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.

44
began
to
descend
below
them and
flew
under
their
plane.
They
put
the
D0-3
into
a
steep
bank
to
try
to
keep
it
in
view as
it
began
this
maneuver;
and
as
it
crossed
under
them,
they
lost
it,
not
to
regain
sight
of
it
subsequently.
There
is
much
more
detail,
not
all
mutually
consistent
as
to
maneuvers
and
directions,
in
the
full
accounts
I
obtained
from
Vinther,
Bachmeier,
and
Williams.
The
dive,
pacing,
and
fly
-under
maneuvers were
made
quickly
and
at
such
a
distance
from
the
field
that
Williams
did
not
see
them
clearly,
though
he
did
see the
object
leave
the
vicinity
of
the
DC
-3.
An
Air
Force
colonel
and
his
aide
were
among
the passangers,
and
the aide
caught
a
glimpse
of the
unknown
object,
but
I
have
been unable
to
locate
him
for further
cross-check.
Discussion.—The
erratic
maneuvers
exhibited
by
the
unknown
object
while
under
observation
from
the
control
tower would,
by
themselves,
make
this
a
better
-than-average
case.
But
the
fact
that
those
maneuvers
prompted
a
tower
operator
to
alert
a
departing
aircrew
to
investigate,
only
to
have
the
object
dive
upon
and
pace the
aircraft after
a
non
-inertial
course
-reversal,
makes
this
an
unusually
interesting
UFO.
Its configuration,
about
which
Vinther
andBachmeier were
quite
positive
in
their
remarks
to
me
(they
repeatedly
em-
phasized the
bright
moonlight,
which
checks with
the
near
-full
moon
on
1/20/51
and
the
sky
-cover
data
I
obtained
from
the Sioux
City
Weather
Bureau), com-
bines
with
other features
of the
sighting
to
make
it
a
most
significant
case.
The
reported
shape
(tailless,
engineless,
unswept
aircraft
of
large
size)
does not
match
that
of
any
other
UFO
that
I
am
aware
of; but
my
exposure
to
the
be-
wildering
range
of
reported
configurations
now
on
record
makes
this
point
less
difficult
to assimilate.
This
case
is
officially
carried
as
Unidentified,
and,
in
a
1955
publication
(Ref.
29),
was
one
of
12
Unidentifieds
singled
out
for
special
comment.
A
contemporary
account
(Ref.
28), taking note of
a
then
recent
pro-
nouncement
that
virtually
all
UFOs
are
explainable
in
terms
of
misidentified
Skyhook
balloons,
carried
a
lead
-caption.
"The
Office
of
Naval
Research
claimsthat
cosmic
ray
balloons explain
all
saucer
reports.
If
so,
what
did
this
pilot
see?"
Certainly
it
would
not be
readily
explained
away
as
a
balloon,
a
meteor,
a
sundog,
or
ball lighting.
Rather,
it
seems
to
be
just
one
more
of
thousands of
Unidentified
Flying
Objects
for
which
we
have
no
present explanations
be-
cause
we
have
laughed such
reports
out
of
scientific
court.
Bachmeier
stated
to
me
that,
at
the time,
he
felt
it
had
to
be
some
kind
of
secret device,
but, in
the
ensuing
17
years,
we
have
not heard
of
any
aircraft
that
can
execute
instan-
taneous
course
-reversal.
Vinther's
comment
to
me
on
a
final
question
I
asked
as
to
what
he
thinks,
in general,
about
the
many
airline
-pilot
sightings
of
uni-
dentified
objects
over the past
20
years,
was:
"We're
not
all
having
hallucinations."
4.
Case
4.
Minneapolis, Minn., October
11,
1951
There
are far
more
private
pilots
than
airline
pilots,
so
it
is
not
surprising
that there
are
more
UFO
sightings
from
the
former than
the
latter.
An
engineer
and
former
Air Force
P-38
pilot,
Joseph
J. Kaliszewski,
flying
for the General
Mills
Skyhook
balloon
program on
balloon-tracking missions,
saw
highly
uncon-
ventional
objects
on
two
successive
days
in October,
1951 (Refs.
5, 7,
10).
Both
were
reported
through
company
channels
to
the
official
investigative
agency
(Bluebook),
whose
report
(Ref.
7)
describes
the witnesses
as "very
reliable"
and
as
"experienced high
altitude
balloon observers."
On
October
10,
at about
10:10
a.m.,
Kaliszewski
and
Jack
Donaghue
were
at
6000
ft.
in
their light
plane,
climbing
toward
their
target
balloon,
when
Kaliszewski
spotted
"a
strange ob-ject crossing
the
skies
from East
to
West,
a
great deal higher
and
behind
our
balloon
(which
was
near
20,000
ft.
at that time)."
When
I
interviewed Kaliszew-
ski,
he
confirmed that
this object
"had a
peculiar
glow
to
it,
crossing
behind
and
above our
balloon
from
east to
west
very
rapidly,
first
coming
in
at
a
slight
dive,
leveling
off
for
about
a
minute
and
slowing
down,
then
into
a
sharp
left
turn
and
climbing at
an
angle of
50
to
60°
into
the southeast with
a
terrific
accelera-tion."
The two
observers
had
the object in
view for
an
estimated
two
minutes,
during which
it
crossed
a
span of
some
45° of the sky.
No
vapor
trail
was
seen,
and
Kaliszewski
was
emphatic
in asserting
that
it
was
not
a
balloon,
jet,
or con-ventional
aircraft.
The
following morning, near 0630, Kaliszewski
was
flying
on another
balloon
mission with Richard
Reilly
and, while airborne north of Minneapolis, the
two
of
them
noticed
an odd
object.
Quoting
from
the account submitted to the
official
agency (Ref.
7,
Rept. No. 2):"The
object
was moving from
east to
west at
a
high rate
and
very high.
We
tried
keeping the ship
on a
constant course
and
using the reinforcing
member