Documents / Hearing transcript

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.

U.S. House of Representatives · 1968-07-29 · 256 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 7 …With the range in mind, then, we have invited six outstanding scientists to address us today…
  • p. 46 …Expert psychological opinion is badly needed in assessing such reports (expert but not close-minded opinion…
  • p. 68 …we scientists are by no means as open-minded and fearlessly independent as we are sometimes…
  • p. 92 …origin which the committee must have in mind. I'm delighted to tell about contemporary scientific…
  • p. 97 …those views, and you simply keep an open mind and pursue whatever facts are at hand…
  • p. 140 …Nevertheless, it still is an open possibility in my mind. It seems reasonable, therefore, to undertake…
  • p. 215 …The Open and Closed Mind. N.Y .: Basic Books, 1960. Sprinkle, R. L. Scientific Attitude Survey…
  • p. 217 …The keys to scientific achievement have several notches, but the material is comprised of competent open…
  • p. 244 …We should, in deference to the scientific method, examine with a completely open mind any evidence…
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0)The
array
is
intended only to
convey
some
idea of the variety
of
shapes
that
have appeared,
it
does not
give
an
adequate
impression of the
relative
frequencies
with
which
the
different
shapes have
appeared.
In
fact,
the images most com-
monly
appearing
in
my
total
sample
show
either
a
small
point,
formless
blob,
or fuzzy
ellipse
of
light
in
a
night sky, or
else
a
dark,
more
or
less distinct ellipse
(like that
shown
in
D9)
against
a
lighter
sky.
With
very
few
exceptions,
such
as
the
rocket-
or "cigar"-shaped object with "exhaust
trail"
(G9), which
alleg-
edly
was
photographed over Peru
in 1052, the
more
well-defined objects
appearto
be some
variant of the "saucer" or
"domed
disk."

Cases discussed

About this file

Hearing transcript, from the govinfo collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 256 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.