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.

•
40
1964.
I
have
cross-checked
a
sufficiently
large
sample
of
cases
from
this
reference
to
have
confidence
in
its
generally
very
high
reliability.
A
sequel
volume,
now
in
editorial
preparation
at
NICAP,
will
cover
the
1964-68
period.
Reference
8,
by
Bloecher,
is
one of
the
few
sources of extensive
documentation
(here
primarily
from
national
newspaper
sources)
of
the
large
cluster
of
sightings
in
a
period
of
just
a
few
weeks
in
the
summer
of
1947;
its
study
is
essential
to
appreciation
of
the
opening phases
of the
publicly
recognized
UFO
problem. Reference
7
is
another
now
-accessible
source of
extremely
significant
UFO
documentation;
it
is
unfortunate that
no
generally
accessible
version
of
Reference
6
exists,
though
the
Moss
Subcommittee, through
pleas
of
Dr. Leon
Davidson,
has
managed
to
get
it
into
a
status
of
at
least
limited
accessibility.
I
am
indebted
to
Davidson
for
a
recent opportunity
to
study
it
for
details
I
missed
when
I
saw
it
two
years
ago
at
Bluebook
headquarters.
The
1956
book
by
Ruppelt
(Ref.
5)
is
a
source
whose
authenticity
I
have
learned,
through
much
personal
cross-checking,
is
far
higher
than
I
surmised
when
I
first
read
it
a
dozen
years ago. It
was
for years
difficult
for
me
to
believe
that
the case
-material
which
he summarized
could
come
from
real
cases.
Refer-
ences
5
and
6, plus
other
sources,
do,
however,
now
attest
to
Ruppelt's
generally
high
reliability.
Similarly
Keyhoe's books (Refs.
3
and
4)
emerge as
sources
of
UFO
case material
whose
reliability
far
exceeds
my
own
first
estimates
thereof.
As
a
scientist,
I
would have
been
much
more
comfortable
about
Keyhoe's books
had
they been
shorn
of
extensive
direct
quotes
and
suspenseful
dramatizations;
but
I
must
stress
that
much
checking
on
my
part
has
convinced
me
that
Keyhoe's
reportorial
accuracy
was
almost
uniformly
high.
Scientists will
tend
to
be put
off
by
some
of
his
scientific
commentary,
as
well
as
by
his style;
but
on
UFO
case
material,
his
reliability
must
be
recognized
as
impressive.
(Perhaps
it
is
well
to
insert
here the general
proviso
that
none
of
these sources,
including
my-
self,
can
be
expected
to
be
characterized
by 100
per cent
accuracy
in
a
problem
as
intrinsically
messy as
the
UFO
problem;
here
I
am
trying
to
draw
attention
to
sources
whose
reliability
appears
to
be
in
the
90+%
range.)
A
useful
collection
of
160
UFO
cases
drawn
from a
wide
variety
of
sources
has
been
published
by
Olsen
(Ref.
11),
32
of
which he
obtained
directly
from
the
official
files
of Project
Bluebook,
a
feature of
particular
interest.
A
book
devoted
to
a
single
short
period of
numerous
UFO
observations
within
a
small
geographicarea,
centering
around
an
important
sighting
near
Exeter, N.H.,
is
Fuller's
Incident at
Exeter (Ref.
12).
Having
checked
personally
on
a
number
of features
of the
main
Sept.
3,
1965,
sighting,
and
having checked
indirectly
on
other
as-
pects,
I
would
describe
Reference
12
as
one
of
the
significant
source
-items
on
UFOs.
Several
books
by
the Lorenzens,
organizers
of
APRO,
the
oldest
continuing
UFO
investigating
group
in
this
country, contain valuable
UFO
reference
mate-
rial
(Ref.
13).
Through
their
writing,
and
especially
through the
APRO
Bulletin,
they
have
transmitted
from
South
American
sources
numerous
unusual
sightings
from
that country.
I
have
had
almost
no
opportunity to
cross-check
those
sight-
ings,
but
am
satisfied
that
some
quite
reliable
sources are being
drawn
upon.
An
extremely
unusual
category of
cases,
those involving reports
of
humanoid
oc-
cupants
of
landed
UFOs,
has
been explored to
a
greater
extent
by
APRO
than
by
NICAP.
Like
NICAP,
I
have
tended
to
skirt
such
cases
on
tactical
grounds;the
reports
are
bizarre,
and
the circumstances
of
all
such
sightings
are
auto-
matically
charged
in
a
psychological
sense
not
found
in other types of
close
-
range
sightings
of
mere
machine
-like
devices.
Since
I
shall
not take
up
below
this
occupant problem,
let
me
add
the
comment
that
I do
regard the
total
number
of such seemingly
reliable
reports
(well over
a
hundred
came
just
from
cen-tral
France
in the outstanding
1954
sighting
wave
in
that country), far
too
great
to brush
aside.
Expert
psychological opinion
is
badly needed
in assessing
such
reports
(expert but not
close-minded opinion).
For
the record,
I
should
have
to
state
that
my
interviewing
results
dispose
me
toward
acceptance of the existence
of
humanoid
occupants in
some UFOs. I
would not argue with
those
who
say thatthis
might be the
single
most important element of the
entire
UFO
puzzle;
I
would
only say that
most
of
my
efforts
over the past
two
years, being
aimedat arousing
a new
degree of
scientific
interest
among
my
colleagues in
the
physi-
cal sciences,
have
led
me
to play
down
even the
little
that
I do know
about
occupant
sightings.
One
or
two
early attempts to touch upon
that point within
the time
-limits
of
a
one-hour colloquium taught
me
that one
loses
more than
he gains in speaking
briefly
about
UFO
occupants.
(Occupant
sightings
must becarefully distinguished
from
elaborate "contact-claims" with the Space Brothers;