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
92 that the capability of human populations to self-delusion, has i s not been i accorded appropriate weight in these considerations. There s an nter- esting book published about a century ago by McKay called "Extraor- dinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," which I commend to the committee. It goes into such things as alchemy, .and witchcraft. After all, there have been centuries in which these things were considered to be as obviously true as anything, and yet we nowknow that this is really nonsense. So the possibility of these sort of delusions having a kind of con- temporary guise as UFO's should not be thrown out altogether. I do not think that explains most or all of the unidentified settings. Since the funds are so painfully tragically short for science today, the priority question boils down to this: In the search for extrater- restrial life there is a high risk, high possibility, that is the one we are talking about today namely, UFO's—there is a high risk that they are not of extraterrestrial origin, but if they are, we are sure going to learn a lot. Compared to that, there is a moderate risk, significant return pos- sibility, and that is, looking for life even simple forms on nearby planets, and searching for intelligent radio communications by thetechniques of radio astronomy. Here it is clear there will be significant paydirt of one sort or another for what I gather is a comparable sort of investment. So if Congress is interested, and I'm not sure it is, I think it might very well ought to be, but if Congress is interested in a pursuit of the question of extraterrestrial life, I believe it would be much better advised to support the biology, the Mariner, and Voyager programs of NASA, and the radio astronomy programs of the National Science Foundation,than to pour very much money into this study of UFO's. On the other hand, I think a moderate support of investigations of UFO's might very well have some scientific paydirt in it, but perhapsnot the one that we are talking about today. Mr. Chairman that concludes my statement except that I request that you include for the record a statement entitled "Unidentified Fly- ing Objects" that I prepared for the Encyclopedia Americana. UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS* (by Carl Sagan) Unidentified flying objects (UFO's) is the generic term for moving aerial or celestial phenomena, detected visually or by radar, whose nature is not iramedi• ately understood. Interest in these objects stems from speculation that some of them are the products of civilizations beyond the earth, and from the psychologi- cal insights into contemporary human problems that this interpretation provides. Observations. Unidentified flying objects have been described variously as rapidly moving or hovering: disc -shaped, cigar-shaped, or ball -shaped moving silently or noisily; with a fiery exhaust, or with no exhaust whatever; accom-pained by flashing lights, or uniformly glowing with a silvery cast. The diversity of the observations suggests that UFO's have no common origin and that the useof such terms as UFO's or "flying saucers" serves only to confuse the issue by grouping generically a variety of unrelated phenomena. In the United States, popular interest in unidentified flying objects began on June 24, 1947, when a group of rapidly moving, glistening objects was observed *In Encyclopedia Americana (New York: Grolier) and In Ball. Atom. Set., 23, (6), 43,1967.
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.