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.

224
Similarly,
in
the case
of
UFO
episodes,
it
may
be
possible
to
discover
some
regularities
or
patterns
within these episodes
even though
any
clear
overall
pattern
in
their
mere
occurrences (except,
possibly
for the
tendency
to unpre-
dieted
local
concentrations
in
space
and
time)
continues to elude
us.
This
is
not
to
say
that
efforts—such
as
those
of Michel
(1958)
and
of
Vallee
and
Vallee
(1966)—to
detect
some
overall
pattern
should not
be
pursued,
but
only that
the
attempt
at
a
scientific
study need not
await
a
positive
outcome
of
those
efforts.
The
principal
sense in
which
the
problem
of
UFO
phenomena
is
a
psychological
problem
In
the
meantime,
a
scientific
study of
these
phenomena
is
not impossible—just
more
difficult.
For,
we
are
faced for the
most
part
with
a
problem—not
of
mak-
ing
physical
measurements—but
of
interpreting
verbal
reports.
We
are
faced,in
short,
with
a
problem
amenable
more
to
the
methods
of
the
psychologist
than
to those
of the
physical
scientist.
It
is
the
principal
purpose
of
this
note
to
propose
that, despite
the
relatively
primitive
state
of
development
of
psychological
science,
psychological
and
social
scientists
and
even,
indeed,
law
enforcement
specialists
have
devised
some
tech-
niques that could
as
well
be
applied to
further the
scientific
study of
UFO's.
I
do
not
mean
to suggest
by
this
that
most
reports
of
UFO's
can
probably
be
shown
to
arise
from
purely
psychological
aberrations
such
as
illusions,
halluci-
nations, delusions, after
-images,
and
the
like.
On
the
contrary,
a
careful
exami-
nation
of
most
of
the
best
-documented
cases
has
convinced
me—as
at
least
one
psychologist
who
has
studied
rather
extensively into
the
fields
of
normal
and
psychopathological
perception—that very
few
such
cases
can
be
explained
along
these
lines.
Indeed,
I
have
the
impression
that
the claims
that the
UFO's
reported
even
by
seemingly
responsible
citizens
represent lapses
Of
a
'basically
psycho-
pathological
character
have
generally
come
from
people
who
have
neglected
to
study
closely
either
into
the
literature
on
psychopathology,
or
into
that
on
UFO's,
or (in
many
cases,
I
fear)
both.
The
desirability
of separating three
psychologically
extreme
types
of
UFO
cases
I
have
so far
ignored the
reports
of
the
so-called
"contactees"
and
related
cultists
who
seem
to
form
a
relatively distinct
class
and
who
are
generally readily
identifiable
without the
benefit
of
extensive psychological
training.
Insofar
as
possible,
I
should
also
like
to
disregard the
reports
of
out-and-out hoaxters.
Ad-
mittedly,
however,
these present
a somewhat more
troublesome problem
to
which
we
must
return later—particularly in connection
with photographs
and
other
types
of
alleged
physical evidence.
Of
course there
always
are
ambiguous
cases
which are
difficult
to
place
cer-
tainly
within the
triangle defined
by
the
three, psychologically
distinct
"corners"
representing
the deluded
contactee,
the
conscious pranksters,
and
the involuntary
but
responsible
witness
of
some
real
but
puzzling
phenomenon. However, as has
often
been
remarked,
the
existence
of
twilight
does not
deter
us from
dis-
tinguishing
between
night
and
day—nor
should
it.
In
fact, science
generally
proceeds
most
rapidly
by
focusing
first
on
the purest
and most
clear-cut cases,
and by
leaving for
later
any
"mop
-up"
operation
of
dealing
with the remaining
cases that are
to
varying degrees complicated,
mixed,messy,
borderline,
or
obscure.
Thus
the
social
scientist
who
is
primarily
inter-
ested
in studying the formation
and
perpetuation
of
delusional
belief
systems
will
do
well to
focus
precisely
on
the
members
of the "contactee"
cults,
thearchetypal
examples of which
are
situated
in the south-western United
States
and
are
heavily constituted
by
persons (often predominantly
women
rather past
middle
age)
who
have
relatively
little
formal
education together
with
a
history
of
professed
beliefs
in
the
mystical,
the
spiritual,
or the
occult.
Likewise,
a
clinical
psychologist interested in
the
ways
in
which
socially
responsible
adult
behavior
emerges or
fails
to
emerge out of the play
and
testing
behavior ofchildhood
may
learn
something
from an
'intensive
study of
any
of the almostcanonical cases of adolescent
boys
who,
often in pairs
and
in accordance with
an
almost
tiringly
regular pattern, attain
at
least transitory notoriety
by
submittingtheir
photograph of
a
"flying
saucer"—replete with
dome,
antenna, and, perhaps,portholes
and
fins.
Just
so, if
we
are,
as
here, primarily concerned with the
possibility
of unex-plained but
objective
phenomena taking place within our atmosphere, then
we
should eschew not only the two pure sorts of cases just mentioned, but also the