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

Princeton (kirkmcd archive) · 1968-07-29 · 55 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

Open the PDF at page 55 Original source ↗

“Nevers”15 pages

  • p. 2 …bulk, covering innumerable intriguing cases I had never before heard of, and (above all) after the…
  • p. 6 …problems diminish in significance, though they can never be overlooked. A frequent objection to serious consideration…
  • p. 8 …out-of-the-way rural areas but never over large cities? Why don't large groups…
  • p. 10 …Smith emphasized that they were never certain of sizes
  • p. 15 …Manning remarked to me that he'd never seen anything else like it before or since…
  • p. 22 …Many other sources could be cited to show that the intimation that UFOs are never seen…
  • p. 27 …After the official "explanation" was publicized, he decided he'd never report another one. I predict…
  • p. 28 …Menzel quotes Tombaugh as saying, "I have never seen anything like it before or since, and…
  • p. 31 …In the ensuing two decades, he has never again seen anything like it. Clearly, the probability…
  • p. 32 …Moore never got a sufficiently clear view to identify any finer details if any were present…
  • p. 38 …the past twenty years, cases that ought never have been so labeled, had the evaluators kept…
  • p. 39 …Ground radar stations never detected the unknown that was seen visually and contacted by airborne radar…
  • p. 41 …7) but could never close with the unknown as it continued on its northbound course. At…
  • p. 44 …All three said they had never before seen anything like it. Munger decided to phone his…
  • p. 50 …referred to repeatedly in Menzel's writings, never with any quantitative discussion of precisely what he…
• 29. Davidson, L., 1966; Flying Saucers: An Analysis of the Air Force Project Bluebook Special Report No.
14, Ramsey, New Jersey, Ramsey-Wallace Corp.
• 30. American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1967; Problems of Journalism, Proceedings of the 1967
Convention of the ASNE, April 20-22, 1967, Washington, D.C., 296 pp.
• 31. Keyhoe, D.E., 1950: Flight 117 and the Flying Saucer, True Magazine, August 1950, p. 24.
• 32. Salt Lake Tribune, Tuesday, October 3, 1961, p. 1.
• 33. UFO Investigator, Vol. 3, No. 11, Jan-Feb 1967.
• 34. LANS, 1960: Report on an Unidentified Flying Object Over Hollywood, California, Feb. 5, 1960 and
Feb. 6, 1960, Los Angeles NICAP Sub- committee, 21 pp., mimeo.
• 35. UFO Investigator, Vol. 1, No. 12, April 1961.
• 36. McDonald, J.E., 1968: UFOs - An International Scientific Problem, paper presented at a Symposium on
Unidentified Flying Objects, Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, Montreal, Canada, March 12,
1968.
• 37. Darrach, H.B., Jr., and Robert Ginna, 1952: "Have We Visitors from Space?", Life Magazine, April 7,
p. 80 ff.
• 38. Zigel, F., 1968: "Unidentified Flying Objects," Soviet Life, February, 1968, No. 2 (137), pp. 27-29.
• 39. Klass, Philip J., 1968: UFOs - Identified, New York, Random House, 290 pp.
• 40. International News Service, datelined Sept. 12, 1951, Dover, Del.
• 41. New York Times, June 2, 1954; New York World Telegram, June 1, 1954; New York Post, June 1,
1954; New York Daily News, June 2, 1954.
• 42. Official file on October 15, 1948 Fukuoka case, Project Bluebook.
• 43. Melbourne (Australia) Sun, December 16, 1954; Melbourne Herald, December 16, 1954; Auckland
Star, December 16, 1954.
• 44. Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1957; New York Journal-American, May 10, 1957.
• 45. APRO Bulletin, May-June, 1965, p. 1-4.

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