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.
“The Advance”52 pages
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.
Hearing transcript, from the govinfo collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 256 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.