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.

S
.
23
civilization,
why
no
contact?"
This
is
a
question
that
comes
up
again
and
again,
since
most
persons
who
know
enough
about
the
UFO
prob-
lem
to
realize
there
must
be
something
there,
cannot,
in
their
first
view
of
the
problem,
visualize
a
visitation
from
elsewhere,
surveillance,
or
what
have
you,
without
contact.
I
want
to return
to that point
later,
but
I
wish
to
emphasize
that
that
is
a
fallacious
question.
If
we
were under
surveillance
from some
advanced
technology
sufficiently
advanced
to
do what
we
cannot
do
in
the
sense
of
interstellar
travel,
then, as
Arthur
Clarke
has put
it
quite well,
quoted
in
Time
magazine
the
last
week,
we
have
an odd
situation.
Arthur
Clarke
points
out
that
any
sufficiently
advanced
tech-
nology
would
be
indistinguishable
from
magic.
How
well
that
applies
to
UFO
sightings.
You
have
a
feeling
you
are dealing
with
some
very
high
technology,
devices
of
an
entirely
real
nature
which
defy
explan-
ation
in
terms of
present-day
science.
To
say
that
we
could
anticipate
the
values, reasons, motivations,
and
so
on,of
any
such system
that
hasthe
capability
of
getting
here
from
somewhere
else
is fallacious.
That
is
a
homocentric
fallacy
of
the
most
obvious nature, yet
it
is
asked over
and
over
again.
In
my
prepared
statement
I
will
be
able to
cover
more
of
these
points,
of
course.
The
heart
of
the
problem
lies
in
citing cases,
and
I
have
investigated,
personally,
on
the order
of 300
cases
dealing
with
key
witnesses.
I
have
looked
as
carefully
as
I
can
for
all
reasonable explanations.
There
are
many
cases
that
fall
apart
when
you
investigate
them.
Then
there are
far
too
many
that
resist
the
best analysis
that
many
of us
have
been
able
to subject
them
to.
Let
me
just
cite briefly,
to
take
a
recent case
rather
than
an
old
one,
the
instance at
Redlands,
and
perhaps
Dr. Harder
can
fill
you
in
in
more
detail.
On
February
4
of
this
year, at
7:20
in
the evening,over
a
residential
area in that
city
of
population
30,000,
a
disc
was
seen.
Twenty
wit-
nesses
interviewed
by
University
of Redlands'
investigators,
described
it
as
having
"windows"
or
"ports"
or
something of
that
sort.
They
in-
terviewed
a
little
over
half
a
dozen of
them and
all
saw
something
on
the
bottom
that they
described
as "looking
like
jets."
This
object
was
hovering at
an
estimated height
of about
300
feet.
The
estimates
vary,
but
it
came
out about
300
feet.
The
citizens
had
gone
out in the
street
because
dogs were barking
and,
because
they
had
heard
an
unusual
noise,
and
pretty
soon
there
were
people
all
up
and
down
the
street.
It
was
estimatea that
more
than 100
witnesses
were
involved,
and 20
were
directly
interviewed.
Here was an
object seen
by
many
persons.
It hovered, then shot
up
to about double the
height,
hovered again,
and moved down
across
Redlands a
short
distance,
hovered once again,
and
then took
off
rapidly to the northwest.
This
case
has not
received
any
scientific
attention
beyond
this in-
vestigation
by Dr.
Philip Seff
and
his colleagues.
It has not
received
public notoriety.
This was,in
fact,
only reported in
a
short
column
in
the
local
paper and not
on
the wires
anywhere.
That happens over
andover again.
Here, for example, are the reports for one month of
last fall,
clipping-service
coverage
on
the things that get
local coverage, but