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.
“Sagan”21 pages
29 It is accessible in the sense that if I want to pay $90 for Xeroxes I can now get it. It is not published in the sense of being available to every library in the country. My Reference 7, which NICAP just pub- lished, is available to scientists all over the country. It is a matter of the Air Force having a policy of not publishing such items, and they were classified. I think the Moss committee and NICAP are to be highly praised to get out in the open Reference 7. Mr. DOWNING. Is there a reason why this is classified? Dr. MCDONALD. There is an understandable reason why the Air Force has had to classify this. An unidentified area object on pre- sumption is hostile until proved otherwise. So there has been this un- fortunate, but entirely understandable measuring of these two areas. The national defense mission of the Air Force has necessitated they have some part of the UFO problem inevitably, and they got it in the first instance. They have long since told us there is no hostility here, hence the scientific curiosities going unattended because it doesn't fall under the defense mission, in other words to be transferred into NASA, NSF, or something like that. That does not mean the Air Force won't continue to watch unidentified objects on the millisecond basis. But they not need worry about this other part of the problem. I think it is understandable, but needs changing. Mr. ROUSH. Mr. Pettis. Mr. PETTIS. Mr. Chairman, Doctor. I was a little bit interested in your observations about this UFO sighting in my hometown of Redlands. I might observe that Redlands is a rather conservative community, when people in Redlands say they saw something,they saw something. I did not happen to be in Redlands that particular date, so I did not see this. But I would like to observe this, that having spent a great deal of my life in the air, as a pilot, professional and private pilot, I know that many pilots and professional pilots have seen phenomena that they could not explain. These men, most of whom have talked to me, have been very reticent to talk about this publicly, because of the ridicule that they were afraid would be heaped upon them, and I'm sure that if this committee wereever to investigate this, or bring them in here, there probably would have to be a closed hearing, Mr. Chairman. However, there is a phenomena here that isn't explained. I think probably we ought to do a little looking into this, is my per- sonal opinion. Mr. RousH. Mr. Ryan. Mr.RYAN. Yes,thank you, Mr. Chairman. First I should like to commend you, Mr. Roush, for your interest in the subject matter, and the chairman of the full committee for hav- ing arranged for hearings into this problem. I think it is important that this committee not waive its jurisdiction, but that it explore very carefully the proposals that have been madeby the witnesses here, and that it have a continuing field of explora-tion into this whole question. I want to commend Dr. McDonald for having been persistent in presenting his views to the various membersof the committee,helping to bring about these hearings. 97-818-68 3
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.