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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.

U.S. House of Representatives · 1968-07-29 · 256 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 9 …Scientific Societies: American Association for the Advancement of Science; Astronomy Society(secretary). Specialty: Astrophysics. Fields of…
  • p. 24 …Member, American Meteorological Society Commission on Publications, 1966- present. Member, Advisory panel for weather modification, National…
  • p. 91 …American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1967: Problems of Journalism, Proceedings of the 1967 Convention of the…
  • p. 213 …UFO Research; a paper which will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Society…
  • p. 214 …A Survey of Persons Interested in UFO Reports.") CONCLUSIONS If these reports by UFO observers are…
  • p. 215 …and spiritual implications of UFO phenomena. Establishment of a continuing research center could provide for those…
  • p. 217 …Research Group. Dr. Henderson is a member of Alpha Chi, the American Geophysical Union, the Society…
  • p. 220 …Friedman is on the Board of Directors of the UFO Research Institute of Pittsburgh and on…
  • p. 226 …Friedman has talked about UFOs to these groups (partial list) : Engineering Society of Detroit Engineering Society…
  • p. 240 …UFOs—atmospheric or extraterrestrial? Talk presented to the Chicago Chapter of the American Meteorological Society, May…
28
Mr.
BELL.
Have
there
been
pictures
taken?
Dr.
MCDONALD.
Yes;
there
have
been
pictures
taken.
For
instance,
a
photograph
taken
in
Ohio,
by an
Air
Force
photo
reconnaissance
plane
May
24,
1954.
I
recently
have
looked
a
little
more
closely
at
the
data.
This
was
explained as
an
undersun,
but
that
idea
is
subject
to
quantitative observation.
The
angles
just
do
not
fit.
There
is
a
very
important
case
at
Edwards
Air
Force
base
with
two
wit-
nesses,
where
they
got photographs of the
object.
Unfortunately,
in
this
case
I
have
not
seen
the
photo,
but
I
have
talked
with
the
persons
who
took
it.
There
are
photographs,
but
not
nearly as
many
as
we
would
like.
We
would
like
to
have
lots
of
them.
In
a
case
in
Corning,
Calif.
a
police
officer,
one of
five
witnesses,
had a
loaded
camera
in
his
patrol car,
20
paces
from
where he
watched
the
object,
didn't
eventhink
of
getting his
camera.
He
said
he
was
too
flabbergasted to
think
of
it.
That
is
a
part
of
the
problem.
Mr.
Rousx.
Mr.
Hechler.
Mr.
HECHLER.
Have
you examined
any
reports
of
communication
by
these objects?
Dr.
MCDONALD.
Yes;
the
problem of
contact
is
very important.
There
is
one
category
of
contact,
not
in
the
sense
of
shaking hands, but
rather
light response.
I
have
a
file
on
several
of
these,
and
I'm
looking
for
more.
For
instance,
in
Shamokin,
Pa.,
Kerstetter
is
the
name
of
the
witness,
he works
for
a
bank
in
Shamokin.
I
talked to the
president
of
the
bank
as to
his
reliability
and
got
very
good
recommendations.
Last
year,
he
and
his
wife
and
family were
in
a
car
near
a
mountain
ridge
in
Shamokin, saw a
thing hovering over the
mountain,
like
the
flash-
ing
lights
of
a
theater
marque.
He
had a
flashlight.
He
didn't
know
Morse
code,
but
it
really
didn't
matter.
He
sent light
flashes
in various
orders
and
he got
lights
back
from
the
thing.
That same
thing
hap-
pened
in
Newton,
N.H.,
in
August
of
last
year,
where
several
persons
saw
an
object
coming
overhead.
The
same
thought
occurred to
them
and
they
signaled
with
a
flashlight.
It
wasn't
Morse,
it
was
dot dash
dot,
then dash dash dash,
and
it
came
back with
no
failure, replicated
light
signals.
The
same
thin
g
happened
in
West
Virginia,
where a
pharmacist,
named Sommers,did
it
with
his headlights.
When I
was
in Australia,
I
talked
about
some
hunters
out hunting kangaroo.
A
disk
came
over,
one
said
"give
them Mdrse";
the
flash
came
back
faithfully,
and
they
left
in
a
hurry.
Is
that contact?
I
don't
know.
Nobody
got
any
intelligence
out of
it
either
way,
if
you
will
pardon
the
whimsy. It would
be
terrible if
in fact
this
was
surveillance
and
our
technology
was
represented
by
the
Eveready
flashlight.
[Laughter.]
We
may
be flunking
our
exam.
Mr.Rousx. Mr. Downing.
Mr.
DOWNING.
I'm
interested
in
your
testimony.
On
page 10
of
your
written statement,
you
say
it
is
unfortunate
no
acceptable version
of Reference
6
exists,
though
it
has
managed
to get
it
into the
status
of
limited acceptability.
Why
is
this
not
available?
Dr.
MCDONALD.
Well, that
was an Air Force document. This wascompleted in 1949.
These were
classified
until just
a few
years back.
No
one could get access to
them,
because they were under
DOD
classi-
fication.
But
the
12
-year rule expired,
and Dr. Leon Davidson managedto get a copy.

Cases discussed

About this file

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.