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.

243
Fig. 5. A faked photograph made by the
author of two UFO's over Horsetooth Res-
ervoir in northern Colorado. Inserts are
enlargements to the point of evident grain
as in Figure 4. Note that the object ap-
pears dark against the background, an ef-
fect impossible to obtain by the usual
double exposure technique. The picture
could have been taken and developed in
the presence of witnesses—although they
would not have seen the objects!
He shot six frames, of which two failed
to show the object. He explained that
due to the excitement he was bumped
during these two and that they showed
only the deck of the ship and the ocean.
A darkroom was improvised below
deck, the film was developed, and the
minute object on it was identified by
the sailors (Lorenzen, 1962).
This is an excellent sighting because
of the number of witnesses involved
and the excellent quality of the pictures
(especially the third one, the one shown
in the figure). Conventional objects
can hardly explain the sighting.
Menzel and Boyd (1963) and ap-
parently the United States Air Force
consider the sighting to be a hoax. Of
the available hypotheses, only this one
and that of extraterrestrial machines
seem to apply. The hoax explanation
must also probably fail if the object
was really witnessed by 100 sailors.
Menzel and Boyd tell the story differ-
ently (their version is based on a re-
port from astronomer friends of Menzel
in Rio de Janeiro who did not person-
ally investigate the incident), saying
that only Barauna and two or three of
his close friends claim to have seen the
object. Yet newspaper reporters inter-
viewed the sailors after the Almirante
Saldanha landed several weeks later.
I have received several reports on the
sighting, including a personal conversa-
tion with Dr. Alavio Fontes, a medical
doctor in Rio de Janeiro who investi-
gated the case exhaustively. These re-
ports fully support the version that
virtually all the sailors witnessed the
object.
Obviously, our evaluation of the
story must hinge upon this aspect. The
photographs, although extremely con-
vincing, could be fraudulent. To prove
this I spent several days in an attempt
to duplicate them and succeeded fairly
well as indicated in Figure 5. We are
still left with the question of the verac-
ity of witnesses.
4. St. George, Minnesota, October
21, 1965. Driving home from a hunt-
ing trip, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Strauch
and their son Gary (age 16), and Mr.
and Mrs. Donald Grew, all of Gibbon,
Minnesota, sighted a hovering object
and got out to observe it. Binoculars
were used, and Mr. Strauch took one
photograph on an 804 Instamatic
Kodak camera using Ektachrome X
film. The photograph is shown in Fig-
ure 6 along with an artist's conception
of the sighting. The object moved
toward the witnesses almost directly
overhead, making a high-pitched whin-
ing sound and traveling at very high
speed. It disappeared in the southeast
within seconds.
Much detail was observed, several
witnesses were present, ample time was
available, a photograph was taken, and
hence this instance meets the criteria
nicely.
5. Socorro, New Mexico, April 24,
1964. Patrolman Lonnie Zamora was
following a speeder when he saw a blue
flame to the southwest. He recognized
the area as one which contained a dyna-
mite shack and where teenagers some-
times tried to accelerate their cars up
the steep slopes. He decided to investi-
gate. Driving over a mesa (Fig. 7), he
caught sight of something which he in-
terpreted as an automobile standing
on end with two children or small
adults dressed in white clothing and
standing by it. He radioed Patrolman
Sam Chavez, asking for assistance, and
continued down through a gully where
he lost sight of the object. Coming up
across the next mesa, he parked and
got out of his car, moving toward the
gully to see the object. It was immedi-
ately apparent that he was not observ-
ing an automobile wreck. There was a
hemispherical object standing on four
legs and suddenly an ear-splitting roar.
Thoroughly frightened, he turned and
ran, collided with the hood of his car,
and then threw himself on the ground,
noticing again that the object was rising
in a slanting trajectory toward the south-
west. As it rose, it displayed a blue
flame.
Upon investigation of the site, four
distinct, rather deep impressions were
found in the ground where Zamora
claims to have seen the landing gear.
Two smaller round depressions were in
the place where a ladder was placed,
leading to a marking on the object
which could have been a door. Bushes
below where the object had been were
burning. Detailed investigations were
carried out by the Air Force and by
several private flying saucer investigat-
ing groups.
The sighting is a good one in terms
of detail and primary evidence. A
landing with observed humanoid "oc-
cupants" is also of interest. It is bad
in only one respect; namely, that Za-
mora was the sole witness (one or two
leads appeared, but other witnesses
could never be located), but his ap-
parent sincerity was impressive. In-
vestigators studied the surrounding area
for tracks of possible perpetrators of
a hoax but could find none, although
the ground was soft. The sighting is
typical of many similar reports, par-
Fig. 6. Bottom: An artist's conception
of the Saint George, Minnesota, sighting of
October 21, 1965. Detail in the object rep-
resents the impression given by the wit-
nesses. Top: A black and white repro-
duction of the photograph taken by Mr.
Strauch. Photo and painting supplied by
the Aerial Phenomena Research Organiza-
tion.