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.

36
have
examined,
and
on
the
basis
of
my
own
weighing
of
alternative
hypotheses
(including
some
not
listed
above),
I now
regard
Hypothesis
7
as
the
one
most
likely
to
prove
correct.
My
scientific
instincts
lead
me
to
hedge
that
prediction
just to
the extent of
suggesting
that
if
the
UFOs
are
not
of
extramundane
origin,
then
I
suspect that
they
will
prove
to
be something
very
much
more
bizarre,
something
of
perhaps even
greater
scientific
interest
than
extraterrestrial
devices.
SOME REMARKS
ON
INTERVIEWING
EXPERIENCE
AND
TYPES
OF
UFO
CASES
ENCOUNTERED
1.
Sources
of cases
dealt
with
Prior
to
1966,
I
had
interviewed
about
150-200
persons
reporting
UFOs;
since
1966,
I
have
interviewed
about
200-250
more.
The
basis
of
my
post-1966
inter-
viewing
has
been
quite
different
from
the
earlier
period
of
interviewing
of
local
witnesses,
whose
sightings
I
heard about
essentially
by
chance.
Almost
all
of
my
post-1966 interviews
have
been with
witnesses
in cases
already
investigated
by
one
or
more
of the
private
UFO
investigatory
groups
such as
NICAP
or
APRO,
or
by
the
official
investigative
agency
(Project
Bluebook).
Thus,
after
1966,
I
was
not
dealing
with
a
body
of
witnesses reporting
Venus,
fireballs,
and
aircraft
strobelights,
because
such
cases
are so
easily
recognizable
that the
groups
whose
prior
checks
I
was
taking
advantage
of
had
already
culled
out
and
rejected
most
of
such
irrelevant material.
Many
of the cases
I
checked
were
older
cases,
some
over
20
years
old.
It
was
primarily
the
background
work
of the
many
independent
investigatory
groups
here
and
in other parts
of the
world
(especially
the
Australian
area
where
I
had an
opportunity to interview
about
80
witnesses)
that
made
possible
my
dealing
with that type
of once
-sifted
data
that
yields
up
scientifically
interesting
information
so
quickly.
I
wish
to
put
on
record
my
indebtedness to these "dedicated
amateurs",
to
use the
astronomer's
genial
term;
their
contribution
to
the ultimate
clarification
of
the
UFO
problem
will be-
come
recognized
as
having
been of
basic
importance, notwithstanding the scorn
with
which
scientists
have,
on
more
than one
occasion,
dismissed
their
efforts.
Although
I
cite
only the
larger
of
these
groups
(NICAP
about
12,000
members,
APRO
about
8,000),
there
are
many
smaller
groups
here
and
abroad
that
have
done
a
most commendable
job
on
almost
no
resources.
(Needless
to
add,
there
are
other
small groups
whose
concern
is
only with
sensational
and
speculative
a
spects.
)
2.
Some
relevant witness
-characteristics
By
frequently discussing
my
own
interviewing experience
with
members
of
those
non
-official
UFO
groups
whose
past
work
has
been so
indispensable
to
my
own
studies,
I
have
learned
that
most
of
my
own
reactions to
the
UFO
witness
-
interview
problem are shared
by
those
investigators.
The
recurrent
problem
ofsecuring unequivocal
descriptions,
the almost
excruciating
difficulty
in
securing
meaningful
estimates of
angular
size,
angular
elevation,
and
angular
displace-
ments from
laymen,
the
inevitable
variance
of witness
-descriptions
of
a
shared
observation,
and
other
difficulties
of
non
-instrumental observing are
familiar
to
all
who
have
investigated
UFO
reports.
But
so
also
are the impressions of wide-
spread concern
among
UFO
witnesses to avoid (rather
than
to
seek)
publicity
over
their sightings.
The
strong
disinclination
to
make
an
open
report of
an
ob-servation
of
something the witness
realizes
is
far
outside
the
bounds
of
accepted
experience crops
up
again
and
again.
In
my
interviewing in
1947
sightings,
done
as
a
crosscheck
on
case material
used
in
a
very
valuable recent
publication
by
Bloecher
(Ref. 8),
I came
to
realize clearly
for the
first
time that
this
reluctance
was
not something
instilled
by
post-1947
scoffing
at
UFOs,
but
is
part of
a
broadly
disseminated
attitude
to discount the
anomalous and
the
inexplicable, to
be un-
willing
even
to report
what
one has
seen with
his
own
eyes
if
it
is
well outside
normal
experience
as
currently accepted.
I
have heard
fellow
-scientists
express
dismay at the
unscientific
credulity
with
which
the general
public
jumps
to
theconclusion that
UFOs
are
spaceships.
Those
scientists
have
certainly
not
inter-
viewed
many
UFO
witnesses; for almost
precisely
the opposite attitude
is
over-
whelmingly the
characteristic response.
In
my
Australian interviewing,
I
foundthe
same
uneasy
feeling
about openly reporting
an
observation of
a
well-defined
UFO
sighting, lest
acquaintances think
one "has gone round the bend." Investiga-
tors in
still
other parts of the world where modern
scientific
values
dominate
world-views
have
told
me
of encountering just this
same
witness
-reluctance.
The
charge that
UFO
witnesses,
as
a
group, are hyperexcitable types
is entirely in-
correct.
I would agree with the
way
Maj. Gen. John A. Samford, then Director of