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.

182
film
and
motivated
4
,4
)e
'
photographic
experiment
con-
ducted
by
the author
during
December,
1955.
December,
rather
than
August,
was
chosen
due
to
the
lower
latitude
of
Los
Angeles
relative
to
Great
Falls
and
because
of
the
unique
(smogless)
visibility
during
the
course
of
the
experiment.
The
experiment
was
devised
in
order to obtain
empirical
information
on
the
effect
of
distance, lens
focal
length,
iris
stop,
frame
speed,
etc.,
in
the
photographic
images
of
various
small
bright
sources of
reflected
sunlight;
some
118 combina-
tions
of
these
variables
were examined.
The
experi-
mental
results
appeared
to
indicate
that
if
the
first
few
frames
of
the
film
show Sun
reflections
from
airplanes,
which
are optimally
oriented
with
respect
to the
Sun
(not
the
171°
heading),
then the
planes
would
have
been
on
the
order
of
one
to
three
miles distant
from
the
camera.
If,
however,
these
first
few
frames
represent
images
of
the
reflection
from
airplanes
not
quite
opti-
mally
oriented,
then the
planes
could
have
been
closer.
In
either
event,
their
structure
would
also
have
been
visible.
The
images
were
found
to
be
much
brighter
than
those
that
any
birds
could produce.
The
brightness
of
a
constant
luminosity
source,
as
it
recedes
from
view,
gives
rise
to
a
photographic
imagewhose
diameter
varies
'somewhere between
inverse
square
root
of
the range to the
inverse
square
of
the
range.
(Ordinarily,
however,
with
the
inverse
square
for
images
as
bright
as
the
Montana
objects.)
The
effects,
which account
for
this
uncertainty
in
image
-size
vs.
range
relationship,
involve
light
scattering in
the
atmos-
phere,
optical
aberrations,
flaring
at
the
lens surfaces,
diffraction,
turbidity in
the
film,
reflections
off
the
film
backing
(halation),
and
adjacency
effects
(chemical
reactions
between
over
-exposed
and
under
-exposed
areas
on
the
film).
On
the
basis
of Fig.
1,
we
find
a
decrease
in
angular
diameter
of
the
first
object
of
about
62%,
and
the second
about
61%.
Under
the 171° head-ing
assumption, the
initial
distance
is
about
78%
less
than
the
final
distance
(at
disappearance).
Thus,
it
would
seem
that
the 171° heading
hypothesis
is
also in
agreement
with
the
film
images
being
the
result
of
a
constant
brightness
light
source
receding
from
the
camera.
That
is,
the
inverse
square
distance decreases
some
61
%.
Because
the
relationship
of
the developed
image
size
to source
range
is
not
precise
and
because
it
is
doubtful
that
we
are dealing
with constant
-
luminosity
isotropic
radiators,
the
third
confirmation
of the 171° heading
must
be
regarded
as
considerably
less
precise
than
the
confirmations
provided
by
Figs.
3a and
3b.
Conclusions
Because
of
the
conflict
between every
hypothesizednatural
phenomenon and
one
or
more
details
of
the
hard
-data,
photographic evidence analyzed
(in addition
to the
uncertainty of the
soft
data,
reported
accounts
(or
rumors)
of
jet
aircraft),
no
clear-cut
conclusion
as
to
a
natural
phenomena
can
be
made
and
the
anomalistic
images,
having
no
real
detail,
cannot
be
analyzed
further.
These
unexplainable
images, taken
alone,
do
not
provide
data
on
mass,
shape,
size,
or
linear
speed
and,
indeed
like
the
early
single
-camera meteor
phote-
graphs
or
even
like
the
early
examples
of
attempts at
photography
through
a
microscope, are
merely un-
resolved
blobs
and
simply
indicate
the
presence
of
a
phenomena.
In
these
past,
historical
instances,
supple-
mentary
data
and
equipment
improvement
was
sought
after
in
a
systematic
fashion
even though
there
was
only
conjecture
as
to
the
exact
character
of the
phenom-
ena. See
.-efeeenre
CY.).
A
number
of other
films
have
been viewed
by
the
author,
which
purport
to
be
UFO's, and
they
all
seem
to
exhibit
the
common
quality
of
poor
image
definition.
This
situation
is
not
especially
surprising since
most
of
them
have
been taken
with
amateur equipment
or
they
were
accidentally
taken
from
a
great
distance
by
eine-
theodolites
that
were not
"tracking"
them.
Like
the
Montana
film,
some
of these
films
definitely
cannot be
explained
on
the
basis
of
natural
phenomena
(others
can
be
"explained"
if
one
stretches
one's
imagination).
References
and
Notes
Ill
A
copy
of
the
local
half
hourly
surface
weather
observation
for
August
15, 1950,
was
obtained
from
the
Great
Falls,
Montana
Municipal
Airport Station of
the
Weather
Bureau.
It
shows
that
the
surface
wind
increased
during
the
forenoon
to
readings
between
25
and 28
mph
between
9
a.m.
and
noon,
and
that
it
reached
37
mph
at
12:30.
The
surface
wind
direction
was
constantly
from
the
southwest
from
10
a.m.
until
4
p.m.
It
was
clear
(visibility
of
60
miles),
the temperature
was
77°F
at
11:27,
and
the
barometer
was
at
about
30".0.
[2]
In
November
of 1955,
an
inquiry
by
phone
was
directed
to
Colonel
Donald
M.
Hamilton,
Commanding
Officer
of
Malstrom
Air
Force Base.
He
advised
us
by
letter
dated
November
7,
1955,
that
".
. .
as
far
as
I
can
determine,
there
were
no
jet
aircraft
based
here
at that time,
so
that
if
any
were
in
the
air,
they
would have
been
transients."
[3]
BAKER, ROBERT
M.
L.,
JR.
&
MAKEMSON,
M.
W.,
An
In-
troduction
to
Aerodynamics,
Second
Edition,
(Academic
Press,
New
York,
1967),
pp. 319
to
333.
141
MARKOWITZ,
WILLIAM,
letters
dated
November
10 and
December
6,
1967.
According
to
Markowitz
the panel
consisted
of
H.
P.
Robertson,
L.
Alvarez,
L. V.
Berkner,
S.
A.
Goudsmit, and
T.
W.
Page.
[5]
RUPPELT,
E.
J.,
The
Report
on
Unidentified
Flying
Objects.
(Doubleday
&
Company,
Inc.,
Garden
City,
New
York,
1956),
pp. 286
to
288
and
p.
292.
161
The
maximum
speed
(achieved
during
a
dive)
of
the
F-94
is
602
mph,
its
landing
speed
is
130
mph,
and
its
stalling
speed
is
108
mph.
171
Mcgttimr,
D.
W.
R.,
Meteor
Science
and
Engineering,
(McGraw-Hill
Book Company,
New
York,
1961),
page
128.
[8]
BAKER, ROBERT
M.
L.,
Jlt.,
"Future
Experiments
on
Anomalistic Observational
Phenomena,"
J.
Astronaut.
Sci.
XV,
No.
1,
January-February,
1968.