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.
“UFO Files”31 pages
131 the data base or classified as "unknowns," or "uncorrelated targets," filed, and forgotten. There is only one surveillance system, known to me, that exhibits sufficient and continuous coverage to have even a slight opportunity of betraying the presence of anomalistic phenomena operating above the Earth's atmosphere. The system is partially classified and, hence, I cannot go into great detail at an unclassified meeting.I can,however, state that yesterday (July 28, 1968) I traveled to Colorado Springs (location of the Air Defense Command) and confirmed that since this particular sensor system has been in operation, there have been a number of anomalistic alarms. Alarms that, as of this date, have not been explained on the basis of natural phenomena interference, equip- ment malfunction or inadequacy, or manmade space objects. PART 3. HYPOTHETICAL SOURCES FOR ANOMALISTIC OBSERVATIONS AND JUSTIFICATION FOR THEIR STUDY In Baker and Makemson (1967), I discussed the usual candidates for the natural sources of anomalistic observations. For example,some scanning radars—such as airport radars—pick up anomalistic returns termed "angels." A variety of explanations have been proposed, vari- ously involving ionized air inversion layers, etc. (see Tacker (1960)) and even insects (see Glover, et al. (1966)). With respect to human observation of anomalistic luminous phenomena, some rather strong positions have been taken by such authorities as Menzel (1953), who feels that the predominant natural phenomenon is atmospheric mi- rages; by Klass (1958a), who feels that the predominant natural phe- nomenon is related to ball lightning triggered by high-tension line coronal discharge,jet aircraft, electrical storms,etc.; by Robey (1960), who feels that the observations are of "cometoids" entering the earth's atmosphere, etc. The list of hypothetical sources for anomalistic ob- servational phenomena is long indeed,but from the photographic data that I have personally analyzed,I am convinced that none of these ex- planations is valid. The analyses that I have carried out to date have dealt with observa- tional evidence that I term "hard data"—that is, permanent photo- graphic data. Although I will not discuss in detail the analyses of eyewitness reports (which I term "soft data"),1 Powers (1967), Mc- Donald (1967),Hynek (1966), and others have concluded that over- whelming evidence exists that a truly anomalistic phenomenon is present. Of course,there are numerous others who have come to a completely opposite conclusion; in fact, it becomes almost a matter of personal preference: it is possible for one to identify all of the anomalistic data as very unusual manifestations of natural phenomena. No mat- ter how unlikely it is, anything is possible—even a jet plane reflecting the sun in direct opposition to the laws of optics. I'm sometimes re- minded of the flat earth debates that I organized 10 years ago in my elementary astronomy courses at UCLA. Some students became so in- volved in justifying their positions—either flat or spherical—that they would grasp at even the most improbable argument in order to ration- alize their stand. 1 Except in app. 3 to this report—a paper supplied by Dr. Sydney Walker III, concerning a hypothetical case.
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.