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.
165 V. Psychiatric Evaluation A. Anamnesis The subject was seen for psychiatric evaluation on each of two successive days for one and a half hour interviews. The first interview took place 36 hours after he had seen the luminal object. He is aware of why he is being seen, says he "doesn't mind a bit", but feels nervous because he doesn't know exactly what he will be "expected to tell" about himself. He came to live in the Tucson area 12 years ago because of his widowed mothers' failing health and a doctors recommendation that she move from East Boston (where they had always lived) to a drier climate. Since her death 9 years ago, he has carried on alone, at first in their apartment and then in a boarding house where his meals are prepared and his laundry is done for him. Although he is not enthusiastic about his living arrangement, he seems quite proud of his association with a branch of the local bank. In the past five years, he has advanced from assistant bookkeeper to teller to head teller to the banks' real estate loan section, of which he has been the chief for a week. He says that it was five days after he had assumed this new responsibility that he saw the "odd light in the sky". He describes the scene as follows: He had been having trouble getting to sleep for two months (doesn't know why) and this particular night was no exception. Although he had taken several "Sleep-eze" tablets, he still felt edgy and very wide awake at 2:30 AM. So he got up from bed to get a cigarette and a shot of bourbon. He then sat facing his closed window and eazing out, preoccupied, for about half an hour. He remembers everything seemed very still and quiet but can't recall what he was thinking about. About 3 AM he became vaguely aware of a new light near the mountains off to his left (north- east). It seemed to be moving toward his direct line of vision and as it did so became increasingly vivid. The light was a diffuse, pale, yellow-green color. It seemed very large (twenty to thirty times the size of an airplane at the same distance) and its shape was like that of a humped disc that was flat at the bottom. At times, it seemed to be hardly moving at all, at others it bobbed up and down as if from a breeze. He felt peculiarly drawn to it and seemed unable to avoid looking at it. When he tried to glance to either side of it, the disc seemed to fade, and he felt almost as though his direct gaze was the only thing hodling it there. At the same time, he felt almost as though he were being called upon by it to stare. Afterwards, upon reflecting, he decided that it was the unusual nature of the object that had created these peculiar feelings in him. After a couple of minutes it seemed less bright and looked like it was beginning to move away. At that point he felt as though he wanted to follow it. By the time it had completely faded away, he felt a little sad, lonely, hopeless, or something, he's not sure which. It never occurred to him to call anyone else's attention to the light (probably because of the late hour, he says) and he was surprised to be asked about that by the police the next day. He says, however, that anyone in the city who was looking in a northeasterly direction at the right time that
Hearing transcript, from the govinfo collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 256 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.