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.

204
or
right.
You
will
probably
see
a
faint
roundish
out
-of
-focus
spot.
This
is
light
reflected
from
the
front surface
of
your
eyeball,
back
to
the
lens,
and
then
back
into
the
pupil
of
your
eye.
A
bright source,
to
one
side
and
slightly
behind you,
can
also
reach
your
eye
'through
reflection
from
the
internal
surface
of
the
spectacle
lens.
To
this
moment
I
have
not
mentioned
still
another
method
of
detecting
saucers—one
not
subject
to
the
vagaries
of the
human
eye.
I
mean
radar,
of
course.
Radar
is
a
machine.
It
can't
make
mistakes.
Or
at
least
that
is
the
com-
mon
argument
advanced
by
UFO
buffs.
Radar
is
cursed
with
all
the
potential
afflictions
that
any
complicated
electrical
gadget can
suffer.
But
let
me
mention
only
one:
mirage.
Let
me
explain
briefly
what a
radar
does.
It
sends out
a
pulse
of
radio
waves.
We
know
the
direction,
Northeast for
example.
We
know
the
elevation
above
the
horizon.
An
echo
re-
turns.
From
the
interval
between
transmission
and
reception
of the
pulse,
we
know how
far
away
the
object
is
that
reflected
the
pulse
back
to
us.
We
think
we
detect
a
plane—or
a
UFO
in
flight—because the
radar
directs
the
pulse
upward.
We
have
no
way
of
following
the
pulse in
its
path
toward
the
target.
A
layer
of
warm,
dry
air
or
even
a
layer containing
a
few
bubbles
of
warm
air
will
bendthe radar
beam
back
to
earth.
The
reflection
may
be
from
a
distant
building,
a
train,
or
a
ship.
No
wonder
that
planes,
sent to
intercept
radar
UFO,
find
noth-
ing.
In one
such
case,
a
well-known
writer
on
flying
saucers
wrote:
"The
dis-
covery
of
visible
saucers
had
been
serious
enough.—The
discovery
now
of
in-
visible
flying
saucers
would
be
enough
to
frighten
anyone."
Small
changes
in
the
atmosphere
can
make
the
UFO
seem
to
maneuver
at
fantastic
speeds,
executing
right-angle
turns
or
suddenly
vanishing completely
from
the radar
scope.
I
was
very
familiar
with
such
effects
from
having
worked
with
them
during
Naval
Service in
World
War
II.
The
greatest
radar
saucer
flap
of
all
times
occurred
in
the
hot,
dry
month
of
July
1952,
when
a
whole
fleet
of
UFO's
were
detected
by
radar at Washington
National
airport.
Subsequent
research
by
the
Weather
Bureau
completely confirmed
what
the
UFO
buffs
pointedly refer to
as
my
"Hot
Air Theory."
After
all
why
should
one be
surprised to
find
hot
air
over
Washington?
I
know
of
no
reliable
case
of
simultaneous
visual
and
radar
sightings.
In
viewof the
physical
properties
of
the
eye,
the
surprising
fact
is
that
so
few
eases
have
been
reported.
'Time
will
not permit
me
to
elaborate
on
still
other relevant
phenomena.
Forexample
the Air
Force appears
to
have
neglected
completely
the
psychological
angle of
which
mass
hallucination
is
just
one
phase.
Back
in
1919, in Spain,
a
not
unrelated
phenomenon
occurred.
Thousands
of
people—reliable
people—swore
that they
had
seen
images
of
saints
rolling
their eyes,
moving
their
hands,
dripping
drops of
blood,
even
stepping
out of
their panels.
One
person
would
call
out,
others
would imagine they
had
seen
something! There
are
many
similar
events recorded
through the
ages.
There
are
hundreds
of
known
hoaxes,
such
as
the
ingenious
one
perpetrated
by
students of the University
of
Colorado.
Spurred by
the allotment
of
an
Air
Force grant for studying
UFO's
to the
University
of Colorado,
enterprising
pranksters
made
hot-air
balloons
from
candles
and
plastic
bags,
the kind usedfor packaging dry
cleaning.
The show was
spectacular.
And
it
gave
the Uni-
versity investigators
a
good
opportunity
to
see
how
poor the
evidence
can
be,
a
fact
well-known to
the
legal profession.
This
is
still
another
point
that the Air
Force has sometimes
failed
to
realize.
Moreover
their
poor
questionnaire only
further confused
an
already confused
picture.
A
recent similar sighting
south of
Denver,
later
identified
as
plastic
-bag balloons
and
candles,
produced
fantastic:
reports
from
"reliable" witnesses.
Several times
I
have
used the phrase
"UFO's
cavorting across the sky."
I
did
so
deliberately
because
it
seems
to
be
a
favorite
phrase of
my
good
friend
Dr.
J. Allen
Hynek
of Northwestern
University
and
consultant
to
the Air ForceProject
Blue Book.
He
has sometimes
expressed doubts about the
UFO
becausestars don't
"cavort" across the sky.
What
I have
tried
to
show
is
that
many
kinds
of
optical stimuli
can produce weird
effects.
With
all
these
kOs
of
phenomena masquerading as UFO's,
many
of them,
like
those related to physiology of the
human
eye
still
practically
not
investigated,
Ithink
I can reasonably claim, applying the
criterion
of Sherlock
Holmes, that
we