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.

52
press
shortcomings
in
the
UFO
area are
only
secondary
factors
in
the long
failure
to get
this
matter
out
into
the
open.)
The
witness
-variance
that
skeptics
like
to
cite
is
fairly
well
illustrated
in
the
results
of
my
ten
interviews.
I
wish
space
permitted
a
full
exposition
of
what
each
witness
told
me,
for
it
would
not
only
attest
to
that
well-known
variance
but
would
also
illustrate
the
point
made
earlier,
namely,
that
despite
those
bothersome
differences
in
details,
there
nevertheless
comes
through
a
consistent
core
of
information
on
observations
of
something
that
was
of
scientific
interest.
Mrs.
Frank
R.
Hoch
paid
no
attention
when
her son
first
tried
to
call
her out
to
see
something
in
the sky.
Knowing
it
was
kite
season,
dinner
preparations
took
precedence,
and
she
told
the
10
-year
-old
boy
to
go
ride his
bike.
The
second
time
he
was
more
insistent,
and
she
went
outside to look.
Two
objects,
domed
on
the top
but
nearly
fiat
on
the
bottom,
shaped
like
a
cup
upside
down,
having
no
rim
or
"sombrero
brim",
she
said,
were moving
slowly
westward
from
Fisher's
Peak,
which
lies
just
south of
Trinidad.
Her
son,
Dean,
told
her
he had
seen
three
such
objects
when
he
tried
to
get
her
to
come
out
earlier.
(Mr.
Louis
DiPaolo,
a
Trinidad
postman
whom
I
interviewed,
had
also
seen
three
objects.)
Interestingly,
when
Mrs.
Hoch saw
the
objects,
one
was
between
her
and
the
ridge,
the
other just
above
the
low
ridgeline.
The
ridge
is
about
a
half
-mile
from
the
Hoch
residence.
A
photo of
the
ridge,
with roughly
-scaled
objects
sketched
on
it,
suggests
an
angular diameter of
perhaps
a
degree
(object
size
of
order
100
ft),
in disagreement with her
earlier
angular
estimates.
It
was
clear
that
Mrs.
Hoch
was, as
are most,
unfamiliar
with
angular
-size
estimating.
The
objects,
Mrs.
Hoch
said,
moved
up
and
down
in
bobbing
manner
as
they
progressed
slowly
westward
along
the
ridgeline.
Occasionally
they
tilted,
glinting
in the
late
afternoon
sun as
if metallic.
No
sound
was
mentioned
by any
witness
except
one young boy
whose
attention
was
drawn
to
the
object
by
a
"ricocheting
sound",
as
he
put
it.
DiPaolo's
observations
were
made
with
7x35
binoculars;
he
also
described
the
objects
as
metallic
in
appearance
and
shaped
like
a
saucer upside
down. His
attention
had
been
called
to
it
by
neighborhood
boys
playing
outside.
Mrs. Amelia
Berry,
in
another part
of
Trinidad,
evidently
saw
the
objects
some-
what
earlier,
when
they
were
farther
east,
circling
near
Fisher's
Peak,
but she
was
uncertain
of
the
precise
time.
She
saw
only
two,
and
remarked
that
they
seemed
to
"glitter",
and
she
described
them
as
"saucer shaped", "oblong
and
narrow".
Mrs.
J.
R.
Duran,
horseback
-riding
with
a 12
-year
-old
son
on
the
op-
posite
(north)
side
of
town
also
saw
two
objects,
"fiat
on
the bottom,
and
domedon
top,
silvery",
when
her son
called
them
to
her
attention.
She
described
them
as
"floating
along
slowly,
bobbing
up
and
down, somewhat
to
the
west
of
Fisher's
Peak." She,
like
the
other
witnesses,
was
positive
that
these
were
not
airplanes.
No
one
described
anything
like
wings
or
tail.
A
number
of
witnesses
were
so
close
that,
had
this
been
an
unconventional
helicopter,
its
engine
-noise
would
have
been
unmistakable.
Diseussion.—Notwithstanding
differences
in
the
witness accounts
(more
of
which would emerge from
a
more
complete
recounting), the
common
features
ofthe
observers' descriptions
would seem
to rule
out
known
types
of
aircraft,
astronomical, meteorological,
and
other.
explanations.
7.
Case
15,
Red
lands,
Calif.,
February
4,1968
A
still
more
recent multiple-witness case
of
great
interest
was
well
-documented
by
three University
of
Redlands
professors shortly after
it
occurred
on
the
eve-
ning of 2/4/68.
APRO
plans
a
fairly detailed
summary
-report.
Dr.
Philip
Seff
kindly sent
me
a
copy
of the witness-testimony
he and
his colleagues
secured in
interviewing
about twenty out of
an
estimated
hundred
-plus
witnesses to
this
low
-
altitude sighting in
a
residential
area of Redlands.
Because
I
understand that
Dr. Harder
will
be
giving
a
fairly detailed
report of
this
case to
your Committee.
I
shall
give only
a much
-abbreviated version.
At
7:20
p.m.,
many
persons
went
outdoors to investigate either
(a)
the unusual barking of neighborhood dogs,
or
(b) a
disturbing
and
unusual sound.
Soon
many
persons
up and
down
severalstreets
were
observing
an
object
round
in planiform, estimated at perhaps 50-60
feet in diameter,
moving
slowly
towards the
east-northeast
at
an
altitude
put by
most
witnesses
as perhaps 300
feet.
Glowing
ports or panels lay around
its
upperperimeter
and
"jet
-like"
orange
-red
flames or something resembling flames
emanated from a number
of sources
on the undersurface.
A
number
of
odd
psysiological effects
were remarked by
various witnesses,
and
the animal
-re-
actions
were a
notable feature of
this case.
The
object at one
point rose abruptly
by some hundreds of feet before continuing
its
somewhat "jerky" motion to the