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.
“Anderson”1 page
69 Discussion.—I am still in the process of trying to locate Kratovil to confirm sighting details; but the fact that four newspaper accounts for that day give the same information about the major points probably justifies acceptance of those points. From upper-wind data for that area and time, I have confirmed the presence of fairly strong flow from the WSW aloft, whence Kratovil's press comment, "If this was a weather balloon, it's the first time I ever saw one traveling against the wind," seems reasonable. The cruising speed of a Constella- tion is around 300 mph, so during the reported 10 minutes' duration of the crew's sighting, they moved about 50 miles relative to the air, so it would have been impossible for them to have kept a weather balloon in sight for this long. Furthermore, it was about 1.5 hours after scheduled balloon -release time, so that even a small balloon would have either burst or passed to altitudes too high to be visible. Finally, with flow out of the southwest sector from surface to above 20,000 ft., any balloon from Grenier AFB would have been carried along a trajectory nowhere near where the TWA crew spotted the "large, white -colored, disc -like object" overhead. 5. In my files are many other "balloon" cases from the past twenty years, cases that ought never have been so labelled, had the evaluators kept relevant quan- titative points in mind. To ignore most of the salient features of a sighting in order to advance an easy "balloon" explanation is only one more of many different ways in which some very puzzling UFO observations have been shoved out of sight. WHY AREN'T UFO'S EVER TRACKED BY RADAR? The skeptic who asks this question, and many do, is asking a very reasonable question. With so much radar equipment deployed all over the world, and especially within the United States, it seems sensible to expect that, if there are any airborne devices maneuvering in our airspace, they ought to show up on radars once in a while. They do indeed, and have been doing so for all of the two decades that radar has been in widespread use. Here, as with so many other general misconceptions about the true state of the UFO problem, we encounter disturbingly large amounts of misinformation. As with other categories of UFO misinformation, the only adequate corrective is detailed discussion of large numbers of individual cases. Only space limitations preclude discussion of dozens of striking radar -tracking incidents involving UFOs, both here and abroad; they do exist. 1. Case 85. Fukuoka, Japan, October 15,1948. A very early radar -UFO case, still held as an official Unidentified, involved an attempted interception of the unknown object by an F-61 flying near Fukuoka, Japan, at about 11:00 p.m. local time on 10/15/48. The official file on this incident is lengthy (Ref. 42) ; only the highlights can be recounted here. The F-61 (with pilot and radar operator) made six attempts to close with the unknown, from which a radar return was repeatedly obtained with the airborne radar. Each time the radarman would get a contact and the F-61 pilot tried to close, the unknown would accelerate and pass out of range. Although the radar return seemedcomparable to that of a conventional aircraft, "the radar observer estimated that on three of the sightings, the object traveled seven miles in approximately twenty seconds, giving a speed of approximately 1200 mph."In another passage, the official case -file remarks that "when the P-61 approached within 12,000 feet, the target executed a 180 0 turn and dived under the F-61," adding that "the F-61 attempted to dive with the target but was unable to keep pace." The report mentions that the unknown "could go almost straight up or down out of radar elevation limits," and asserts further that"this aircraft seemed to be cognizant of the whereabouts of the F-61 at all times . . ." The F-61 airmen, 1st Lt. Oliver Hemphill (pilot) and 2d Lt. Barton Halter (radarman) are described in the report as being "of excellent character and intelligence and are trained observers." Hemphill, drawing on his combat experience in the European theater, said that "the only aircraft I can compare our targets to is the German ME -163."
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.