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
72 Barnes and others, confirmed the important point that simultaneous radar fixes and pilot -sightings occurred several times that night. He shared Barnes views that the experienced radar controllers on duty that night were not being fooled byground returns in that July 19 incident. Among the airlines crewmen with whom I spoke about this event was S. C. Pierman, then flying for Capitol Airlines. He was one of the pilots directed by ground radar to search in a specific area for air- borne objects. He observed high speed lights moving above his aircraft in direc- tions and locations matching what the CAA radar personnel were describing to him by radio, as seen on their radars. Other airline personnel have given me similar corroborating statements. I am afraid it is difficult to accept the official explanations for the famous Washington National Airport sightings. 5. Case 39, Port Huron, Mich., July 29, 1952 Many a the radar cases for which sighting details are accessible date back to 1953 and preceding years. After 1953, official policies were changed, and it is noteasy to secure good information on subsequent cases in most instances. A radar case in which both ground -radar and airborne -radar contact were involved oc- curred at about 9:40 p.m. CST on 7/29/52 (Refs. 4, 5, 7, 10, 25). From the official case summary (Ref. 7) one finds that the unknown was first detected by GCI radar at an Aircraft Control and Warning station in Michigan, and one of three F -94s doing intercept exercises nearby was vectored over towards it. It was initially coming in out of the north (Ref. 5, 25), at a speed put at over 600 mph. As the F-94 was observed on the GOI scope to approach the unknown, the latter suddenly executed a 180° turn, and headed back north. The F-94 was by then up to 21,000 ft., and the pilot spotted a brilliant multicolored light just as his radarman got a contact. The F-94 followed on a pursuit course for 20 minutes (Ref. 7) but could never close with the unknown as its continued on its north- bound course. At the time of first radar lockon, the F-94 was 20 miles west ofPt. Huron, Mich. The GOT scope revealed the unknown to be changing speed erratically, and at one stage it was moving at a speed of over 14000 mph, according to Menzel (Ref. 25), who evidently drew his information from the official files. Ruppelt (Ref. 5) states that when the jet began to run low on fuel and turned back to its base, GOT observed the unknown blip slow down, and shortly after it was lost from the GOT scope. Discussion.—This case is still carried as an official unknown. The case sum- mary (Ref. 7) speculates briefly on whether it could have been "a series of coincident weather phenomena affecting the radar equipment and sightings of Capella, but this is stretching probabilities too far." MenzExl, however, asserts that the pilot did see Capella, and that the airborne and ground radar returns "were merely phantom returns caused by weather conditions." No suggestion is offered as to how any given meteorological condition could jointly throw off radar at the ground and radar at 21,000 feet, no suggestion is offered to account for 180° course -reversal exhibited by the blip on the GOT scopejust as the F-94 came near the unknown, no suggestion of how propagation anomalies could yield the impression of a blip moving systematically northward for 211 minutes (a distance of almost 100 miles, judging from reported F-94 speeds), with the F-94 return following along behind it. With such ad hoc explanations, one could explain away almost any kind of sighting, regardless of its content. I have examined the radiosonde sounding for stations near the site andtime of this incident, and see nothing in them that would support Menzel's inter- pretations. I have queried experienced military pilots and radar personnel, andnone have heard of anything like "ground returns" from atmospheric conditions with aircraft radar operated in the middle troposphere. If Menzel is not consider- ing ground -returns, in the several cases of this type which he explains away with a few remarks about "phantom radar returns", then it is not clear what else he might be thinking of. One does have to have some solid target to get a radar return resembling that of an aircraft. Refractive anomalies of the "angel" type havevery low radar cross-section and would not mislead experienced operators into confusing them with aircraft echoes. 6. Many other cases might be cited where UFOs have appeared on radar under conditions where no acceptable conventional explanation exists. Ref. 7 has a number of them. Hall (Ref. 10) has about 60 instances in which both radar and visual sightings were involved. A December 19, 1964 case at PatuxentRiver NAS is one that I have checked on. It involved three successive passes of
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.