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
179 rod N.T.TuDE tOURIE 3• MOTION OF UFO SYSTIM a..„. — 73 2.3 2.n 23, 230 223 220 [WS .1. - . Ara, A07.• IG0 IS5 IN, Nteasurable Foreground First Appears on Frame 222. 223. .20.8. I -- .00-ptif 4 " 114 0 1 226. 227. 2210 •/1.1, 14 FIGURE 3b SEPAR•TION DIST•NCE OF UFO SYSTEM IcaStIrahlt . on,r000.1 First Appuars 1 Anes• 120 j ric_lic i ;ga rg,11? is, " sis- aio• r • II 10 TM( ISICONOSI--. FIG. 3a. Motion of UFO system in altitude and azimuth. 3b. Separation distance of UFO system as function of time. distance can be made on the basis of the angular data presented by the film.) Figure 4 also shows where Mariana and his secretary first viewed the "hovering and rotating" UFO's near an Anaconda smoke stack. After over a decade of speculation and hypothesis checks, all natural phenomena (e.g., birds, balloons, insects, meteors, mirages, etc.) have been ruled out, except airplane reflections, on the basis of winds (which the weather bureau reported as blowing in the opposite direction); the lack of an observable trail (which would have betrayed a bifurcated meteor); and bright- ness, angular speed, and steady motion, which could not be reconciled with the supposition that they were birds or insects. These same facts, together with the weather bureau report [1] and the Sun angle, also seemed to rule out various forms of optical lens flare, atmospheric mirages, or cloud reflections. From analyses of speed and geometry, which included a knowledge of the Sun's azimuth at the time of the photography (asconfirmed by the shadows on the film) the images could have been (although not without some stretch of theimagination) specular Sun reflection from airplane fuse-lages. This explanation seemed attractive since it wasrumored (although not verified [2]) that two jet air- planes (1"-94's) were landing at Malstmm Air Force Base at the approximate time of the sighting. This rumor was reinforced by a presentation by E. J. Ruppelt to a panel of experts in January, 1953 (the panel's mem- bership was not revealed, but may have been called the "Robertson panel" [4]). Ruppelt [5] indicates "the in- 233 . telligence officer at Great Falls had dug through huge stacks of files and found that only two airplanes, two F -94's, were near the city (Great Falls) during the sighting and that they had landed about two minutes afterwards. . .. First we studied the flight paths of the two F -94's. We knew the landing pattern that was being used on the day of the sighting and we knew when the two F -94's landed. The two jets just weren't any- where close to where the two UFO's had been." Figure 4 bears this conclusion out since the objects were in the opposite direction from Malstrom Air Force Base and headed away from the airfield. The panel, however, did not consider this as positive proof for eliminating the jet -plane hypothesis. Experiment Using a camera similar to Mariana's (Revere turret type with a 3" focal length telephoto lens), a series of photographic experiments were carried out by the author on an array of objects (see Figure 6-22 on page 321 of reference [3]) at various distances and Sun angles and on jet plane reflections. The results of these experi- ments, however, made the hypotheses of airplane reflec- tions quite strained. The long persistence of the images would have re- quired the airplanes to have moved on a unique parabolic path with Mariana at the focus. Unfortu-nately, these hypothetical parabolic paths would be incompatible with the 171° heading defined by the data. In addition, the apparent size of the images (admittedly
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.