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.

117
or
cloud
then
decreased
in
apparent
diameter,
as
if
it
were
traveling
away
from
him, and
disappeared
in
another
few
minutes.
During
this
time
Webb
repeatedly
took
off
his
glasses
and
then
put
them
back
on,
noting each
time
that
the
rings
appeared
only
when
he
was
wearing
the
glasses.
He
did
not
know
what
to
make
of
the
sighting,
but
took
notes,
including
the
fact
that
it
was
about
10
in
the
morning.
The
date
was
May
5,
1953.
One
of
the
first
things
to
note
about
the
situation
as
described in
the account
is
that the
dark
rings
were
observed
with
polaroid
glasses,
but not
without
them.
The
second
thing
is
that,
from
the
orientation
of
the
observer
relative
to
the
position
of
the
sun
at
that
time of day,
the
blue
scattered
light
from
the part
of
the
sky
that
formed
the back-
ground
for
the
object
was
polarized.
To
this
fortunate
circumstance
we
must add
the
fact
that
Mr.
Webb
was
curious
about
clouds,
the
effect
of viewing
them
with
polarized
light,
and
took
notes
of
what
he
observed.
He
did
not,
however,
realize
that
he
was
observing the
rotation
of
the plane
of
polarization
of
theblue
light
in
the
vicinity
of
the
object.
This
was
the
interpretation
I
made
some
8
years
later
upon
reading
his
account.
Mr.
WYDLER.
How
would you
define
UFO's
as
you
are using
it
in
this
paper
before
us.
Dr.
HARDER.
I
don't
know how
I
could
define
it
without being
cir-
cular.
Mr.
WYDLER.That
is
the
conclusion to
which
I
came.
You
state
on
the very
first
page
or
you
more
or
less
say
you
are
going
to
tacitly
assume
the
reality
of
UFO's,
merely
an
"unidentified
flying object."
I
think
we
can assume
their
reality
without worrying
much
about
it.
It
is
only
if
they
have
some
particular interplanetary
significance
that
might become
a
real
problem,
the
way we
look
at
it,
isn't
that so?
We
all
agree
there are
unidentified flying
objects.
I
think
you
are
defining
them
as
interplanetary.
I
don't
see
you
really
come
out
and
say
that,
but
I
think
you
hinted at
it.
Dr.
HARDER.
Well,
if
my
interpretation
of
these
rings
is
correct,
it is
certainly
nothing
we
have
been
able
to accomplish
on
earth.
Mr.
WYDLER. Are
you
saying,
when
you
use
this
term,
for the pur-poses
of your
statement, in
your
testimony,
you
are
assuming
they
are
of
an
interplanetary
nature?
Dr.HARDER.Yes,
that
is
right.
Mr.
WYDLER.
All
right.
Dr.
HARDER.
In
my
statement,
which
is
available
to
the
transcriber,
I
have gone through
a
little
bit
of argument
suggesting
why
the outer
of the
three rings represents light
that
had
been
rotated
through
90
degrees,
so
it
would not
pass
through
the
polarizer, if
it is
polarizedglasses.
The
next ring
represented light
that
had
been
rotated
90
plus
180
degrees.
If you have
polaroid
glasses
and
look at the right part
of
the blue
sky,
any
afternoon,
you can
seen that the
light
is
polarized,
and
as
you
rotate
your
polaroid glasses there
is
an
alternate
darkening
-
lightening,as
you go through 180
degrees.
We
can assume, to begin with, that the plane of the polarizer in his
glasses
was
parallel
to the plane of the undisturbed polarized light
from
the general direction
of the
object.
If then something
affected
the light so as to turn
its
plane of
polarization
through 90
degrees,
the portion that
had been originally polarized
would not pass through