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.

9
I
did
wonder
of
course,
as
to
how
they
were
disposing
of
the nonastronomical
cases.
How
did
they
explain
the
incident in
which
a
pilot,
co-pilot,
and
stewardessfollowed
some
rapidly
moving
dark
objects
which
were
silhouetted
against
the
sunset
sky
and
which
disappeared
presumably
because
of
their
superior
speed?
But
my
faith in
the
psychologists
was
unshaken—and
when
the
Air
Forces an-
nounced
that
Project
Grudge had
been
dissolved,
I
assumed
that
my
colleagues
had
been
successful
and had
even
solved
the
case
in
which
several
observers
watched
an
object,
hollow
in
the
middle,
travel
at
a
constant
slow
rate,
taking
15
minutes
to
make
the
journey
across
the
sky
from
north
to
south.
After the
project
dissolved,
Wright
Field
continued
to
take
care of the
slow
but
steady
flow of
reports
as
a
part
of
their
regular
intelligence
function.
This
spring
I
became
curious
and
requested
permission,
through
official
channels,
to
look
through
the
crop
of
reports
that
had
accumulated
since
my
official
connec-
tion
with
Project
Grudge had
terminated.
As
I
looked
through
the
welter
of
fanciful
tales,
inaccurate
reporting,
of
misobservation
of
natural
objects,
I
could
not
help,
as
an
astronomer,
recalling
another
wave
of
stories—stories
of
stones
that
fell
from
heaven.
Because
of
poor
reporting
and
poor
imagery,
sci-
entific
progress in
meteorites
had
been
held
back
for
a
good
century.
What
a
difference
in
imagery
there
is
between
"a
stone
falling
from
the
sky" and
"the
interception
by
the
earth
of
a
particle
pursuing
an
orbit
around
the sun."
The
use
of
improper
and
inaccurate
description
of
what
actually
happened
kept
meteorites in
the category of
old
wives'
tales
and
out
of the niche that
celestial
mechanics
had
made
ready
for
them
a
century
before!
In
1801,
Thomas
Jefferson
said
that
he would
sooner
believe
that
two
Yankee
professors
had
lied
than
that
stones
had
fallen
from
heaven.
And
the
French
Academy
of
Sciences
branded
stories
of
meteorite
falls
as
fanciful
and
absurd
and
dismissed
a
bona
fide
mete-
orite
whose
fall
had
been
sworn
to—as
an
ordinary
stone
that
had
been
struck
by
lightning.
Perhaps
the
moral
of
this
is:
Beware
the
ready
explanation!
Now,
it
is
clear
that
stories
of
real
flying
saucers,
visitors
from
space,
and
strange
aircraft
violating
the
laws
of
physics
are
as
reprehensible to
the
scientist
of
today as
stones
that
fell
from
heaven
were
to
the
scientist
of
yesteryear.
But,
of
course,
stones
did
not
fall
from heaven—that
was
poor
reporting
and
a
wrong
slant
on
a
perfectly
natural
phenomenon.
And
we
don't
have
space
ships
that
dis-
regard
physical
laws.
But,
do
we
have
a
natural
phenomenon?
The
steady
flow
of
reports,
often
made
in concert
by
reliable
observers,
raises
questions
of
scientific
obligation
and
responsibility.
Is
there,
when
the
welter
of
varied reports
are shorn
of,
in
the
words
of
Pooh Bah,
all
"Corroborative
detail
to
lend
artistic
verisimilitude
to
an
otherwise bald
and
unconvincing narra-
tive"—any
residue
that
is
worthy
of
scientific
attention?
Or,
if
there
isn't,
does not
obligation
still
exist
to
say so
to
the
public—not
in
words
of
open
ridicule,
but
seriously, to
keep
faith
with the
trust
the
public
places
in
science
and
scientists?
The
Air Forces are attempting
to give
all
reports
a
fair
hearing, in
view of the
above.
They
are having
all
reported
data reduced
to
punch
cards
so that
in
a
month
or so
it
will
be
possible
to
compare
quickly reports
made
by
people facing
west on
clear
Tuesday
afternoons
with
those
made
on non
-inversion
Friday
nights
by
pilots
going
south.
In any
event,
if
significant
correlations
between
various
sets
of
sightings
exist, this
method
should
bring
them
out.
In coming
down
to
cases,
to
illustrate
what
constitutes
at
present
the
best
evidence for
unusual
aerial
phenomena,
the
examples
submitted for examinationare
presented
without
an
all
-embracing
explanation for
them. These
are
pre-
sented in
conformance with the school that
believes
that
good
observations
and
discussion
of
observations
come
before theory. It
is
hoped, however,
that
out of
this discussion there
may
come a
positive
approach and,
if
these sightings
do
represent heretofore
inadequately studied natural
phenomena,
that
these ex-
amples
will
stimulate
their
serious
study;
if,
on
the other
hand,
no
natural
phenomena
are
involved,
then
an
obligation exists
to
demonstrate
explicitly
how
the following
specific
reports
can be
explained in
terms
of
balloons,
mirages, or
conventional
aircraft.
The
chosen recent
examples
represent
a
definite
pattern,
and
for each of the
following there are
many
other similar
examples
in the
files.
One
of these patterns
might
be
called
"Nocturnal Meandering
Lights."
Reports
falling into this
category are characterized
by the
sighting
of
a
bright star
-like
light,
perhaps of
—2
or
—3
stellar
magnitude which
floats
along without sound,frequently hovers, reverses
its field
without appearing to turn,
and
often abruptly
speeds up.
The
light is
most
frequently described
as a
yellow
amber or orange,