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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area of forecasting the social characteristics of an advanced extrater-
restrial civilization. Philosophers, social scientists, and others usually
undertake studies of rather theoretical problems. (See Wooldridge
(1968) and Minas and Ackoff (1964). If only a quantitative index or
indices of social advancement could be developed that, say, would dif-
ferentiate us from the Romans in our interpersonal and intersociety
relationships (for example, tendencies toward fewer crimes of vio-
lence, fewer wars, etc.), then we might be better equipped to make
rational extrapolations from our own to an advanced society. In fact,
such as index, if it could be developed might even be beneficial in guid-
ing our existing earth-based society.
(7) Serendipity.—In addition to the value of anomalistic phe-
nomena studies to these specific scientific disciplines, there is always
serendipity. Any scientific study of this nature is potentially capable
of giving substantial dividends in terms of "spin-off." For example: in
improved techniques in radar and optical sensor design and control;
in giving a reliable quantitative credibility level to witness'statements
in court; or in deciphering and/or analyzing anomalistic radio signals
from interstellar space.
PART 4. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
For the past 16 years I have seriously (albeit sporadically) fol-
lowed the analyses of "UFO" or "flying saucer" reports—both scien-
tific and quasi-scientific. It is my conclusion that there is only so
much quantitative data that we can squeeze out of vast amounts of data
on anomalistic observational phenomena that has been collected to
date. I believe that we will simply frustrate ourselves by endless argu-
ments over past, incomplete data scenarios; what we need is more
sophisticated analyses of fresh anomalistic observational data. We
must come up with more than just a rehash of old data.
I emphasize thatit is very unlikely that existing optical and radar
monitoring systems would collect the type of quantitative data that is
required to identify and study the phenomena. Moreover, we current-
ly have no quantitative basis upon which to evaluate and rank (ac-
cording to credibility) the myriad of eyewitness reports. Thus con-
tinuing to "massage' past anomalistic events would seem to be a waste
of our scientific resources. In balance,then,I conclude that:
(1) We have not now, nor have we been in the past, able to achieve
a complete—or even partially complete—surveillance of space in the
vicinity of the earth, comprehensive enough to betray the presence
of, or provide quantitative information on, anomalistic phenomena.
(2) Hard data on anomalistic observational phenomena do, in fact
exist, but they are of poor duality, because of the inadequacies of
equipment employed in obtaining them.
(3) Soft data on anomalistic phenomena also exist, but we have
no quantitative procedure to evaluate their credibility and develop
clear-cut conclusions on the characteristics of the anomalistic phe-
nomena.
(4) It follows from the scientific method that an experiment or
experiments should be devised, and closely related study programs be
initiated expressly to define the anomalistic data better.