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.

41
I
hold
no
brief
at
all
for the
latter
in
terms
of
my
present
knowledge
and
inter-
viewing
experience.
But
occupants
there
seem
to
be,
and
contact
of
a
limited
sort
may
well
have
occurred,
according to
certain
of
the
reports.
I
do
not
regard
myself
as
very
vell-informed
on
this
point,
and
will
say
little
more on
this
below.)
It
is,
of
course,
somewhat
more
difficult
to assess
the
reliability
of
foreign
UFO
references.
Michel
(Ref.
13)
has
assembled
a
day-by-day
account
of the
remarkable
French
UFO
wave
of
the
fall
of
1954,
translated
into
English
by
the
staff
of
CSI
(Civilian
Saucer
Intelligence)
of
New
York
City,
a now
-inactive
but once
very
productive
independent
group.
I
have
spoken
with
persons
having
first-hand
knowledge
of
the
French
1954
episode,
and
they
attest
to
its
astonish-
ing
nature.
14
e
and
The
New
Yorker
published
full
contemporary
accounts
at
the
time
of
the
1954
European
wave.
An
earlier
book
by
Michel
(Ref.
14),
also
available
in
English,
deals
with
a
broader
temporal
and
geographic
range
of
European
UFO
sightings.
A
just
-published
account
of
about
70
UFO
sightings
that
occurred within
a
relatively
small area
around
Stoke-on-Trent,
England,
in
the
summer
and
fall
of
1967 (Ref.
15)
presents
an
unusual
cross-section`of
sightings
that
appear
to
be
well
-documented.
A
number
of
foreign
UFO
journals
are
helpful
sources of
the steady
flow
of
UFO
reports
from
other
parts
of the
world,
but
a
cataloging
will
not be
attempted
here.
Information
on
some
of
these,
as
well
as
on
smaller
American
groups,
can
be
found
in
the
two
important books
by
Vallee
(Refs.
16
and
17).
Information
on
pre
-1947
UFO
-type sightings
form
the
subject
of
a
recent
study
by Lore
and
Denault (Ref.
18).
I
shall
return
to
this
phase
of the
UFO
problem
below;
I
regard
it
as
being
of
potentially
very great
significance,
though
there
is
need
for
far
more
scholarly
and
scientific
research before
much
of
it
can
be
safely interpreted.
Another
source
of
sightings
of
which
many
may
ultimately
be
found
to
fall
within the
presently
understood
category
of
UFO
sightings
is
the
writings
of Charles
Fort (Ref.
19).
His
curious
books
are
oftemOrawn upon
for
material
on
old
sightings,
but not
often
duly
acknowledged
for
the
mine
of
infor-
mation
they
comprise.
I
am
afraid
that
it
has
not been
fashionable
to
take
Fort
seriously;
it
certainly
took
me
some
time
to recognize
that,
mixed
into
his
vol-
uminous
writings,
is
much
that
remains untapped
for
its
scientific
import.
I
cannot imagine
any
escalated
program
of
research
on
the
UFO
program
that
would
not
have
a
subgroup
studying
Fortean
reports
documented
from
19th
century
sources.
To
close this brief
compilation of useful
UFO
references,
two
recent
commen-
taries
(not
primarily source
-references)
of merit
may
be
cited,
books
by
Stanton
(Ref.
20) and
by
Young
(Ref.
21).
Next,
I
examine
a
number
of
specific
UFO
cases
that
shed
light
on
many
of
the
recurrent questions
of
skeptical
slant often raised
against
serious considera-
tion
of the
UFO
problem.
WHY
DON'T PILOTS
SEE
*UFO'S?This
question
may
come
in just
that
form from
persons
with
essentially
no
knoweldge
of
UFO
history.
From
others
who
do
know
that there
have
been
"a few"
pilot
-sightings,
it
comes
in
some
altered
form, such
as,
"Why
don't
airline
and
military
pilots
see
UFO's
all
the
time
if
they are in
our atmosphere?"
By
way
of
partial
answer,
consider
the
following
cases.
(To
facilitate
internal reference,
I
shall
number
sequentially
all
cases hereafter treated
in
detail.)
•
1.
Case
1. Boise,
Idaho, July
4,
1947
Only about
a week
after
the
now
-famous
Mt.
Rainier
sighting
by
private
pilot
Kenneth
Arnold,
a
United Air Lines
DC
-3
crew
sighted
two
separate formations
of
wingless
discs,
shortly after takeoff
from
Boise (Refs.
8, 10, 22,
2Q.
I
located
and
interviewed the
pilot,
Capt.
Emil
J.
Smith,
now
with
United's
New
York
office.
He
confirmed the
reliability
of
previously published accounts.
United Flight
105 had
left
Boise at 9:04 p.m.
About
eight
minutes
out,
en
route to
Seattle,
roughly over
Emmet,
Idaho,
Co-pilot
Stevens,
who
spotted
the
first
of
twogroups
of
objects,
turned
on
his
landing
lights
under the
initial
impression theobjects
were
aircraft.
But, studying
them
against the
twilight sky,
Smith andStevens soon
realized
that neither
wings nor
tails
were
visible
on
the, five
objects
ahead. After
calling
a
stewardess, in order to get
a
third confirming witness,
they watched the formation
a
bit
longer, called Ontario,
Oregon
CAA
to try to
get ground
-confirmation,
and then
saw
the formation spurt ahead and
disappear
at high speed
off to the west.