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.

•
211eter/surveying
system
and
leader
of
the
space
sciences
section
of the
applied
Research
Group.
Dr.
Henderson
is
a
member
of
Alpha
Chi, the
American
Geophysical
Union,
the
Society
of
Exploration
Geophysicists,
the
American
Astronautical
Society,
the
Marine
Technology
Society,
the
Working Group
on
Extraterrestrial
Re-
sources,
and
Sciences
Subcommittee
Chairman
of
the
Marine
Geodesy Committee.
PREPARED STATEMENT
BY
G.
C.
HENDERSON
UFO's
DEFINITELY
Do
NOT
Extsr—Do THEY?
INTRODUCTION
It
is
not
the
purpose
of
this
essay
to
specifically
reiterate
the
feelings
of
cer-
tain
members
of
the
scientific
community
regarding
UFO
phenomena;
rather
it
is
the
objective
here
to
briefly
review
the
state
ot
tne
problem
and
to
analyze
the
means
at
hand
of
acquiring
information
which would
be
sufficiently
reliable
to
convince
the
scientific
community and
others
of
the
hardware
existence
or
fallacy
of
the
UFO.
Although
the
common
image
persists
of
the
scientist
as
an
infallible
front
of
wisdom
and
knowledge,
the majority
of
reported
activities
of
scientists
relating
to
UFO
studies
has
been
nonprofessional
by
nature,
i.e.,
prominent
scientists
have
addressed themselves
to
the
problem
in
a
manner
which
they
would
certainly
not approach problems
within
their
respective
fields.
Such
an
example
is
the unfortunate
selection
of
the
University
of Colorado
team
headed
by a
respected
scientist,
with
the
result
that
the
squirrel
-case
atmos-
phere
usually associated
with
UFO
interest
has
been
augmented
by
built-in
bias
and
confusion,
rather
than
eliminated
by one group of
scientists'
involve-
ment.
One
scientist
has
even
published
an
'article
in
Science
(15
September 1967)
implying that
competent
scientists
would
accept
magic (or "semi
-magic") as
an
answer
to
the
existence
of
UFO's,
and
that
our
limited
capabilities
in
their
current
stage
may
be our
ultimate
technical heritage.
Is
there
not
the
slightest
chance
that,
even
today,
there
actually
remain
a
few
physical
phenomena
which
we
do
not understand, or of
which
we
are not even
aware—and
perhaps
a few
we
misinterpret,
but
for
which
we
are
shrewdly
able
to
concoct
a
convenient
"law"
by
way
of
appeasingly
sufficient
(but
not
necessary) explanation? If
"others"
exist,
are they
limited to
our
level
of
advancement?
As
noted
in
the
Special
Report
of the
USAF
Scientific
Advisory
Board
Ad Hoc
Committee
to
Review
Project
"Blue
Book" (March
1966)
some
sightings
classi-
fied
as
"identified" resulted
from
too
meager
or
too
indefinite
evidence
to
permit
positive
listing
in
that
category.
The
keys to
scientific
achievement have
several
notches,
but
the material
is
comprised of
competent
open-mindedness,
whichappears
to
have
been
all
to
commonly
lacking in
the
topic
of
concern.
Histori-cally,
many
of the
most
astonishing
accomplishments
have
been performed
by
those
who
persisted
even
in
the
fog
of
ridicule
exuded by
their
capable
butnarrow-minded
colleagues.
Several
professional,
qualified
observers
with proper
instrumentation, planning,
and
time
should
be able to devise
schemes
in
an
un-
biased
manner
to
(1)
determine
what UFO's
ARE
NOT,
then
(2)
determine
what,
if
anything
tangible,
they
ARE.
AVAILABLE
INFORMATION
Most
thoughtful persons
will
dismiss the
theatrical
claims of
trips
on
"saucers."
cavorting
with
little
green
men, and
the
like;
however,
some
very
plausible
reports
from
highly trained, capable,
and
reliable
individuals
cannot be so
readily
discarded
by anyone
willing
'to
admit
that there are
still
a few
things
wedo
not understand.
God
help
us
if
our
military
and
commercial
pilots
and
radar
facilities
so
commonly
mistake temperature
inversions, balloons,
atmosphericdisturbances,
the planet
Venus,
etc.
for
maneuvering
vehicles.
Have
you
ever
tried to
convince
two
veteran
pilots
that the object
they reported sighting
on
a
clear
day
with
CAVU
conditions, free of
traffic
lanes,
showing on
their
radarscreen, exhibiting high maneuverability, in
close
proximity,
etc.,
is meteoric
debris? If so,
then the
wrong
people are being examined.
To my
knowledge,
all
"facts"
on UFO's, here
and
abroad, exist in the
form
of
visual sightings
and a
few, apparently unretouched photographs.
Not
to
dis-
credit the value of unaided observation,
but with our degree of
technological
sophistication, these are hardly the sort of facts to justify
the
position
of the