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.

48
the
fact,
so
the
somewhat
confused
recollective
impressions
I
gained are
not
sur-
prising.
But
that
unidentified
aerial
objects
moved
in
numbers
over
Farmington
on
3/17/50
seems
clear.
One
witness
with
whom
I
spoke, Clayton
J.
Boddy,
esti-
mated
that
he had
bserved
a
total
of
20
to
30
disc
-shaped
objects,
including
one
red
one
substantially
larger
than
the
others,
moving
at
high
velocity
acrossthe
Farmington
sky
on
the
late
morning
of 3/17/50.
John
Eaton,
a
Farmington
realtor,
described
being
called
out
of
a
barbershop
when
the
excitement
began
and
seeing
a
high, fast
object
suddenly
joined
by
many
objects
that darted
after
It.
Eaton
sent
me
a
copy
of
an
account
he had
jotted
down
shortly
after
the
inci-
dent.
A
former
Navy
pilot,
Eaton
put
their
height
at
perhaps
15,000
ft.
"The
object
that
has
me
puzzled
was
the
one
we
saw
that
was
definitely
red.
It
was
seen
by
several
and
stated
by
all
to
be
red
and
travelling
northeast
at
a
terrific
speed."
Eaton
also
spoke
of the
way
the
smaller
objects
would
"turn
and
appear
to
be
fiat,
then turn
and
appear
to
be
round,"
a
description
matching
an
oscil-
lating disc
-shaped
object.
No
one
described
seeing
any
wings
or
tails,
and
the
emphasis
upon
the
darting,
"bee
-like"
motion
was
in several
of the accounts
I
obtained
from
witnesses.
I
obtained
more
details,
but
the
above
must
suffice
here
for
a
brief
summary.
Discussion.—This
once
-headlined,
but
now
almost
forgotten multiple-witness
case
has
been
explained
as
resulting
from
the
breakup
of
a
Skyhook
balloon
(Ref.
25).
Skyhooks
do
shatter
at the very
low
temperatures
of
the
upper
troposphere,
and
occasionally
break
into
a
number
of
smaller
pieces.
But
to
suggest that
such
fragments
of
transparent
plastic
at
altitudes
of the
order of
40-50,000
ft.
could
be
detected
by
the
naked
eye,
and
to
intimate
that
these
distant objects
of
low
angular
velocity
could
confuse
dozens of persons
into describing
fast-moving
disc
-
shaped
objects
(including
a
large
red
object)
is
simply not
reasonable.
However,
to
check
further
on
this,
I
contacted
first
HoHoman
AFB
and
then
the
Office
ofNaval
Research,
who
jointly
hold records
on
all
Alamogordo
Skyhook
releases.
No
Skyhooks
or
other
experimental
balloons
had
been
released
from
the
HoHo-
man
area or
any
other
part
of
the
country
on
or near the
date
of
this incident.
A
suggestion
that
the
witnesses
were
seeing
only
cotton
-wisps
was
not only
unreasonable, given
the
witness
accounts,
but
was
in fact tracked
down
by
a
local journalist
to
comments
casually
made
by
a
law
enforcement
officer
and
overheard
by
andther
reporter.
From
my
examination of
this
case,
I
see
no
ready
explanation
for
the
numerous
disc
-shaped
objects
moving
in unconventional
manner and
seen
by
large
numbers
of
Farmington
residents
on
3
/
1
7/50.
2.
Case
10.
Longview, Wash., July
8,
1949
Many
of the
UFO
cases
I
am
citing
are
drawn
intentionally
from
earlier
years,
in order
to
illustrate
that the evidence for the
existence
of
a
quite
real
and
scientifically
significant
phenomenon has
been with
us
for
a
disturb-
ing
number
of
years.
I
discuss
next
a
case
on
which
I
hold
copies
of
material
from
the
official
investigative
files,
copies
that
state
that
this
incident
was
"observed
by 150
other people
at
an
Air
Show",
in
addition
to
the
reporting
witness,
Moulton
B.
Taylor.
I
have
interviewed
Mr.
Taylor
and have
obtained
strong
recommendations
of
his
reliability
from a
former
superior
officer,
Adm.D.
S.
Fahrney, under
whom
Taylor
served in
Navy
guided
missiles
work
prior
to the
incident.
Taylor
is
an
aeronautical engineer,
and
was
airport
manager
at Longview,
in
charge of
an
air
show
that
was
to
be
held
on
the afternoon
of
7/
3
/
4
9, the
day
of the
incident
in
question.
A
skywriting
Stearman
was
at
10,000
ft.
at 10:40
a.m.,
laying
down
"Air
Show
Today", and
hence
holding
the
attention
of
a number
of the
personnel already at the
airport,
when
the
first
of three
unidentified objects
flew
over at high
altitude.
Alerted
by one
of
the
persons
who
first
spotted
the
object
coming from
the northwest, Taylor
got
on
the
public
address system
and announced
to
all
persons at
hand
that
they should look
up
to see the
odd
object.
Many
had
binoculars,
and among
the over
150
persons present
were
police
officers,
city
officials
and a number
of Longview's leading
citizens,
Taylor emphasized.
The
object
was
observed
by
a number
of experienced
pilots;
and,
according to
official file
summaries,
all
agreed that the
object
was
shaped
much
like
a
discus.
It
seemed
to
have
metallic luster
and
oscillated periodically
as
it
crossed the sky from
northwestto southeast
until lost
in mill
-smoke. Taylor
described the motion as
a
"sculling
or
falling-leaf
motion rather
than
a movement
through the axis of the disc.'
Its
angular
size
he estimated as about that of
a
pinhead at arm's length,
orabout that of
a
DC
-3
at 30,000
ft.,
both of which come
out to be near
10
minutes
of arc (one-third of moon's diameter).