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
218 is a very high fraction of system weight. It is interesting to note that most scien- tific progress has come from doing things differently rather than using the same technique—microcircuits aren't just smaller vacuum tubes; lasers aren't just better light bulbs. Many people are not aware that the U.S. Patent Office has granted more than ten patents for what one might honestly call flying saucer shaped craft all of which claim great maneuverability and the ability to rise vertically. Some can supposedly hover. None of these use magnetoaerodynamic techniques. For those who are interested, the patents are listed in Appendix 3. This list hasn't been up -dated for a couple of years. 26. Have any members of your audience seen any UFOs? I have taken to asking whether any members of my audiences have seen what they would call a UFO. Typically 3-10% are willing to raise their hands and usually there are others who approach me privately. These data, though limited. tend to support the Gallup Poll of 1966 which revealed that 5 million adult Ameri- cans claimed to have observed a UFO. Interestingly enough the official files con- tain fewer than 12,000 reports. 27. Were these sightings by your audience reported to investigative bodies? In general, no. At Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory 25 of the 600 listeners indicated that they had seen something odd but only one had reported what he had seen. 28. Is there some way to get more data about UFOs besides reading reports? There are several approaches that should be taken. (a) Lift the "laughter curtain" so that more observers are willing to re- port what they see and more scientists will become involved. ( b ) Using existing technology establish instrumented investigative teamsand automated observation instrumentation such as that recommended by Dr. Baker before the Committee on Science and Astronautics. (o) A world wide communication and study effort should be begun. (d) A very large survey should be conducted to determine the character- istics of the objects that have been observed. The most comprehensive pic- ture we have of ball lightning resulted from carefully conducted surveys by McNally 64 and Rayle. UFOs in my opinion are definitely not ball lightning or other natural plasmas but are analagous to ball lightning and earthquakes in that their appearance cannot be predicted and they cannot be reproduced in the lab or in the field but they have been observed.29. Are there any other references of interest to scientists? Yes, References 56-62. 30. Haven't you biased your comments by not discussing at any length the work of Marcowitz, Menzel, and Klass? The paper by Marcowitz 12 and the books by Menzel ' and Klass will un- doubtedly be read by scientists of the 21st century as "classics" illustrating a non-scientific approach to UFOs by people who, for whatever reason, would not examine the data relevant to UFOs or advanced technology. Marcowitz was totally wrong about fission and fusion propulsion systems, didn't even consider electromagnetic propulsion, and was obviously unaware of current technology and the data such as I mentioned earlier about UFOs. McDonald 62 has discussed Menzel's approach in detail, but let me also point out that in Ref. 64, fewer than 30 sightings ever listed as "unknowns" were discussed and no mention was made of the 434 "Unknowns" of Ref. 3 or even the 71 Excellent Unknowns of this study. I agree with Klass on only one item, many people have observed glowing plasmasbut I believe they were adjacent to vehicles rather than ball lightning or corona discharge. He didn't even consider this possibility despite all his talk about plasmas and despite the enormous amount of plasma -vehicle data which is avail- able. In summary, I feel that these three gentlemen have made strong attempts to make the data fit their hypotheses rather than trying to do the much more diffi- cult job of creating hypotheses which fit the data. ( b) Using existing technology establish instrumented investigative teams andautomated observation instrumentation such as that recommended by Dr. Baker before the Committee on Science and Astronautics. (o) A world wide communication and study effort should be begun. (d) A very large survey should be conducted to determine the characteristics of the objects that have been observed. The most comprehensive picture we haveof ball lightning resulted from carefully conducted surveys by McNally 54 andRayle " UFOs in my opinion are definitely not ball lightning or other natural plasmas but are analagous to ball lightning and earthquakes in that their ap- 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.