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
214 Professional affiliations include the American Physical Society, the American Nuclear Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization, the National Investigations Commit- tee on Aerial Phenomena. Mr. Friedman is on the Board of Directors of the UFO Research Institute of Pittsburgh and on the Standards and Program Committees of the Shielding Division of the American Nuclear Society. Mr. Friedman has presented papers at technical society meetings and has chaired sessions at such meetings. He has written numerous classified and un- classified reports and has published articles on UFOs as well as on radiation shielding. Mr. Friedman has made dozens of radio and TV appearances across the United States and in Canada. These include the Joe Pyne Show (Los Angeles—radio), Long John Nebel (New York City), the J. P. McCarthy Show in Detroit, all four TV stations in Pittsburgh, and others in Raleigh, Akron, Detroit, Baltimore, Toronto, Waco, Phoenix, Calgary, Albuquerque, etc. Mr. Friedman, his wife, and three children reside at 702 Summerlea Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. PREPARED STATEMENT BY STANTON T. FRIEDMAN UFOs AND SCIENCE I am grateful to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics for inviting me to present my views on Unidentified Flying Objects.' These viewpoints shall be presented in the form of answers to specific questions with the references, tables and figures presented at the end of the article. A partial list of the technical organizations to which I have presented a lecture. entitled "Flying Saucers are Real" is given in Appendix 1. Appendix 3 is a reprint of an article I wrote.' Ap- pendix 2 is a list of patents of saucer -like vehicles. The viewpoints are mine and mine alone and are not to be construed as those of any of the organizations to which I belong or of my employer, Westinghouse Astronuclear Laboratory. The opinions are based upon ten years of study of UFOs and discussions all over the U.S. and in Canada on a private level for eight years and a public level since late 1966 both in question and answer sessions following my illustrated talks and with newspaper, radio, and television reporters with whom I have publicly discussed this subject.1. To what conclusions have you come with regard to UFOs? I have concluded that the earth is being visited by intelligg , ntly controlled vehicles whose origin is extraterrestrial. This doesn't mean I know where they come from, why they are here, or how they operate. 2. What basis do you have for these conclusions? Eyewitness and photographic and radar reports from all over the earth bycompetent witnesses of definite objects whose characteristics such as maneu- verability, high speed, and hovering, along with definite shape, texture, and sur- face features rule out terrestrial explanations ; 3. Haven't most sightings been identified as conventional phenomena? Yes, of course. However, it is only the unidentified objects in which I am in- terested and on which I base my conclusions. The job of science is to sort data and focus on that which is relevant to the search at hand. Fewer than 1% of Americans have hemophilia or are 7 feet tall or can run a mile in under 4 min- utes—we certainly don't dispute the reality of hemophilia, Wilt Chamberlain, or 4 minute miles. 4. Are there any good unknowns? Yes, there are very many good unknowns which have been reported and inves- tigated and undoubtedly very many more which have not been reported because of the "laughter curtain". In the most comprehensive detailed scientific investiga- tion ever conducted on this subject, and reported in Reference 3, it was foundthat 434 out of 2199 sightings evaluated had to be classified as Unknowns. This is 19.7% or a far higher percentage than most people have associated with UFOs. The complete breakdown is shown in Table 1. Table 2 shows the breakdown ofsightings by quality. Fully one third of the 9.7% of the sightings labelled as Excellent were identified as Unknowns: one fourth of the Oood sightings were labelled Unknown. All it would take to prove the reality of extraterrestrial vehicles is one good sighting not hundreds. Footnotes at the end of article.
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.