Documents / Hearing transcript
This is the printed record of a July 29, 1968 symposium on unidentified flying objects held by the Committee on Science and Astronautics of the U.S. House of Representatives, chaired by Rep. J. Edward Roush. The committee heard statements from six scientists: J. Allen Hynek, James E. McDonald, Carl Sagan, Robert L. Hall, James A. Harder and Robert M. L. Baker. It also printed papers from Donald Menzel, Stanton Friedman, Frank Salisbury and others. Hynek argued that puzzling UFO reports from competent witnesses deserve serious scientific study.
“UFO Research Society”10 pages
• 97 I think that it would be rather pointless to then ask, what is the color of the horse, what does he eat, how could be have gotten there, who installed the bath tub? The question is is there a horse in the bath tub? This is a question I think we should direct ourselves to first. Is there anything to these reports? Now, coming to the question of the Russian situation, I do know from my visits behind the Iron Curtain, or as they like to speak of it, the Socialist countries, there have been sightings behind the Iron Curtain. In fact, if you were to have good translations, it would be difficult to distinguish between a UFO report from Russia,from Brazil, from Argentina, from Japan, or from the United States. There is a rather rough pattern. Now, the Russians, to the best of my knowledge, have given no offi- cial recognition to the problem, but I do know, from personal infor- mation,that there is sort of a ground-swell interest, or a latent interest, that pops up here and there, but apparently they have as much diffi- culty in getting official recognition as we do. Mr.Roysx.I would first point out that I realize that a visit to Russia doesn't necessarily make a person an expert or give him all the infor- mation. A year ago June I did visit Russia. I had conversations with a few of their people, including, my pronunciation may not be cor- rect, Dr. Millionshchikov and the head of their weather bureau, I believe it is Petrov, and several others, and I repeatedly asked the question,"Do you believe in unidentified flying objects?" In each in- stance they merely laughed. That was the response that I got. Since then, however, I have observed there have been papers published in Russia discussing the phenomena, and discussing it in scientific terms. It seems to me that any discussion such as ours today raises the question of the existence of extraterrestrial life. That is one reason we asked Dr. Sagan to come here. I'm not real sure, Dr. Sagan, whether you stated whether there is or whether there is not extraterrestrial life. I was watching for that, and I don't believe I heard you say it. Dr. SAGAN. Congressman Roush, I have enough difficulty trying to determine if there is intelligent life on Earth, to be sure if there is intelligent life anywhere else. [Laughter.] If we knew there was life on other planets, then we would be able to save ourselves a lot of agony finding out. It is just because the problem is so significant, and we don't have the answers at hand we need to pursue the subject. I don't know. It beats me. Mr. RousH. I believe you coauthored a book with a Russian, is that correct? Dr.SAGAN. That is correct. Mr.Ro-u RT.Does Dr.Shklovskii share your views? Dr.SAGAN.I think he shares my restraint. I think both of us would say we think this is an extremely impor- tant subject, that we are on the frontier of being able to find out, but that neither of us knows whether there is or isn't life out there. Let me say if it turns out there isn't life on Mars,that is almost as interest- ing as if we find there is life on Mars, because then we have to ask, what happened different on Mars than on the Earth,so that life arose here and not there. That will surely give us a very profound entry into the question of follow-up of evolution and the cosmic context.
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