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.

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have also had the opportunity to view approximately a half dozen
other films, purportedly of "UFO's." The images on these films
appeared possibly to be the result of natural phenomena,such as reflec-
tions on airplanes, atmospheric mirages, optical flares, birds, balloons,
insects, satellites, et cetera. For example, a recent (February 1968) set
of two films were taken, using professional motion picture equipment,
by a Universal Studio crew on location. Although rather peculiar in
appearance,the objects thus photographed could have conceivably been
the result of airplane reflections.
To this date my analyses of anomalistic motion picture data have
been rather ungratifying. Although I am convinced that many of the
films indeed demonstrated the presence of anomalistic phenomena,they
all have the characteristic of rather ill-defined blobs of light, and
one can actually gain little insight into the real character of the
phenomena. For example, linear distance, speed, and acceleration can-
not be determined precisely, nor can size and mass. As I will discuss
in a moment, this situation is not particularly surprising, since, with-
out a special-purpose sensor system expressly designed to obtain in-
formation pertinent to anomalistic observational phenomena,or a gen-
eral-purpose sensor system operated so as not to disregard such data,
the chance for obtaining high-quality hard data is quite small.
PART 2. INADEQUACIES OF EXISTING SENSOR EQUIPMENT AND SYSTEMS
The capabilities of astronomical optical sensors have been dealt with
•in a thorough fashion by Page in 1968. The Prairie Network for
Meteor Observations (McCrosky and Posen (1968))is a good example
of a wide-coverage optical system, but as is so often the case, and as
Page (1968) pointed out. "* * * R. E. McCrosky of the Smithsonian
Astrophysical Obvervatory informed me that no thorough search(for
anomalistic data) has been carried out." Even so, some astronomical
photographs are bound to exhibit anomalistic data. Again quoting
from Page (1968),"* * * W. T. Powers of Northwestern University
Astronomy Department informed me that 'several' of the Smith-
sonian-net photographs show anomalous trails." As I have already
pointed out (Baker (1968b) to be found in appendix 4),the majority
of our astronomical equipment (e.g., conventional photographic tele-
scopes, Baker-Nunn cameras, meteor cameras, Markowitz Dual-rate
Moon Cameras, et cetera) are special purpose in nature, and would
probably not detect the anomalous luminous phenomena reported by
the casual observer if they were indeed present. Their photographic
speed,field of view, et cetera,impose severe restrictions on their ability
to collect data on objects other than those they have been specifically
designed to detect. As already noted in the quotes from Page (1968),
even if such data were collected, the recognition of their uniqueness
or anomalous character by an experimenter is improbable. Examples
abound, in the history of clestial mechanics, of minor planets being
detected on old astronomical plates that had been measured for other
purposes,and then abandoned.
Our radar and optical space surveillance and tracking systems are
even more restrictive and thus, even less likely to provide information
on anomalistic phenomena than are astronomical sensors. The Signal
Test Processing Facility (STPF) radar at Floyd, N.Y. is a high-