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.
“Nevers”43 pages
103 In the second place, they have not generally involved a prolonged. observation of a phenomenon by people who were calm, not emotion- ally upset. A characteristic example of hysterical contagion would be the recent study by Back and Kerckhoff, supported by the National Science Foundation. The book reporting on this study is called "The June Bug." It was a case of hysterical contagion among the employees of a factory in North Carolina. It is one of the most thoroughly reported and studied incidents of this sort. It resembles the kind of thing we are talking about in almost no respect. I find it very difficult to find elements in common, other than the fact that some people believed something that was difficult to verify. The employees were convinced that they were being bitten by poison- ous insects, resulting in fainting and other symptoms such as rashes. All medical officers, all careful research on this, was unable to turn up any hard evidence that such an insect was present, or that there wasany standard medical accounting for these symptoms. But these were people in close constant contact, sharing a particular set of problems and frustrations that raised their level of anxiety. The epidemic can be interpreted as a convenient way of escaping the problem of coping with very difficult circumstances. I have said that I think in isolated cases you can find a similar thing in observa-tions of unidentified flying objects, but if we look at the hard-core, well -documented cases, I see practically no resemblance. Another important thing to note about the witnesses in the best sightings of UFO's is that very commonly—as has been mentioned, I believe, by Dr. McDonald—they first try to explain their observation in some very familiar terms. This is the well-known and labeled psy-chological process of "assimilation." People first try to assimilate their observation into something understood and known and familiar. This is quite contrary to the kind of argument frequently built into the hypothesis of hysterical contagion, namely, that character- istically witnesses are eager, are motivated, to see strange objects. Another important thing to notice about the witnesses in these cases is of course their reluctance to report. We have had some mention of that. This,for one thing,counters the argument of publicity seeking as a motive in some of the best cases. It incidently runs contrary to most experience of social psycologists engaged in public opinion research, in polling, and contrary to the experience of experienced precinct workers in politics. Those people who have not tried this kind of thing expect people not to want to talk to them, but when you start ringing doorbells, the striking thing about the American people is it is often difficult to stop them from telling you what they believe. Yet in instances of unidentified flying objects, there has often been a marked reluctance to talk about them. I can illustrate this anecdotally simply to make my point. When I was on the faculty at the University of Minnesota, a student came to me, having heard that I had some interest in this question. He in- formed me that his father, a colonel, an artillery colonel in Korea— this was at the time of the Korean conflict—had flown over a hill in Korea in his observer plane, and found (right next to him virtually) a characteristic unidentified flying object with the usual kind of con- figuration. It had promptly retreated upwards. It had frightened
Hearing transcript, from the govinfo collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 256 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.