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.
“Nevers”43 pages
10 changing to blue or red occasionally, and changing in brightness markedly. Sometimes the description states that the light went out as if someone had pushed a button; at other times the light is reported only as variable. A very character- istic statement by those making the reports is: "I have never seen anything like this in my whole life." The desire to identify these sightings as balloons is thwarted by the tactics observed. As an example of a report of this kind, let us take one that came in from Florida this past July. On one night several airmen independently observed a light approach at a very slow speed, come to a halt nearly overhead, then reverse direction with no apparent turn. On two other nights, three other lights appeared in other sections of the sky, of similar appearance, but maneuvering more rapidly. They were observed for some 10 minutes by 9 airmen, including a control tower operator, an aircraft dispatcher, and two pilots from Wright Field. In the words of one of the men, "For the next fifteen minutes we watched this light and speculated on what it might be. It was not a sharp light like a bare bulb but more like a light shining through frosted glass. No shape of any kind was discernible. It appeared to blink, but with no regularity whatever."Also this past July at an air base in New Mexico, a similar sighting was made. Paraphrasing from sworn statements made by observers, "Our station was noti- fied that an unconventional aircraft had been picked up with both electronic and visual contact. Our station made electronic contact with the object and two of our men and I had gone outside the building and saw it hovering under a cloud layer to the east of us. It appeared as a large light, at an uncertain dis- tance, and was hovering at the time. A minute or so later, it moved rapidly toward the north for a short distance and stopped as suddenly as it had begun to move." And from another statement, "Our scope operator at that time reported a strange target about thirty miles east of our station. Two of us went outside and sighted a very bright light traveling at what we estimated to be around 200 miles an hour. The light went out at least two times but did not stay out more than two or three minutes. The light seemed to have a floating effect and made no sound. At one time around seven or eight smaller lights could be seen. The object seemed to drop to about 10 or 12 thousand feet and then climbed to about 25,000 taking a northern course." Radar observations as well as visual observations are involved in this problem. Early last month shortly before dawn colored lights were observed in the sky southeast of the radar station. At the same time and the same azimuth, unidenti- fied targets appeared on the scope. Only a very slight temperature inversion was present, 1° at 25,000 feet. No more than two lights appeared at one time. They were observed to be moving in a rather erratic pattern and changing colors occasionally. The last thirty minutes of observation revealed the lights remain- ing yellow—prior to that they were red, green, and blue. They moved in no apparent formation but mostly appeared in one area and disappeared in another, when either the light went out or the objects dived behind clouds. They were starlike objects and appeared to develop long, white vapor trails, when they dived. They were motionless at times and moved rapidly at other times. This corresponded to similar movements observed on the radar scope. One white light went out as it changed direction and continued as a black silhouette against the dawn sky. Observation was for a period of about an hour and was made by two airmen and a radar operator—all three observers were experienced aircraft control and warning operators. Objects were observed 20 to 40° above horizon. Radar gave distances of 50 to 80 miles. This implies a height of about 40 miles. There was no air traffic on radar within 100 miles. Quoting from the observer's statement, "receiving a call concerning a strange light in the sky, I went out and scanned the sky in several directions before I saw a light. My first glimpse was a very bright blue light, but it lasted only about a minute, then it faded into a light green. It moved in a slow orbit. I was startled at first so I closed my eyes and opened them again. The light was still there. I stared at it a few minutes and now the light seemed more yellow than before. I did not think anyone would believe me, so I went inside the building and relieved the radar scope operator. I found a target at 123°, 53 miles. After that it appeared as a permanent echo. In about two minutes, it disappeared and almost immediately another pip appeared, at 134°, 73 miles. It also seemed
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.