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.
“The Advance”52 pages
197 This data, which most people have never seen or even heard of, is published in a document entitled "Project Blue Book Special Report, Number 14" which was completed in 1955 and has never been made readily available. The low percentage of Unknowns since that time is the direct result of deception on the part of the U.S. Air Force whose entire approach since that time has been based upon the assumption that everything can be identified. The usual arguments made against "visitations" are based upon false assump- tions, wrong (unanswerable) questions and faulty knowledge. "Things cannot go that fast in the atmosphere—spaceflight is impossible—trips to the stars are impossible, if they were here they would talk to us . . . etc." The typical educated non -believer focuses on the irrelevant IFO's and poor sightings by incompetent observers and carefully neglects the UNKNOWNS seen by corn-, petent observers. The great probability that there are civilizations thousands, perhaps millions of years, ahead of us and possessing technology about which we are probably totally ignorant is neglected. The distressing thought that we, the inhabitants of this planet, might not be worth talking to is pushed aside. The most effective filter between the facts as they are and the widespread distri- bution of those facts has been ridicule. Fewer than 1% of the sightings that have occurred have been investigated or reported. Documents containing solid data about UFO's rather than IFO's have been privately published so that most people have never seen the data that they contain. An entire mythology of false information has been widely distributed instead. Now is the time to break through the "laughter curtain." Studies done six years ago at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory showed that trips to the stars in reasonable times are feasible withthe knowledge we have today using staged fission or fusion propulsion systems both of which are under development. A tremendously large body of data con- nected with magnetoaerodynamics even suggests we might be able to build some- thing very much like the reported UFO's—and also solve many of the problems of high speed flight and produce the electromagnetic effects so frequently asso- ciated with UFO sightings. "It's impossible" is said instead of "We don't know how." Literally hundreds of reports from all over the world also testify to the existence of humanoid creatures associated with UFO's on the ground. Once again ridicule has kept the facts from being known. More than 200 landings have been documented for 1954 alone. There are good pictures of UFO's from all over the world—most of which have also not received the publicity that they deserve. A good example of the ridiculousness of the professional skeptics' attitude is the statement that "life as we know it cannot exist on any other body in the solar system." It sounds sensible until we note that we expect to send men to the moon and to Mars. The primary attribute of an advanced intelligent civilization is its ability to create its own environment almost everywhere such as the bottomof the ocean, in outer space, and on the surface of airless, waterless bodies such as the moon and Mars. For those who believe that the Mariner IV pictures of Mars proved that there isn't life there, it should be pointed out that of 10,000 Pictures taken of the earth from a satellite with cameras of the same resolving power as those used on Mariner IV, only 1 (one) gave any indication of life on earth. Max Plank once said that new truths come to be accepted not because their opponents come to believe in them but because their opponents die and a new generation grows up that is accustomed to them. Perhaps this is what will happen with UFO's. Mr. Rousll. Dr. Baker, and Dr. Hall, Dr. McDonald, Dr. Harder, Dr. Hynek, and Dr. Sagan, I believe that you people have made a real contribution here, and I think the time will come when certain people will look back and read what has been done here today and realize that we have pioneered in a field insofar as the Congress of the United States is concerned. They will be very mindful that something worthwhile was done here today. As a personal note, I would like to say this has been one of the most unusual and most interesting days.I have spent since I have been in the Congress of the United States. Thank you. I thank each of you.
Hearing transcript, from the govinfo collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 256 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.