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.

193Dr.
HARDER.
This
was
done
by
a
neutralization
analysis
on a
very
tiny
slicer.
It
would
be
hard
to
say
to
what
extent
over the
interven-
ing
9
years there
might
be
some
territorialization,
but
certainly
it
would
not
have
taken out
aluminum
or
copper.
It
might
have added
zinc
or
barium,
although
that
seems
somewhat
unlikely.
Dr.
SAGAN.
So
some
comparison
analysis
has
been
made
for
exampleof
the
magnesium
flares.
A
magnesium
flare
has
an
abundance
of
im-
purities?
Dr.
HARDER.
It
would
hardly be
99.9
percent
purity.
Dr.
SAGAN.
That
is
what
I
meant.
Dr.
HARDER.
Yes,
that
is
right.
Mr.
RousH. Dr. McDonald.
Dr.
MCDONALD.
Both Dr.
Hall
and Dr.
Sagan
remarked
in
different
contexts
on
the
intense
emotional
factors
that
predispose
some
people
to
certain
systems
of
belief,
and
I
would
like
to
remark
on
that
to
be
sure that
some
perspective
is
maintained
on
that
part
of
the
problem.
In
the
witnesses
I
have interviewed—I have
intentionally
stayed
away
from
those
who
immediately
show a
very
strong
interest
in
a
salvation
theory,
or something
like
that—so
I
have
cut
down
my
sample
right
at
the
start.
I
would
want
to
leave
the point
strongly
emphasized
that
though
there
are
a
few
people,
and some
of
them
rather
visible
and
vocal,
who
are
emotional
about
the
problem
and
tie it
to
almost
religious
beliefs,
the
body
of
evidence
that
puzzles
me,
that bothers
me, and
I
think
demands
much
more
scientific
attention,
comes
from
people
who
are
really
not
at
all
emotional
about
it;
they
are puzzled
by
it,
they
are
reliable,
a
typical
cross-section
of
the populace.
They
have
not
built
any
wild
theories
on
it.
In
fact,
let
me
mention one important
sighting
in
New
Guinea.
I
didn't
interview
the
witness in
New
Guinea,
-
but
in
Melbourne,
Australia.
An
Anglican
Missionary,
Rev.
William
IL
Gill,
was
teach-
inx
the school in
New
Guinea,
and
when
he
and some
three
dozen
mission personnel
saw an
object
hovering
offshore
with
four
figures
visible
on
top
of
it,
even
this
minister didn't
begin to
put
any
religious
interpretation
on
it.
He
said
this
is
what
he saw, and he
wrote very
careful notes
about
it.
It
is
that
kind of
evidence,
and
not
evidence,
that
comes from
people with emotional
factors
predisposing
them
to
sys-
tem
beliefs
that impress
me.
Mr. RousH.
Let's
have
the
psychologist
speak
here for
just
a
moment.
Dr.
HALL.
Thank
you.
I
welcome
that
clarification.
The
point
I
was making was
not
that the
witnesses generally are
emotional
and
precommitted
to
a
position
at
all,
but
that the people
who
are interpreting the evidence
after
it
has been gathered are usually
precommitted beyond the point
of
rationality,
and
it is
a
very
im-portant
distinction
that
you brought
out.
The
primary problem of
witnesses,
it
seems to
me,
is this reluctance
to report based apparently
on
a
feeling that they
will
be ridiculed—
that their evidence
is
not
welcome—and
I
guess
I
can't resist telling
the
little
story
from
the
Wall
Street Journal, quite recently,
of a
man who had
five
pet wallabys in Westchester County.
A
wallaby