I would be quite unsure of just how to evaluate the factor quantitatively. 3. Case 41. Edwards AFB, May 3, 1957: Occasionally, one could argue, UFOs ought to come into areas where there were persons engaged in photographic work, who were trained to react a bit faster, and who would secure some photos. One such instance evidently occurred at Edwards AFB on the morning of 5/3/57. I have managed to locate and interview three persons who saw the resultant photos. The two who observed the UFO and obtained a number of photos of it were James D. Bittick and John R. Gettys, Jr., both of whom I have interviewed. They were at the time Askania cameramen on the test range, and spotted the domed-disc UFO just as they reached Askania #4 site at Edwards, a bit before 8:00 a.m. that day. They immediately got into communication with the range director, Frank E. Baker, whom I have also interviewed, and they asked if anyone else was manning an Askania that could be used to get triangulation shots. Since no other camera operators were on duty at other sites, Baker told them to fire manually, and they got a number of shots before the object moved off into the distance. Bittick estimated that the object lay about a mile away when they got the first shot, though when first seen he put it at no more than 500 yards off. He and Gettys both said it had a golden color, looked somewhat like an inverted plate with a dome on top, and had square holes or panels around the dome. Gettys thought that the holes were circular not square. It was moving away from them, seemed to glow with its own luminosity, and had a hazy, indistinct halo around its rim, both mentioned. The number of shots taken is uncertain; Gettys thought perhaps 30. The object was lost from sight by the time it moved out to about five miles or so, and they did not see it again. They drove into the base and processed the film immediately. All three of the men I interviewed emphasized that the shots taken at the closer range were very sharp, except for the hazy rim. They said the dome and the markings or openings showed in the photos. The photos were shortly taken by Base military authorities and were never seen again by the men. In a session later that day, Bittick and Carson were informed that they had seen a weather balloon distorted by the desert atmospheric effects, an interpretation that neither of them accepted since, as-they stated to me, they saw weather balloons being released frequently there and knew what balloons looked like. Accounts got into local newspapers, as well as on wire services (Ref. 44). An Edwards spokesman was quoted in the _Los Angeles Times_ as saying, "This desert air does crazy things." An INS wire- story said, "intelligence officers at Edwards...would say almost nothing of the incident."
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