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
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
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.