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.
“Nevers”43 pages
39 (b) Close -range sightings of wingless discs and cigar -shaped objects.—Thiscategory is far more interesting. Many are daytime sightings, many have been made by witnesses of quite high credibility. Structural details such as "ports" and "legs" (to use the terms the witnesses have adopted to suggest most closely what they think they have seen) are described in many instances. Lack of wings and lack of evident means of propulsion clearly rule out conventional aircraft and helicopters. Many are soundless, many move at such speeds and with such accelerations that they defy understanding in terms of presenttechnology. It is to be understood that I speak here only of reports from what I regard as credible observers. (c) Close -range nighttime sightings of glowing, hovering objects, often with blinking or pulsating discrete lights.—In these instances, distinct shape is not seen, evidently in many cases because of the brilliance of the lights. Less significant than those of the preceding category, these nonetheless cannot be accounted for in terms of any known vehicles. Frequently they are reported hovering over vehicles on the ground or following them. Sometimes they are reported hovering over structures, factories, power installations, and the like. Soundlessness is typical. Estimated sizes vary widely, over a range that I do not believe can be accounted for simply in terms of the known unreliability of distance and size estimates when one views an unknown object. (d) Radar -tracked objects, sometimes seen visually simultaneously by ob- servers on the ground or in the air.—In many of these cases, the clues to the non -conventional nature of the radar target is high speed (estimated at thou- sands of miles per hour in certain instances) ; in others, it is alternate motion and hovering; in still others, it has been the unconventional vertical motions that make the radar observations significant. Clearly, most important are thoseinstances in which there was close agreement between the visual and the radar unknown. There are far more such cases than either scientists or public would guess. Those four categories do not exhaust the list by any means. But they constitute four commonly encountered categories that are of interest here. Examples will be found below. 7. Commonly encountered questions As Mark Twain said, "Faith is a great thing, but it's doubt that gets you an education." There are many questions that one encounters again and again from persons who have done no personal case-checking and who maintain a healthy skepticism about UFOs. Why don't pilots report these things if they are buzzing around in our skies? Why aren't they tracked on radar? Why don't our satellite and astro- nomical tracking systems get photos of UFOs? Why are they always seen in out- of-the-way rural areas but never over large cities? Why don't large groups ofpeople ever simultaneously see UFOs, instead of lone individuals? Why don't astronomers see them? Shouldn't UFOs occasionally crash and leave clear-cut physical evidence of their reality? Or shouldn't they at least leave some residual physical evidence in those alleged instances where the objects have landed? Shouldn't they affect radios and produce other electromagnetic effects at times?If UFOs are a product of some high civilization, wouldn't one expect somethingof the nature of inquisitive behavior, since innate curiosity must be a common denominator of anything we would call "intelligence"? Why haven't they con-tacted us if they're from somewhere else in the universe and have been here for at least two decades? Is there any evidence of hostility or hazard? Are UFOs seen only in this country? Why didn't we see them before 1947, if they come fromremote sources? And so on. In the following sections, I shall show how some of these questions do have quite satisfactory answers, and how some of them still defy adequate rebuttal. I shall use mostly cases that I have personally investigated, but, in a few in- stances (clearly indicated), I shall draw upon cases which I have not directly checked but for which I regard the case -credentials as very strong. 8. Useful source materials on UFO's Hoping that Committee staff personnel will be pursuing these matters further, I remark next on some of the more significant items in the UFO literature. All of these have been helpful in my own studies. One of the outstanding UFO references (though little-known in scientific cir- cles) is The UFO Evidence, edited by R. H. Hall and published by NICAP (Ref. 10). It summarizes about 750 UFO cases in the NICAP files up to about
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.