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
240 N•Pfeneeeen See SPAIN lf Fig. 2. Eight sightings in France for Sep- tember 24, 1964 (Michel, 1958) as re- ported in France-Soir, Paris-Presse, and LaCroix (Sept. 26 and 28). A ninth sight- ing at Lantefortain-les-Baroches in north- ern France is not shown on the map. Sightings at LePuy and Langeac do not occur on the line, but the other six fall so close to the great circle arc indicated that no deviation can be detected on a Michelin map with a scale of 1:1,000,000. Circum- stances of the six sightings on the line were very briefly as follows: Vichy, after- noon: Football players practicing in a stadium and spectators saw an elliptical, cigar-shaped object cross the sky swiftly and silently. Gelles, early night: The wit- nesses saw a luminous, cigar-shaped object cross the sky at fairly high speed and with- out noise. Ussel, about 11 p.m.: A lumi- nous red object rose above the horizon and dived, at high speed, toward M. Cisterne, who was driving his tractor back to the barn. The object approached so closely that he jumped from the tractor and lay terrified in the field. The object hovered a few yards above the road, and in front of the tractor, remaining motionless for sev- eral minutes in complete silence. Surround- ings were illuminated with a reddish light. The UFO then flew over the tractor and disappeared over the horizon in a few sec- onds. Two other people also saw the ob- ject, and leaves at the top of an ash tree, near where the object reportedly had hovered, were dried and curled. Tulle, 11 p.m.: M. Besse, with the aid of high- powered binoculars, watched a luminous object move rapidly in the sky, changing color from reddish to white and then to green. Lencouacq, nightfall: A single wit- ness watched a luminous object arrive at high speed in silence, hover above a meadow, and then leave again at high speed. Bayonne, afternoon: Many people watched three elliptical objects, metallic in appearance, hover in the sky, and then move away very rapidly, likely that we are not dealing with a conventional object misinterpreted. The detail usually precludes this. In such a case, the UFO could be an extraterres- trial spaceship or it could fit into one of the categories discussed below. III. Psychological Phenomena Can the UFO's be pure figments of the mind — hallucinations, dreams, _and the like? Probably there are cases on which this is the proper explana- tion, but it is a difficult one to apply to situations in which many witnesses describe with reasonable uniformity a single UFO. In such cases, the psy- chological explanation would have to fall back on areas such as extra- sensory perception, which are really not much more respectable in modern science than spaceships from Mars. In cases in which radar observes the ob- ject at the same IIime that it is ob- served visually%* rt is photographed, we would have to postulate that one mind can project an object into the heavens in such a way that instruments such as radar and the camera detect it. This would be as exciting as spaceships! Certainly we do not know all there is to know about the operation of the human mind, so this hypothesis cannot be completely eliminated. And even if the UFO's are spaceships, psychologi- cal factors play an important part in the phenomenon. Nevertheless, this hypothesis is not really satisfying. Probably the most detailed study of the UFO's by a psychologist was carried out by Jung (1959). He was able to document a great many extremely fas- cinating psychological implications of the UFO. In his final conclusion, how- ever, he could only state that psycho- logical explanations were not sufficient for the phenomenon as a whole. IV. Hoaxes or Lies An obvious and straightforward ex- planation of the UFO's is that the wit- nesses are lying or that the object is a hoax. Yet the Air Force, always acutely aware of this possibility, ex- plained only a very small percentage of the cases which they investigated in this way. Often it is very difficult to imagine that a hoax is involved. The witnesses give all of the outward signs of being extremely sincere; often they are emotionally upset by their recent experience. Frequently, their back- ground and general competence seem to argue strongly against the idea of hoax. Furthermore, in sightings in which hundreds and even thousands of witnesses are involved (and a few such sightings are on record), one must re- ject the idea that all the witnesses were lying. If a hoax were involved, it would have to be the object itself. Before completely eliminating this explanation, we must remember that a hoax can be amazingly effective. I saw the great Blackstone on a stage appar- ently pass a rapidly moving bandsaw blade directly through the neck of an assistant in a trance. A block of wood below the neck was sawed in half amidst much noise and flying sawdust. Yet this was admittedly a hoax. Would it be possible to some way cause an illusion in the sky which could com- pletely fool hundreds of witnesses? I cannot absolutely say that it would not. On the other hand, in many casesopro- ducing such an illusion would appear to be almost as great a feat as building a flying saucer itself. One aspect of the UFO story does seem to be deeply involved in hoax. This is the so-called contactee cult. Many people now located over much of the world claim to have had direct contact with the flying-saucer people. (Adamski and Leslie, 1958; UFO In- ternational). Perhaps the contactee is informed by mental telepathy that he should re- port promptly to a certain lonely spot in the desert. Upon obeying, he is met by a flying saucer whose occupants are, as a rule, beautifully humanoid and who frequently take him into their confidence by allowing him to photo- graph themselves and their craft, invit- ing him in for a look at the control panels, and perhaps taking him for a quick spin, sometimes to Mars or Venus but best of all to the mys- terious planet on the other side of the sun, unobservable from mother earth. Everything about these stories seems to cry hoax. The proof is typically a series of photographs (which could easily be fraudulent) and copious quantities of pseudoscience. Someone who had really contacted visitors from another world should surely be able to do better than that. Why should visi- tors from another world bother with such obscure representatives of the human race, anyway? Their message is always that man must cease his wars or be destroyed, but why should such an important message be given to someone who is bound to be considered a liar when he delivers it? It is interesting to consider the pos- sibility that the contactees are genu- ine. When considering the UFO phe- nomenon, all sorts of wild alternatives come to mind. If the extraterrestrials wanted to be ignored by the scientific community on earth, they cotIld hardly choose a better and more effective way than the delivering of profound mes-
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.