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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.

Open the PDF at page 179 Original source ↗

“Nevers”43 pages

  • p. 12 …in a peasant society whose eyes were never turned toward the skies. Can we afford not…
  • p. 13 …for a proper and definitive study will never develop. I recall an encounter I had sometime…
  • p. 16 …A very character- istic statement by those making the reports is: "I have never seen anything…
  • p. 18 …They also usually request anonymity which is always granted. (4) UFO's are never seen at…
  • p. 19 …Other misconceptions are that UFO's are never reported by scien- tifically trained people, are never…
  • p. 20 …it has never been considered worthwhile to improve the data -gathering process because the whole subject…
  • p. 27 …he is looking at something he has never seen before. I like Dr. Hynek's phrase…
  • p. 37 …at the Ontario Hydro Commission plant has never been identified, but initially thetentative suspicion was centered…
  • p. 39 …cover- ing innumerable intriguing cases I had never before heard of, and (above all) after the…
  • p. 43 …diminish in sig- nificance, though they can never be overlooked. A frequent objection to serious consideration…
  • p. 45 …out- of-the-way rural areas but never over large cities? Why don't large groups…
  • p. 48 …Smith emphasized that they were never certain of sizes and distances, but that they had the…
  • p. 53 …is deceased), I believe that there has never been any dispute as to the observed facts…
  • p. 59 …Many other sources could be cited to show that the intimation that UFOs are never seen…
  • p. 65 …After the 'official "explanation" was publicized, he decided he'd never report another one. I predict…
  • p. 68 …In the ensuing two decades, he has never again seen anything like it. Clearly, the probability…
  • p. 69 …Moore never got a sufficiently clear view to identify any finer details if any were present…
  • p. 75 …the past twenty years, cases that ought never have been so labelled, had the evaluators kept…
  • p. 76 …Ground radar stations never detected the unknown that was seen visually and contacted by airborne radar…
  • p. 77 …strong, bright pips, said that "anomalous propagation never entered our heads as an explanation." Howard S…
  • p. 78 …7) but could never close with the unknown as its continued on its north- bound course…
  • p. 80 …All three said they had never before seen anything like it. Munger decided to phone his…
  • p. 81 …The photos were shortly taken by Base military authorities and were never seen again by the…
  • p. 87 …referred to repeatedly in Menzel's writings, never with any quantitative discussion of precisely what he…
  • p. 100 …visual observations of classical UFO's have never been made by profes- sional astronomers. For example…
  • p. 101 …how the promised political or social intervention never materializes. Psychological Factors. The psychologist Carl Jung pointed…
  • p. 125 …Oh, heavens, I never suggested that, I hope. Mr. BOONE. Well, let me say, science fiction…
  • p. 159 …He has not ever been exposed to any toxic substances, has never had to take any…
  • p. 168 …He said he had never had the experience of deja-vu episodes or of performing acts…
  • p. 171 …It never occurred to him to call anyone else's attention to the light (probably because…
  • p. 172 …He had never seen anything like it before and in fact had never previously had the…
  • p. 173 …He has taken only two sick days in the entire five years and is never late…
  • p. 174 …He never has fantasied actively taking his own life, however, and feels it would be very…
  • p. 175 …He never was one to participate in extracurricular activities, but always maintained a part-time job…
  • p. 176 …Prior to seeing that light, he apparently never experienced a deja vu, or any illusory or…
  • p. 194 …If the observer being studied is truly sociopathic and has never de- veloped a super -ego…
  • p. 203 197 This data, which most people have never seen or even heard of, is published in…
  • p. 206 …They never have had enough sCientists in the project. They have failed to follow up certain…
  • p. 221 …Isn't it true that UFOs have never been sighted on radar? No, it is not…
  • p. 243 …make such an all- inclusive negative statement. Never- theless, many of the arguments are highly compelling…
  • p. 244 …A balloon reported as a UFO was never out of sight of its launchers. A perplexing…
  • p. 247 …al- though he apologizes because he has never had the time to make a thorough search…
  • p. 249 …two leads appeared, but other witnesses could never be located), but his ap- parent sincerity was…
173
D.
Summary
of
Positive Findings: Psychiatric Evaluation
and
Character
Assessment
with
supportive
data).
Mr. McC.
is an
oral
character
who
shows
a
moderately severe
passive
-
dependent
life
style. This
is
evidenced
by
the
direction
of
his relationships
(mother
-equivalents) and his drinking habits,
as well as
the
content
of
his
fantasies.
He is also
a
withdrawn chronic depressive
in
acute exacerbation.
There
may
be
an
underlying endogenous element
to
his
depression
but
it
appears
to
be
primarily reactive and related
to
the death
of
his mother.
All the
psychiatric evidence
points
to
the
event of
17
November
1967,
as
an
acute illusory
phenomenon
in
which his
regressed
oral
yearning
forhis
mother
was
symbolically represented
in
the
"light". That the object took
the
color and
shape
that
it
did
(like
the
nipple covers) further
demonstrates
his
ail
-pervasive
oral
fixation.
E.
Discussion and Creditability Score
The subject's retinal
pathology
is
such
that he
could
not
have
accurately
perceived
on
direct gaze
a
greenish, luminous
disc
in
the sky.
It
may
well
be that the initial
stimulus
for
his "vision" was
a
distant
light
which then was grossly
distorted
by
both his
abnormal retina and his highly
disturbed emotional state.
Creditability score
5%.
VI. ;ntegration of
Findings
and
Composite Assessment
of
Central Nervous
System Functioning
A. Discussion and Creditability Score
Without
the benefit
of the
results
of
this medical evaluation, one
would probably
be
inclined
to
view
Mr. McC. as
a
highly creditable observer.
In
favor of such
an
impression are
1)
his respectable bank position,
2)
his
general demeanor
(which is very
appropriate and does not suggest attention-seeking
or
his actual
psychiatric problems),
3)
his claim
to
seeming good health and
4)
the
nature and quality
of
his
report
of
the "light"
observed
event
to the
police.
However,
on
evaluation
it
was
discovered
that
he
was an
earlyalcoholic cirrhotic
who was
suffering from early
occult alcohol-tobacco amblyopia
such that he
could
not
have perceived
the detailed colored
nocturnal event he
thought he had
seen.
What
had actrally occurred was the first major hallucinatory
experience
of
his
life.
In
a
twilight state, his eye first
perceived
some
kind
of
stimulus
from the night time
sky
which was then
transformed into
a
rather
magnificent symbolic representation
of
his unconscious wishes and underlying
character pathology. The episode occurred
when
it
did because
of the subject's
state
of
psychic decompensation.
His
resistance
to
a
transient hallucinatory
experience
WEW
lowered
by
1)
his currently agitated depressed state
2)
the
adverse effects
of
toxins
(from drugs and
liver) on his central nervous system
and
3)
the visual distortions produced
by his diseased eyes.
The entire clinical picture
is best explained
in
terms of thesubject's passive
-oral
-dependent character pathology which is intimately
related not only to
his acute emotional state but is the underlying source
of
his physical problems
(i.e.,
alcoholic liver and retina, drug toxicity).
This case is thus
a
good example
of multifactional influences on observer
creditability which,
in
this instance, can be
integrated
in
terms of an
underlying source.
Over-all observer creditability score 5%.

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.