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

One of the outstanding UFO references (though little-known in scientific circles) is _The UFO Evidence_, edited by
R. H. Hall and published by NICAP (Ref. 10). It summarizes about 750 UFO cases in the NICAP files up to about
1964. I have cross-checked a sufficiently large sample of cases from this reference to have confidence in its
generally very high reliability. A sequel volume, now in editorial preparation at NICAP, will cover the 1964-68
period. Reference 8, by Bloecher, is one of the few sources of extensive documentation (here primarily from
national newspaper sources) of the large cluster of sightings in a period of just a few weeks in the summer of 1947;
its study is essential to appreciation of the opening phases of the publicly recognized UFO problem. Reference 7 is
another now-accessible source of extremely significant UFO documentation; it is unfortunate that no generally
accessible version of Reference 6 exists, though the Moss Subcommittee, through pleas of Dr. Leon Davidson, has
managed to get it into a status of at least limited accessibility. I am indebted to Davidson for a recent opportunity to
study it for details I missed when I saw it two years ago at
The 1956 book by Ruppelt (Ref. 5) is a source whose authenticity I have learned, through much personal cross-
checking, is far higher than I surmised when I first read it a dozen years ago. It was for years difficult for me to
believe that the case-material which he summarized could come from real cases, References 5 and 6, plus other
sources, do, however, now attest to Ruppelt's generally high reliability. Similarly Keyhoe's books (Refs. 3 and 4)
emerge as sources of UFO case material whose reliability far exceeds my own first estimates thereof. As a scientist,
I would have been much more comfortable about Keyhoe's books had they been shorn of extensive direct quotes and
suspenseful dramatizations; but I must stress that much checking on my part has convinced me that Keyhoe's
reportorial accuracy was almost uniformly high. Scientists will tend to be put off by some of his scientific
commentary, as well as by his style; but on UFO case material, his reliability must be recognized as impressive.
(Perhaps it is well to insert here the general proviso that none of these sources, including myself, can be expected to
be characterized by 100 per cent accuracy in a problem as intrinsically messy as the UFO problem; here I am trying
to draw attention to sources whose reliability appears to be in the 90+% range. )
A useful collection of 160 UFO cases drawn from a wide variety of sources has been published by Olsen (Ref. 11),
32 of which he obtained directly from the official files of Project Bluebook, a feature of particular interest. A book
devoted to a single short period of numerous UFO observations within a small geographic area, centering around an
important sighting near Exeter, N.H., is Fuller's _Incident at Exeter_ (Ref. 12). Having checked personally on a
number of features of the main Sept. 3, 1965, sighting, and having checked indirectly on other aspects, I would
describe Reference 12 as one of the significant source items on UFOs.
Several books by the Lorenzens, organizers of APRO, the oldest continuing UFO investigating group in this
country, contain valuable UFO reference material (Ref. 13). Through their writing, and especially through the
_APRO Bulletin_, they have transmitted from South American sources numerous unusual sightings from that
country. I have had almost no opportunity to cross-check those sightings, but am satisfied that some quite reliable
sources are being drawn upon. An extremely unusual category of cases, those involving reports of humanoid
occupants of landed UFOs, has been explored to a greater extent by APRO than by NICAP. Like NICAP, I have
tended to skirt such cases on tactical grounds; the reports are bizarre, and the circumstances of all such sightings are
automatically charged in a psychological sense not found in other types of close-range sightings of mere machine-
like devices. Since I shall not take up below this occupant problem, let me add the comment that I do regard the total
number of such seemingly reliable reports (well over a hundred came just from central France in the outstanding
1954 sighting wave in that country), far too great to brush aside. Expert psychological opinion is badly needed in
assessing such reports (expert but not close-minded opinion). For the record, I should have to state that my
interviewing results dispose me toward acceptance of the existence of humanoid occupants in some UFOs. I would
not argue with those who say that this might be the single most important element of the entire UFO puzzle; I would
only say that most of my efforts over the past two years, being aimed at arousing a new degree of scientific interest
among my colleagues in the physical sciences, have led me to play down even the little that I do know about
occupant sightings. One or two early attempts to touch upon that point within the time-limits of a one- hour
colloquium taught me that one loses more than he gains in speaking briefly about UFO occupants. (Occupant
sightings must be carefully distinguished from elaborate "contact-claims" with the Space Brothers; I hold no brief at
all for the latter in terms of my present knowledge and interviewing experience. But occupants there _seem_ to be,
and contact of a limited sort may well have occurred, according to certain of the reports. I do not regard myself as
very well-informed on this point, and will say little more on this below.)
It is, of course, somewhat more difficult to assess the reliability of foreign UFO references. Michel (Ref. 13) has
assembled a day-by-day account of the remarkable French UFO wave of the fall of 1954, translated into English by