Symposium on unidentified flying objects: hearings before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninetieth Congress, second session, July 29, 1968.

104
him,
but
he
was an
experienced
and
trained observer,
so
he
took
notes
on
it;
he
recorded
it.
When
he
returned
he
was
so
ridiculed
and
laughed
at
for
a
long
period
of
time
that
he
completely
gave
up
trying
to
have
this
taken
seriously.
He
refused
to
talk
about
it.
I
urged
this
student to get
his
father
to report
this
to
some
of
the
private
organizations
that
might
take
it
seriously,
and
he
ap-
parently
was
unable
to
do
so.
The
ridicule
suppressed the opportunity
for
this
information.
I
have
encountered
similar
things in
academic
colleagues
from
a
variety
of
fields,
finding
they
are
very
interested
and
wanting
to
hear
about
this,
but
are afraid
to
talk
about.
In
order
to
support
the
hysterical
contagion
hypothesis,
it
seems
to
me
we
need to
present
some
plausible
evidence:
First,
that
there
is
a
very
ambiguous
situation.
This
we
can
all
agree
upon.Second,
that
there
is
a
great deal
of
anxiety
and
concern
about
it.
This
appears
clearly
to
be
the
case.
Third,
some
plausible
evidence
of
contact
among
the
witnesses,either directly
by
conversing
with
one
another,
or
indirectly
by
being
exposed
to
the
same
information, the
same
stimuli.
In
cases
that
I
have
studied.
I
find
that
this
third
element
is
the
one
that
is
often
lacking,
that there are often
witnesses
who
appear not
to
have
had
prior
knowledge, not
to
have
had
contact
with
one
another,
not
to
have
been exposed, as far as
we
can
determine,
to
the
same news
information.
I
might throw
in here,
in
reference
to
a remark
Dr.
Hynek
made,
that
the
public
is
indeed very unwilling
to accept
the
kinds of
casual
and
bland
explanations
that
have
been
offered.
This has
been
my
experience
also,
and
is
indeed
an
index of the
amount
of
concern
and
anxiety
about
this,
it
appears
to
me.
Now
I
will
turn
to another
subject.
I
might summarize
in
one
sentence
that
in
my
eyes
the hypothesis that
elle
hard-core
cases
of
observed
UFO's
is
hysterical
contagion
is
highly improbable.
The
weight of
evidence
is
strongly against
it.
Now
I
would
like
to address the
question
of
what
has brought about
this situation
of
strongly
opposing
beliefs
that
seem
not
to
become
reconciled
with
one
another.
On
this
I
will
have
to digress
first
to
explain
briefly
what
I
mean by a
system of
beliefs
in
social
psychology.
Perhaps
the
best
way
to explain that
is
to
say
that
just
as nature
abhors
a vacuum,
nature abhors
an
isolated
belief.
Neither
a
belief
nor
the person
who
holds
it
can normally
persist
very long
in
isola-
tion.
The
beliefs
become
organized in
such
a
way
that,
for one
person,his various
beliefs
support one
another,
and
people gather together
in organizations to lend each other
support
in
their
beliefs.
This
is
the
sense in
which
we
have
highly developed systems of
belief
which
come
to
resist
change,to
resist
evidence.
The
circumstances
under which systems of
belief
such as
this
char-
acteristically arise
are, as
I
mentioned in passing before,
a
situation
of .ambiguity about a
matter of importance on which
there
is
not
reliable. verified
information in
which people
have
confidence. Clearly
the antidote
is
simple. It
is
to get good,
reliable
information whichpeople have
confidence in.
This
is
probably the only
way
to weaken the
irrational elements
that are strongly resistant.