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.
“UFO Files”31 pages
196 some respectability to the interest the American people have in this phenomena. Perhaps we can, by further activity on the part of this committee, and you on your part, and by the public reading what youhave said today, cause people to be more responsive and to report what they see. Perhaps we can thereby give an air of respectability to these sightings which will permit people to go ahead without being embar- rassed or ashamed of reporting what they have seen. Does anyone else have anything here? Mr. FULTON. Mr. Chairman, sightings of UFO's in western Pennsyl-vania have now increased to the point where interested citizens have established a UFO Research Institute with a 24 -hour answering service, to investigate reports and sightings. In my congressional district, there is the Westinghouse astronuclear plant, whose fine work is well known to the members of our committee. As I have been asked by Mr. Stanton T. Friedman, a nuclear physicist at Westinghouse who makes a hobby of investigating UFO sightings and publicly speaking on the subject, it is a pleasure to insert a state- ment by Mr. Friedman, "Flying Saucers Are Real" into the record at this point. He is one of the few observers with the candor to con- clude and so state that "the earth is being visited by intelligently controlled vehicles" from outer space. (Mr. Friedman's statement follows:) SUMMARY OF "FLYING SAUCERS ARE REAL"BY STANTON T. FRIEDMAN, NUCLEAR PHYSICIST After considerable study, first-hand investigation, and review of a great variety of data, I have concluded that the evidence is overwhelming that the earth is being visited by intelligently controlled vehicles whose origin is extraterrestrial. This does not mean that I know why they are here, where they come from, how they operate, why they don't seem to be talking to us. It also does not mean that I believe that everything that people see that they cannot identify is an extra- terrestrial spaceship. Quite the contrary, I believe that most things that people report as UFO's can be identified as relatively conventional phenomena seen under unconventional circumstances just as most isotopes cannot fission or fusion, most chemicals don't cure any diseases, most people cannot run a four-minute mile, and most women don't look like Brigitte Bardot. The scientific approach to any problem is to sift the information to find that which is relevant to the solu- tion of the problem at hand. The fact that most initially strange objects in the sky and on the ground can be identified is totally irrelevant to the question of the existence of extraterrestrial spaceships. Also irrelevant are the facts that we cannot yet comfortably visit other planets, that some of us might behave differ- ently from the way our visitors act, that we have not yet publicly been exposed to pieces of such a vehicle, or to an extraterrestrial humanoid on television. While almost everyone has heard of flying saucers and has an opinion about them, most people including the non -believing scientists who have made such definite statements about their non-existence are ignorant not only of the facts concerning UFO's but also of the technology that might aid one in understanding the vehicles' motion, the possibility of interplanetary and interstellar travel, or the possibility of life on Mars. Sightings of UFO's are relatively common and have occurred all over the world. One out of every 25 adult Americans has seen a UFO. Judging from the one detailed, official, scientific investigation that has been published, one -fifth of the sightings can be labelled as Unknowns. These Unknowns are completely separate and distinct from the 20% of the 2199 sightings which were labeled"Insufficient Information" because some vital piece of data was missing. Many of the Unknowns are reported by highly trained, competent witnesses who have close-up sightings lasting for many minutes. UFO's have been observed on radar and been subsequently labelled as Unknowns. There have been simultaneous radar and visual sightings. Comparisons between Knowns and Unknowns clearly showed definite differences in color, shape, size, velocity, maneuverability, etc.
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.