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.
18 (The biography of Dr.McDonald follows:) DR. JAMES E. MCDONAI,D Born: Duluth, Minn., May 7, 1920. Home Address: 3461 East Third St., Tucson, Ariz. Education: University of Omaha, Omaha,Nebraska, B.A. (Chemistry) 1942. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. (Meterology) 1945. Iowa State University, Ames,Ia., Ph.D.(Physics) 1951. Professional Career: Instructor, Dept. of Physics,Iowa State University, 1946-49. Assistant Professor, Dept. of Physics, Iowa State University, 1950-53. Research physicist, Cloud Physics Project, University of Chicago, 1953-54. Associate Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Arizona, 1954-56, Pro- fessor, 1956-57. Associate director, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, University of Arizona, 1954-57. Professor, Dept. of Meteorology, and Senior Physicist, Institute of Atmos- pheric Physics,1958 to present. Other activities: U.S. Navy,1942-45, naval intelligence and aerology. Member, Panel on Weather and Climate Modification, National Academy of Sciences, 1905-present. Member, ESSA-Navy Project Stormfury Advisory Panel, 1966-present. Member, American Meteorological Society Commission on Publications, 1966- present. Member, Advisory panel for weather modification, National Science Founda- tion, 1967-present. Professional memberships: American Association for Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Society, Sigma Xi, American Geophysical Union, Royal Meteorological Society, Arizona Academy of Science, American Association of University Professors. Personal: Married,1945, Betsy Hunt: six children. Fields of special interest: Atmospheric physics, physics of clouds and precipita- tion, meterological optics, atmospheric electricity, weather modification, unidentified aerial phenomena. STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES E. McDONALD, SENIOR PHYSICIST, INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, AND PROFESSOR, DE- PARTMENT OF METEOROLOGY, THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, TUCSON, ARIZ. Dr.MCDONALD.Thank you,Mr.Roush. I am very pleased to have this chance to make some comments and suggestions based on my own experience to the committee, and I do wish to commend the Committee on Science and Astronautics for tak- ing this first, and I hope very significant step, to look at the problem that has puzzled many for 20 years. As Dr. Hynek has emphasized in his remarks, it is one of the diffi- culties of the problem we are talking about today that the scientific community, not just in the United States but on a world basis, has tended to discount and to regard as nonsense the UFO problem. The fact that so much anecdotal data is involved has understandly discour- aged many scientists from taking seriously what,in fact, I believe is a matter of extraordinary scientific importance. I have been studying now for about 2 years, on a rather intensive basis, the UFO problem. I have interviewed several hundred wit- nesses in selected cases, and I am astonished at what I have found. I
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.