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.

4111
8
(The
document
referred
to
is
as
follows:)
[From
Journal
of the
Optical Society
of
America,
April
1953]
UNUSUAL
AERIAL
PHENOMENA
J.
A.
HYNEK,
Ohio
State
University,
Columbus,
Ohio(Received
December
22,
1952)
Over
a
period
of
years, diverse
aerial
sightings
of
an
unusual
character
have
been
reported.
On
the
assumption
that the
majority
of
these
reports,
often
made
in
concert,
come
from
reputable
persons,
and
in
the absence
of
any
universal
hypotheses for
the
phenomena
which
stimulated these
reports,
it
becomes
a
mat-
ter
of
scientific
obligation
and
responsibility
to
examine
the
reported
phenomena
seriously,
despite
their
seemingly
fanciful character.
Accordingly,
several
hun-dred
serious reports
of
"unidentified aerial
objects"
have
been
studied
in
detail
in an
attempt
to get
a
pattern
classification.
It
appears
that those
reported
phenomena
which
do
not
admit
of
a
ready
and
obvious explanation
exhibit
fairlywell-defined
patterns
and
that
these
are
worthy
of further study.
One
pattern
in
particular,
that of
a
hovering nocturnal
light,
does not
appear
to
be
readily
ex-
plainable
on
an
astronomical
basis
or
by
mirages,
balloons,
or
by
conventional
aircraft.
Perhaps
the
most
bizarre
phenomenon
of
our
times
is
the continued
popular
interest
in
flying
saucers.
The
term
flying
saucer,
of
course,
dates
back
to
the
treatment
by
the
press
of the
now
famous
triggering
incident
of
June
24,
1947,
another date
which might
well
be
said
to
live
in
infamy,
when
a
lone
pilot,
Mr.
Arnold,
reported
"nine
peculiar-looking aircraft"
without
tails,
which
flew
in
a
chain
-like
line
and
"swerved
in
and
out
of the
high
mountain
peaks."
The
un-
fortunate
newspaper
term,
flying
saucer,
as
you
well
'chow, captured both the
press
and
the
public
imagination.
One
can
speculate
as
to the turn of
events,
and
the
amount
of newsprint
that
might have
been
conserved,
had
Mr.
Arnold
de-
cided to stay
on
the
ground
that
day!
Nevertheless, in
the past
five
years
flying
saucer
has become
a
standard
term
in
our
language,
with
about as broa4
a
definition
as
it
has
been the
lot
of
any
term
to carry.
We
can
define
a
flying
saucer
as
any
aerial
phenomenon
or
sight
-
lag
that
remains
unexplained
to
the
viewer
at
least
long
enough
for
him,
to
write
a
report
about
it.
Lest
anyone
misunderstand
what
shall
be
meant by
"flying
saucers"
in
this
paper,
this
definition
must
be emphasized.
Each
flying
saucer,
so
defined,
has
associated
with
it
a
probable
lifetime.
It
wanders
in
the
field
of
public inspection
like
an
electron
in
a
field
of
ions,
until
"captured"
by
an
explanation
which
puts
an
end
to
its
existence
as
a
flying
saucer.
Thus
flying
saucers
spawned by
the
planet
Venus
have
generally
a
short
life-
time.
In almost
no
time
an
astronomer
comes
along
and makes a
positive identi-
fication,
and
another
flying
saucer
is
shattered.
We
can
expect
a
host
of
Venus
-
inspired
flying
saucers
when
this
planet
is
low
in the western
sky
after sunset.It
reaches
greatest eastern elongation
this
year
on January
31, 1953,
and on
March
8
attains
its
greatest
brilliance.
We
can
confidently predict
a swarm
of
flying
saucers
from Venus!
The
lifetime
of
a
balloon-sponsored
flying
saucer
is
often longer,
but
before
long
someone
like
Dr.
Liddell
comes
along
and
shoots
it
down.
And
Dr. Menzel
has as
his
flying
saucer
ammunition
a
large variety
of
optical
effects,
the
lethal-
ness of
which
requires separate
field
tests.
My
concern
is
with
flying
saucers of long lifetime—those
which have
not,
as
yet.
been "captured" or demolished
by
an
explanation.
Let us
further
limit
them
to those that
have
been observed
by two
or
more
people,
at
least
one of
whom
is
practiced in the
making
of observations of
some
kind, that
is,
to
pilots,
con-
trol
tower
operators,
weather
observers,
scientific
workers,
etc.
Also,
let
us
limit cases to sightings lasting
a
minute or more, again for obvious reasons.
The Wright
-Patterson
Air Force Base, where
the
responsibility
for the
inves-
tigation
of
unidentified aerial objects
has
rested for the past several years,
asked
me
in
1948
to help identify reports that
had an
astronomical
basis.
It
was a
relatively
simple task to
go through about 200
reports
and
pick
out prob-
able astronomical causes. Indeed,
some
of the
most weird reports could be
dis-
missed with clear conscience
by the statement that
no
astronomical explanationis possible for this incident,
thus leaving these unsolved cases to the psychologists.