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.
“Nevers”43 pages
60 orders of magnitude larger than have ever been observed yield reflectivities (at the kind of near-normal incidence involved in Tombaugh's sighting) that are only a tiny fraction of one per cent (Ref. 36). In fact, I see no way of accounting for the Tombaugh observation in terms of known meteorological or astronomical phenomena. 2. Case 21. Ft. Sumner, New Mexico, July 10, 1947 A midday sighting by a University of New Mexico meteoriticist, Dr. Lincoln La Paz, and members of his family was summarized by Life magazine years ago (Ref. 37) without identifying La Paz's name. Bloecher (Ref. 8) gives more details and notes that this is officially an Unidentified. (At 4:47 p.m. MST on 7/10/47, four members of the La Paz family nearly simultaneously noted "a curious bright object almost motionless" low on the western horizon, near a cloudbank. The object was described as ellipsoidal, whitish, and having sharply-outlined edges. It wobbled a bit as it hovered stationary just above the horizon, then moved up, wards, passed behind clouds and re-emerged farther north in a time interval which La Paz estimated to be so short as to call for speeds in excess of conven- tional aircraft speeds. It passed in front of dark clouds and seemed self-luminous by contrast. It finally disappeared amongst the clouds. La Paz estimated it to be perhaps 20 miles away, judging from the clouds involved; and he put its length at perhaps 100-200 ft. Discussion. This observation is attributed by Menzel (Ref. 24, p. 29) to "some sort of horizontal mirage, perhaps one of a very brilliant cloud shining like silver in the sunlight—a cloud that was itself invisible because of the darker clouds in the foreground." As nearly as I am able to understand that explanation, it seems to be based on the notion that mirage-refraction can neatly superimpose the image of some distant object (here his "brilliant cloud") upon some nearer object in the middle distance (here his "darker clouds"). That is a fallacious notion. If any optical distortions did here bring into view some distant bright cloud, it would not be possible to receive along immediately adjacent optical paths an image of the intermediate clouds. Furthermore, the extremely unstable lapse rates typical of the southwestern desert areas under afternoon conditions produce inferior mirages, not superior mirages of the looming type here invoked by Menzel. Rapid displacements, vertically and horizontally, are not typical of mirage phenomena. Hence Menzel's' explanations cannot be accepted for this sighting. 3. Case 22. Harborside, Me., July 3, 1947 An observation by an amateur astronomer, John F. Cole, reported to official investigative offices near the beginning of the period of general public awareness of the UFO problem, involves an erratically maneuvering cluster of about 10 objects, seen near 2:30 p.m. EDT on 7/3/47 on the eastern shore of Penobscot Bay. Hearing a roar overhead, Cole looked up to see the objects milling about like a moving swarm of bees as they traveled northwestward at a seemingly high speed, as nearly as he could judge size and distance. The objects were light-colored, and no wings could be discerned on most, although two appeared to have some sort of darker projections somewhat resembling wings. In 10-15 seconds they passed out of sight. Discussion. This is one of several dozen cases admitted to the Unidentified category in one of the earliest official reports on UFOs (Ref. 6). I have tried, unsuccessfully, to locate J. F. Cole. An account of the case is given by Bloecher (Ref. 8). It might be remarked that "swarming bee" UFO observations have cropped up repeatedly over the years, and from all over the world. 4. Case 23. Ogra, Latvia, July 26,1965 An astronomer whom I know recently toured a number of observatories in the USSR, and brought back the word that a majority of Russian astronomers have paid little attention to Russian UFO reports (details of which are quite similar to American UFO reports, my colleagues established), a frequently-cited reason being that the American astronomer, Menzel, had given adequate optical explana- tions of all such sightings. I must agree with Dr. Felix Zigel who, writing on the UFO problem in Soviet Life (Ref. 38), remarked that Menzel's explanation in terms of atmospheric optics "does not hold water." It would, for example, be straining meteorological optics to try to account in such terms for a sighting by three Latvian astronomers whose report Zigel cites in his article. At 9:35 p.m. on 7/26/65 while studying noctilucent clouds, R. Vitolniek and two colleagues vis- ually observed a starlike object drifting slowly westward. Under 8-power binoc-
Hearing transcript, from the govinfo collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 256 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.