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.

232
TABLE
I
Label
describing
visual
appearance
(excluding chromatic
colors)
(a)
(b)
Number
of
Number
of
occurrences
occurrences
in
206
actual
in
475
de
-
UFO
cases
scriptions
of
photographs
Appreciable
discrepancies
1.
Disk
shaped
27
42
2.
Circular
24 24
3.
Round
22
25
4.
Metallic
19
41
5.
Domed
top
15
21
6.
Starlike
(point
of
light)
14
6
-
7.
Cigar
shaped
13
1
-
_
8.
Spherical
12
9
9.
Ball
shaped
11
0
-
10.
Fiery
appearance
11
0
-
11.
Trail
of
vapor
or
smoke
10
13
12. Portholes or
windows
10
0
-
13.
Pattern
of
lights
9
0
-
14.
White
filaments
emitted
9 0
-
15.
Oval
6
19
±
16.
Flat
6 8
17.
Elliptical
5
9
18.
Dumbbell
shaped
5
0
19.
Football
shaped
4
1
20.
White
4
0
21.
Saucer
shaped
3
12
+
22.
Egg
shaped
3
5
23.
Diamond
shaped
3 0
24.
Silvery
3
0
25.
Saturn
shaped
2 7
26.
Top
shaped
2
5
27.
Conical
2
3
28.
Washtub
shaped
2
0
29.
Two
washbowls
rim
-to
-rim
2
0
30.
Two
plates
rim
-to
-rim
2
0
31.
Long
tail
2
0
32.
Emitting
flame
2
0
33.
Hat shaped
1
35
+ +
Total
265
251
The two
columns of numbers,
then, present the
resulting
frequencies
of
occur-
rence
(a)
in the
206
ac,ual
UFO
reports
and
(b)
in
the
475
opportunities
forthese
same
descriptive
terms
to
arise
in
the experiment with the
photographs.Direct
numerical comparisons are
somewhat
hazardous
owing
to
the
different
circumstances
in
which
the
two
sets
of
descriptive
terms
arose.
In terms
merely
of
opportunities,
the
numbers
in
the second
column
should
be
about
twice
as
large
as
those
in
the
first.
However,
the
totals
for the
two
columns
are
nearly
equal
and,
so,
the
real
encoun:ers
evidently
were
relatively
more
productive
of
descriptive
terms on
the average.
Numerically small
.departures
or
departures
in
which
the second
number
is
somewhere
between
the
size
of the
first
number and
twice that
size
are probably not very
significant
therefore.
The
remaining
positive
and
negative discrepancies
of
appreciable
size
are
indi-
cated
by
the plus
and minus
signs in
the
right
-most column.
Some
of
these
areprobably explainable in
terms
of the two-dimensional, achromatic,
and
stationary
character of the photographs
(e.g.,
#10
&
13), or
in
terms
of
differences
in vocab-
ulary
to
be
expected
between the
unselected witnesses
and
the
college
-educatedsubjects
of the experiment
(e.g.,
#9 &
15).
Other
discrepancies,
however,
suggest
either
that
some
shapes, such
as
the
so-called
"cigar"
(
#7),
were
not adequatelyrepresented in the
sample
of photographs, or that
some
shapes, such as
those
most
frequently said to resemble
a
"hat"
(
#33),
are
especially likely
to
havebeen of fraudulent
origin.
(Among
the
objects included in the above
figure
that
were
often said
to be hat
-like
are C3, which
we
already noted
is
almost
certainly
a
1937 Ford hubcap; E4, which
doesn't
seem
to
fit
very well with the usualdescriptions
of
UFOs;
and G2,
which, although
it
too doesn't coincide
with at
least
my
notion of
a
"flying saucer,"
does however
correspond rather
closely
with several other photographs.)