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.
“Nevers”43 pages
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.)
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.