Documents / Hearing transcript

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.

U.S. House of Representatives · 1968-07-29 · 256 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 7 …We approach the question of unidentified flying objects as purely a scientific problem, one of unanswered…
  • p. 9 …Civilian with U.S. Navy 1944. Scientific Societies: American Association for the Advancement of Science; Astronomy…
  • p. 10 4 subject as rank nonsense, the product of silly seasons, and a peculiarly American craze that…
  • p. 11 …Thus my scientific reticence was based on a carefully weighed decision. In attempting analysis of the…
  • p. 24 …American Association for Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Society, Sigma Xi, American Geophysical Union, Royal Meteorological…
  • p. 30 …witnesses, members of the staff of the American Newspaper Publishers Associa- tion, were the witnesses in…
  • p. 46 …Scientists will tend to be put off by some of his scientific commentary, as well as…
  • p. 47 …Information on some of these, as well as on smaller American groups, can be found in…
  • p. 76 …have been ignored as indicators of some scientifically intriguing problem demand- ing intensive study.2. Case…
  • p. 91 …UFOs—An International Scientific Problem, paper presented at a Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, Canadian Aeronautics…
  • p. 118 …Navy, 1944-45.Scientific Societies: Fellow of the American Association for the Advancementof Science, Society of…
  • p. 131 …Phillips, American Scientist, v. 53, no. 1, p. 32). Fused silica fibers have been stressed to…
  • p. 132 …Baker's professional society memberships include the American Associa- tion for the Advancement of Science, Phi…
  • p. 147 …REFERENCES (1) The "American Nautical Almanac" 1950. (2) H. 0. No. 214, "Tables of Computed Altitude…
  • p. 156 …00060 "Influence of Martian Ephemeris and Constants on Interplanetary Trajectories," Chapter in Exploration of Mars, American…
  • p. 202 …25 adult Americans has seen a UFO. Judging from the one detailed, official, scientific investigation that…
  • p. 204 …Originally operated jointly by Harvard and the University of Colorado, this scientific institution is now wholly…
  • p. 213 …a paper presented in a symposium sponsored by Division 21, Engineering Psychology, at the American Psychological…
  • p. 214 …As a member of the Parapsychological Association and the American So- ciety of Clinical Hypnosis, I…
  • p. 215 …1) The Scientific Attitude Survey ( Sprinkle, 1962) is not useful in assessing "scientific" attitudes, and/or…
  • p. 217 …Henderson is a member of Alpha Chi, the American Geophysical Union, the Society of Exploration Geophysicists…
  • p. 220 214 Professional affiliations include the American Physical Society, the American Nuclear Society, the American Institute of…
  • p. 223 …of the Astronautical Sciences'the American Engineer 2020 Industrial Research,' Scientific Research'8 Aviation Week and…
  • p. 225 …A., "UFO's Merit Scientific Study," Science, October 21, 1966, and Astro- nautic8 d Aeronautics, December…
  • p. 226 …of Baltimore Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Local sections of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics…
  • p. 251 …Scientific American, 200: 117-128.
167
For three months, he worked as a grocery store clerk (in order to
pay his angry landlady for accumulated rent) but found the work intolerably
fatiguing and took a switchboard job which he did for the three years prior to
going to the bank.
His bank work record has apparently been very good. He has taken
only two sick days in the entire five years and is never late. Frequently, he
wakes up in the morning feeling as though he can't make it to work, but his
respect for and sense of responsibility to the institution itself (rather than
to any superior or individual person) always win out.
He has no close friends where he works, although he occassionally
takes lunch with one of the younger male tellers. His female co-workers irri-
tate him; they seem coarse and loud. Some of the single women tease him about
having a mistress (which he doesn't), but he doesn't know where they got that
idea. In fact, he doesn't date at all and hasn't for several years now. He
guesses it's because he doesn't seam to come in contact with women who are his
type (sweet, quiet, feminine). Nor does he seek out partners for intercourse.
With considerable embarrassment, he explains that while he was in the Army 13
years ago, he had tried on three separate occassions to have sexual relations
with a girl he liked but had been unable to sustain an erection. Part of the
problem at the time seemed to be a preoccupation with his mother and how dis-
appointed she would be in him if she knew what he was doing with this girl
Since then, he has not tried to have intercourse again. He says it is not
because he is afraid of failure or embarrassment, but more because for him it
is a dispensible activity.
The closet he ever gets to a woman is the back row in a local bar
where he likes to watch the performance of a certain belly dancer (his mother
was half Syrian). He doesn't know her personally, but something about her
arouses him. Whenever he masturbates in his room, (approximately once a week),
he picturos her face and upper torso in his minds eye; at the same time, he
imagines himself removing her round, plastic, chartreuse nipple covers, which
seems to be the one thing that will lead to his having an occassional ejacula-
tion. He has felt very upset with himself for masturbating ever since he first
did it at the age of 16. This examiner and his old Army buddy are the only
people to whom he has ever acknowledged any such activity. He says he still
cannot help but feel that it is an unnatural, perverted practice. Sometimes
he wonders whether he is driven to it by a hormone problem or whether it is
because of a mental sickness of some kind. He used to think that he would not
ever be fit to touch a woman if he masturbated. He says he has never been
involved in any homosexual activity, although his Army buddy had once suggested
it to him.
His leisure hours are spent watching TV in the bar or in his room,
going to movies, either alone or with someone at the boarding house, and
reading an occassional magazine story. He likes to sunbathe on his porch on
the weekends. He says that he still enjoys making up adventure stories and
keeps adding to an on-going serial in which he is the only person living in
a desert oasis where he gets into various predicaments and is rescued and nursed
back to health by lovely, gracious women who happen to pass by. He never dreams,
he says, and doesn't think he ever has.

Cases discussed

About this file

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.