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.
“Walter Molino”1 page
113 Specialty: Engineering Science Fields of Interest: Hydraulic systems analysis; surface water hydrology; analog simulation. STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES A. HARDER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF CIVIL ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, CALIF. Dr.HARDER.Thank you,Mr.Chairman. Your committee has asked me to comment on the problem of pro- pulsion as raised by some reports, and to whatever potential benefits there might be to the aerospace programs from an intense scrutiny of UFO phenomena. I am very glad for this opportunity to present to your committee some of my views on the problems of unidentified flying objects and to indicate some of the areas in which I think a closer investigation of this problem might provide us with scientific clues that would give us important impetus to basic and applied research in the United States. As Dr. Hall has said, there have been strong feelings aroused about UFO's, particularly about the extraterrestrial hypothesis for their origin. This is entirely understandable, in view of man's historic record of considering himself the central figure in the natural scene; the extraterrestrial hypothesis tends inevitably to undermine the col- lective ego of the human race. These feelings have no place in the scientific assessment of facts, but I confess that they have at times affected me. Over the past 20 years a vast amount of evidence has been accumu- lating that bears on the existence of UFO's. Most of this is little known to the general public or to most scientists. But on the basis of the data and ordinary rules of evidence, as would be applied in civil or criminal courts, the physical reality of UFO's has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. With some effort, we can accept this on an intellectual level but find a difficulty in accepting it on an emotional level, in such a way that the facts give a feeling of reality. In this respect, we might recall the attitude many of us have toward our own deaths: We accept the facts intellectually, but find it difficult to accept them emotionally. Indeed, there are flying saucer cultists who are as enthusiastic as they are naive about UFO's—who see in them some messianic sym- bols—they have a counterpart in those individuals who exhibit a mor- bid preoccupation with death. Most of the rest of us don't like to think or hear about it. This, it seems to me, accurately reflects many of our attitudes toward the reality of UFO's—natural, and somewhat healthy, but not scientific. In my remaining statements you will note that I have tacitly as- sumed the reality of UFO's as a hypothesis underlying my assessment of the importance of this subject for scientific study. 1. THE UFO PROPULSION PROBLEM By way of introducing the propulsion problem of UFO's, I will review a sighting near the city of Corning, in northern California, during the night of August 13, 1960, by two California highway
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