SCIENTISTS DEBATE THE QUESTION OF UFO'S

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP69B00369R000200240055-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 16, 2003
• Sequence Number: 55
• Publication Date: September 6, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2003/11Q!reIA;PRt1P
Editor's note: With this ar-
tiste, the Star starts a two-
art series on the fascinating
uc3,cct of unidentified
objects. At the Washington
meeting of the American
Society of Newspaper Editors
last April, Dr. ,lames..
McDonald of the University
of Arizona, spoke at the invi-
tation of the editors, taking
as his subject UFO's. He was
followed by Dr. Donald H.
Menzel of Harvard U:niver-
sity. The minutes of u;,
ASNE meeting now being
transcribed and available, the
Star, because of the special
public interest in the differ-
ences of Opinion between Dr.
McDonald and Dr. Menzel,
presents the remarks of both.
Dr. Menzel's side of the case
vvill appear Wednesday. Dr.
McDonald was introduced by
John Quincy Mahaffey, editor
of the Texarkana, Tex., Ga-
zette.
discussed, and wnicir I was
q u i t e interested to hear
about, is by no means un-
representative of the cate-
gories of sightings that de-
mand immediate serious sci-
entific attention in this cotm-
try and all over the world.
And that is part of what I
am here to tell you today.
(Editor's note: William C.
Powell of Radnor, Pa., and a
friend, Miss Muriel McClave,
had already reported to the
editors on their May 21, 1966,
sighting of what they said was
a saucer-shaped object with
a slightly raised dome on the
top. They said the bottom
was brilliant red, the top a
brilliant white. They said they
saw the object while flying
near Willow Grove Naval Air
Station in Pennsylvania.)
This is not a nonsense prob-
lem, as it has been made out.
A lot of you have had fun, I
suppose, writing feature stor-
ies about little green men
and hoaxers and so on. Be-
lieve me, that is the wrong
part of this problem to look
at.
Mr. Mahaffey: And now I
should like to present our
first scientist, Dr. James E.
McDonald, who now holds the
position of senior physicist,
Institute of Atmospheric
Physics, and professor, De-
partment of Meteorology,
University of Arizona.
Dr. McDonald: Ladies and
gentlemen, I am pleased to
have the chance to talk with
you and discuss the results of
what I have found in approxi-
mately a 12-month intensive
study of this extremely inter-
esting problem of unidentified
flying objects.
About last April I began to
take a close look at the prob-
lcm, having been moderately
interested in the problem icr
some years prior to that. I
have been to Wright-Patter-
son at Project Blue Book
three times and I have exam-
illed 150 or so cases in their
files and talked to the scien-
tific and military staff at
Blue Book.
I have talked with people in
Al: Force, both scientific
d milit< _?y, about other as-
pects o .ne problem. I have
been around the country dis-
cussing it with independent
groups, such as NICAP (Na-
t i on a I Investigations Com-
mittee on Aerial Phenomena)
here in Washington. NICAP is
one of the outstanding inde-
pendent groups; it has done
an excellent job over the
years of digging into this fas?
cinating problem.
I have, on my own hook,
interviewed dozens of key
witnesses in important cases
around the country and have
examined hundreds of cash
in a good deal of detail.
have gone over Air Force
evaluations, Dr. Menzel's
analyses of problems and oth-
er evaluations.
It is against that baci;-
ground that I now tell you
that the sighting Mr. Powell
Briefly, his educational
back round includes a B.A.
in chemistry from the Uni-
versity of Omaha, an M.S, in
meteorology four Boston
Tech and a Ph.D. in physics
from Iowa State University.
Ile has been a research
physicist at the University
of Chicago and has taught
physics at Iowa State Univer-
sity prior to his current posi-
He is a member of the
tion
.
A in e r i c a n Meteorological
Society, the American
Geophysical Union, the Royal
Meteorology Society and Sig-
ma Xi.
I am honored to present
our distinguished guest, Dr.
. McDonald.
In the past week I have
spent all of my time dis-
cussing my serious concern
with scientific colleagues and
with military people here in
Washington. This week I
Munk I have given 10 talks
and briefings. I am glad to
say to you that scientific
and official concern is be-
ginning to change. I have
been at the Naval Research
Lab. I've been at the Penta-
gon twice this week briefing
civilian, military, Air Force
and other personnel. This
week I have also talked to
the National Academy people,
the National Science Founda-
tion and other persons whose
influence on the problem I
believe will quickly show up, .
but whose affiliation I am not
free to discuss with you.
I have to say to you that,
as a result of a pretty close
look at this problem, I think
we have all missed the boat.
I think we have been misled.
I think the problem has been
most seriously mishandled of-
ficially for 20 years. The
problem has been misrepre-
sented by many interacting
factors including yourselves
and scientists such as myself.
I have tried to put all of
this down in a rather long pa-
per that is available to you at
the back of the room. It is
entitled "UFO's: Greatest
Scientific Problem of Our
Times?" In 20 minutes I
can't possibly go over all of
the details. But I will refer to
the sections of this 28-page
paper as I go along. Since I
know you can't read it now
and I doubt you'll be able to
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 intelligence channels. . gradually, as near as I can ? Balderdash, Rot
.~ 4W0~
rovedc le e ?Q /~tg /04 0,024Adi - _ _ Book tells you
C
. is just not enough to look at 'j or, a sergeant and a secre- nothing in the uniacntitieu ny-
this problem. They ruled that tary.
there was no evidence for ex-
istence of any "artifacts of a
hostile foreign power" and
suggested that an educational
program be launched. This
was never done. It would
have been p bin
action with the ,w,A repre-
sentatives at the final ses-
sion. (I am in the peculiar
position of being almost the
only one outside official Air
Force channels who has seen
this document. Maj. Quin-
tanilla gave it to me and I
made extensive notes from
,it. When I asked for a copy
on a subsequent visit, things
happened, and it has been
reclassified by the CIA. I
made no comments abo unhis
for several months. It was
fully clear to all the personnel
at Blue Book and in the For-
DR. JAMES E. McDONALD
read it before you leave, I
hope that all of you will take
it, either to read on the air-
plane or to carry it home to
read' and then pass on to
your scientific editors or ae-
ronautical editors or what
have you. The paper goes
into considerable detail and
explains my point of view.
I think the problem has
been superficially and in-
competently handled by the
Air Force. I have said that in
many open discussions. I
have said it to Air Force gen-
erals t h is week. I said it
to Air Force generals months
ago. And I say it again.
_
f 'o The history of the problem,
as Maj. Quintanilla (Maj.
Hector Quintanilla Jr., chief
of Project Blue Book and
also a convention speaker) in-
dicated, began in 1947. The
pivot point in the history of
the UFO's was the Robertson
Panel of 1953 - five well-
known scientists assembled
by the Air Force and` I to
have a look at the pro em.
The security agency's con-
cern that led to formation of
the group grew out of the
heavy wave of reports of
1952, not exceeded even by
last year's 1,000 reports.
I was startled when I went
into Maj. Quintanilla's office
and saw five feet of shelving
just devoted to the 1952
waves of sightings. There
were so many cases that the
SEP 6 1967
eign Technology Division that
I had all these notes. I have
it in full . . . )
The fourth recommendation
asked for a systematic' "de-
bunking of the flying sau-
cers," The stated objective
of the "debunking" was to
"reduce public interest in fly-
ing saucers."
4 No Deception
Now Maj. Quintanilla has in-
dicated that the Air Force
draws on other soifrces of ex-
pertise. And when we read
the press releases from the
Pentagon desk, we do indeed
get the impression that Air
Force expertise, which is not
zero by any means, has been
used.
My examination of the
problem strongly indicates
I that the Air Force expertise
has had very little to do with
Project. Blue Book, and that
this is the heart of the
trouble. For instance, in the
case of radar, I talked not
very many days ago to the
Air Force's best radar propa-
gation man, Dr. David Atlas,
who indicated to me he had
never been brought into any
discussions of propagation
anomalies or anything like
that in all his years at the
Air Force Cambridge Re-
search Lab. And I could go
on to illustrate examples of
that sort.
The question of what the
UFO's are is crucial when
you look at sightings such as
Mr. Powell and Miss
McClave talked about and
when you realize, as I now do
but did not 12 months ago
- that these are not unrepre-
sentative sightings. The close-
range sightings of disks and
cigar-shaped objects
frequently seen at tens of feet
in populous areas are on the
increase. There are credible
observers, multiple witnesses.
A case in Beverly, Mass.,
where five adults - two of
them police officers - were
within 20 feet of an object
that was right over the-
middle of the street. In the
back of . my paper are 18
cases out of thousands. And
this particular case of last
spring is cited.
That sort of thing and Pow-
ell's observation are repre-
sentative of the interesting
sightings. They' are not con-
fined to the United . States.
One finds this going on all
over the world. I can' vouch
only for the American reports
that I have checked, and
I wish to make it very
clear that I do not regard j
this as a dark and sinister 1.
action of a covert body trying
to deceive the citizenry. They
wanted to get the "noise" out
of the "signals" that were
:clogging the intelligence'
channels. Hence, viewed nar-
rowly from security view
points, it made good sense to
!'get this "noise" suppressed.
But it was a scientific tragedy
that at that time this problem
was not turned over, in the
face of nonhostility, to scien-
tific groups. It was not. It
ing objects that defies pre-
sent-day explanation in terms
of science and technology,
that's balderdash; it is utter
rot, I assure you. How would
you explain the kind. of a
'dome-shaped object that Mr.
Powell
saw? Well, if it was the only
one you ever heard of, you
would forget about it. But
l o o k at the unidentified
cases: Exeter, N. H.; Dam-
on, Tex.; Port Huron, Mich.
Look at the sightings only; a
couple of months ago in
Davis, Calif. Look at the
cases that simply fit no con-i
ventional, no scientific, no
known explanation.
Something is going on here
of the greatest scientific in-
terest that has been. shoved
under a rug, ridiculed and
laughed out of court. You and I,,
your feature 'writers have)
helped ridicule-it. It's easier
to write a funny story. And
once the Air Force tells you
there is nothing to it, what is
more logical than to say,
"People see things; there are
a lot of nuts around the
country?" And that has led to
the net effect that very few
of these are reported.
For example, Mr. Powell's
report never got.on the wires
He told me he. called the
Naval Air Station at Willow
Grove after a day's deliber-
ation, and they weren't very
interested; and he didn't go
any further with it.
The number of embittered
citizens who have been hurt
by Air Force callous rejec-
tion and discrediting, saying
they saw twinkling stars and
so on, is very large and I
have had firsthand contact
with many of them. As a citi-
zen I m a little disgruntled
at this kind of treatment. If
there were some, reason for
it, if Were were a national
security' reason - but it's
just incompetence in opera-
tion.
It `has led to a lot of serious
students of the problem to
speculate that there might be
sortie conspiracy. And I have
DonfTnued
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 given that very. careful has said, a combination of comes to mind at the mo-
thought for a number of rca- Echo and Venus - an ex- ment because it' contains a
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sons. The group at APproveaFl 'Miease A40VO f104 : C
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here in Washington has had - surd? And it still stands as cessfu attempts to persuade
be-
oi
be ver
ti
t
t
much more contact with this the official explanation. Con- congressmen - they were al-
problem than either the Air gressman. Stanton (Rep. John most successful several times
G Force or I, and they have W. Stanton, R-Ohio) has been - to launch an investigation.
again and again encountered told that a reinvestigation con- And this, as I've said, is
cases where it looked to them firms. that. That too is titter needed. We scientists have
as -if there must be some rot. been assured for so long
r e a 11 y high-level conspira-
cy.
Pebple have suggested that
maybe Blue Book is only a
front organization and doesn't
know that it's only a front or
ganization. Well, I can't begin
to tell you the sources that I
have checked on this. But I
do _ not think it is a grand
coverup. It is a grand foulup,
a foulup of incredible propor-
tions,' unprecedented in my
experience. -
There have been scientists
who have looked at the prob-
lem - not very many. Dr.
Menzel is one. I cannot agree
with the optical-physical-as-
tronomical principle's - the
arguments that Dr. Menzel
uses.
0
Plasma Phenomena
Another person who has
recently looked at the problem
is Philip Klass, who has
thought that these, perhaps,
are plasma phenomena. That
is a reasonable thing to have
a look at, and I have had a'
look at it. I can't agree with
Philip Klass that any sub-
stantial portion of the cases
can be accounted for in
terms of plasma phenomena
associated with corona dis-
charges on newer lines or
I tell you that this sort of
thing has to stop. And you
editors are in an excellent po-
sition to help stop this by
pressing for what I am af-
raid, at this juncture, may
be the only way to escalate
serious scientific concern,
and that ? is to ask for a full
and fair congressional inquiry
into the past 20 years of
mishandling of this extremely
important problem.
there is nothing to it. As I
have gone around the country
and I suppose I have talked
to 15 scientific groups, includ-
ing Rand, the University of
Washington, my colleagues in
the American- Meteorological
Society - aver and over
again I have encountered the
i conviction that "there can't
he anything to this; the Air
Force has investigated it for
years and years and shown
that there is not a shred of
evidence" - the sort of phra-
seology you heard a moment
The scientist doesn't usual-
ly like to pursue these kinds
of routes. I don't. You often
get not only less than you
hoped for but you also lose
scientific progress. We must
have a hearing that is not
like the one last spring which
was called by Congressman
Ford (Rep. Gerald R. Ford
R-Mich.) as a result of con-
stituents' concern over Air
Force handling of the Mich-
igan cases that were ex-
plained in terms of swamp
gas. No single explanation
has brought the Air Force
more ridicule. The swamp
gas theory is nonsense. And
it still stands as the ex-
planation. This is the explana-
tion that came directly from
Dr. Hynek, and Maj. Quintan-
illa has assured me that it is
balls of lightning. In the best Hynek, not him, with whom
labs in the country it is the I must have any discussions.
biggest problem in fusion re- And I have, but the explana-
search to get plasma life- tion has not been retracted.
times of more than seconds.
But how did Mr. Powell see
this plasma coming along at
him from ahead and watch it
for tens of seconds? How did
two California Highway Pa-
trolmen at Red Bluff, Calif.,
stand about 150-200 feet from
a 100-foot-long object that
had great big bright blinking.
11 t
't that maneuvered
Hynek of Northwestern Uni-
versity is the Air Force con-
sultant on UFO's.)
When Ford got an investi-
gation, who conducted it? The
Armed S .rvices Cmmittee.
W o -testified? T rem
Force-related people, period.
ago.
This even shows up abroad.
Jacques Vallee; a French in-
vestigator of UFO's, who is
now in this country, has writ-
ten two fairly good books on
the subject. I asked him;
"Why doesn't the French gov-
ernment, for example, do
something? He replied,
"When we go to the French
government, they say the
U.S. Air Force has been
spending a lot of money for
many years on this and has
shown there is nothing to it.
Why should we spend French
money?" And so this image
of expertise. that has been
spread abroad --..which has
behind it zero - is holding
this problem in a limbo that
it must be blasted out of.
Although I. saw some prog-
ress this Week - progress of
an entirely different sort - I
.don't think :we are really go-
ing to get the serious concern
among many top-notch scien-
tists. What we need are sci-
entists who are much better
equipped than myself to look
at this problem. This has to
go to the top-caliber scientists
all over the' world, because
something is involved here
that is of concern to- all of
us. It is not a simple problem.
'I mean, obviously, how am I
going to explain a 30-, 40-, 50-
foot disk that goes by an ex-
perienced pilot like Mr. Pow-
i
l6 1 s on , That we can't have. We must
up and down and led them a 'have what NICAP, for ex-
ex-
How did the about 70 Portage minutes?
County, , ample, has been pleading for
How
/Ohio, sheriff's deputies last for years.
a half a plasma or a twinkling ` 0 The Best Source
star or, as Maj. Quintanilla
S E P 6 1
If you want to get the ell, who, I understand has
single best source of informa- . logged 18,000 hours and he
tion about the whole UFO sees this object just as he
problem, I refer you to a might ' see a Cadillac a few
y
ng
o
s
s are g
wildered when they examine,
as 1, for example, have ex-
amined, the astounding vol-
ume of evidence that exists
on this problem that has been
generally put under the rug.
? Wire Services
The wire service editors
know it's.a lot of nonsense. If
something happens out in
Sauk Center, maybe even the
Sauk Center Gazette doesn't
report it. But if it does, the
wire service editor is sure
disinclined to report 1 it. And
so the discrepancy between
what you as editors suspect
is the nature of the problem
and what you see in Just
looking at clipping service
coverage - where you get all
the Sauk 'Center Gazette re-
ports - is, well, it's almost
incredible.
I couldn't believe it when
last spring I saw the NICAP
clipping service coverage. I
thought I knew something
about the problem, but the
n u m be r of incidents in
Shamokin, Penn. or Custer,
Wash., or what-have-you -
you never hear of them, and
nobody else hears of them. If
you' read the New York
Times and -your own- paper,
you won't have heard of them,
because we have collectively
helped the Air Force forget
about this somewhat uncom-
fortable problem. And you
have helped. Yet, the evi-
dence is simply astounding.
Well, I much prefer to talk
about the purely scientific as-
pects of some of these ex-
planations. I have no start-
ling scientific illumination of
the problem. It's baffling to
me. Nothing in my scientific
education prepares me to
give you a pat explanation of
what is going on here.
There are hoaxes; there
are misinterpreted pheno-
mena; there are all these
things, of course. But there
are not advanced test ve-
hicles, believe me.. No Air
Force test vehicle is going to
go for five miles behind a
loaded gas truck in Oklahoma
- this sort of thing - land-
ApprovedlFWicikLlehtcN/9aI14.; ' ?b 'ao369R000200240055-
"The UFO Evidence." It
dle of cities. No
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 American test vehicle is go- continue to try, as one scien- The whole question of the
am to be tested in Brazil or tist, to pursue it in other pre-1947 sightings, which I lr
New Zealand and no Ru rov ~ Q b2bOW' 1/04cp 11PRoFPIWBU03 91R100020q;4OP j4ave examined
test vehicle is going to be tes- fence-orien e agency, not must be looked at by histori- tl ;A,, nd T have
ev ce
ted in the United States ar
England. There is every rea-
son to believe that the phe-
nomenon is global. They are
not advanced test vehicles;
they are not hallucinations. I
have had three sessions with
psychologists and I have
asked them, "Is there any-
thing in your clinical ex-
perience that would match
this?" The answer is, "No, it
certainly doesn't sound like
anything psychological." Aft-
er all, there are cases involv-
ing dozens of witnesses and
the military. And by their cal scholars as well as stu- ie
own statement, with which I dents of the history of tech- drawn slightly different con-
agree, there is no clear-cut nology, examine the inter- elusions from those presented
evidence of hostility. But estin , question of whether by the previous speaker.
let's get it into a scientific sightings that appear to con-
agency. stitute a continuum at low
Amusingly, all my efforts
to interest NASA in this gives
me the feeling that they think
it's nonsense too. I think they
have been hoodwinked and
sort of unintentionally brain-
washed for years and years.
And all this is not as it result
of any high-level conspiracy.
It's just a foulup. But a fou-
ings - although if the Air
Force is involved, the sight-
i n g s are disclaimed and
blamed on weather, elec-
tronic malfunctions and so
on; at least that's how they
have been so attributed since
1953. If you want to get all
the Air Force radar sight-
ings, you go back before the
CI request for a "debunk-
ng ' policy and Air Force
Regulation 9000-2.
o A Beginning
portions. We must launch a
new level of investigation.
There are very specific
things. Radar is already depl-
oyed. The trouble is it's com-
promised by present regula-
tions. There are many radar
sightings. This would be an
immediate objective source
of information that could be
put into scientific terms and
be very useful.
There are a number of
electromagnetic effects
known in the evidence car-
.stopping cases, for instance.
In Texas, in 1957, the fasci-
nating case, nine different ve-
hicles stopped. But this is go-
ing on all the time. NICAP
must have 150 examples of.
this. It's going on in Aust-
ralia, England and so on.
Associated with this are
apparently interference cf-
fects, radio and TV, magne-
tometers, compasses, a lot of
electromagnetic effects. Sci-
ence knows a lot about elec-
tromagnetic sensing devices,
and many things could be
done quickly if only the prob-
lem were taken seriously.
Airline Reports
There are many airline re-
in the old evidence. But
ports
once the Air Force began to
discredit pilots -, and they
have, in some cases, un-
mercifully discredited them
- that source of information
pretty much dried up.
Well, what is to be done?
The Colorado Program (an
Air" Force-sponsored study) is
a beginning, but I am uneasy
about the Colorado Program.
There is not nearly enough
scientific talent on that pro-
gram. I have said that quite
openly - without intending to
carp - to many people in
Washington. It should be
beefed up immediately. What
we need is much more atten-
tion to this problem, and that,
unfortunately, requires money.
But it also requires people
and that is what is short out
at Colorado. I'm afraid they
have not taken the problem
seriously enough to muster
the scientific talent to do jus-
tice to that.
We need an immediate es-
calation of the problem. Con-
gressional inquiry, if you can
press for it, will perhaps" do
the trick; it might also send
the problem awry. I don't
have great confidence in a
congressional inquiry being
the greatest solution. . I'll
SEP 6 igc',, '
That can be changed.
bile teams need to be
pared to get out into the
Mo-
pre-
field
in a hurry with a lot of gear.
And this can be done..I dis-
cussed this in the Pentagon
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sff t "?04 : CIA-RDP69B00369R0062'00240055-8
about that sort oft ing than
I do. GQ1?t .5~
s
w
n
last week with the people bilities exist
levels, running back to the
turn of the century at least,
are the same phenomena. NI-
CAP is coming out with a vol-
ume in a few months, one
that represents a good compi-
lation of evidence. But histori-
cal sophistication is needed
to assess the evidence. That
is a very important thing to
do, because the whole na-
ture of the problem is quite
different, if it is the case -
and I lean in this direction
- that aside from the marked
increase beginning in 1947,
there appears to be the same
phenomenon of craft - like,
machine-like objects oper-
ating in our environment for
tens of years.
The heart of the problem is
the "ridicule lid,". and you're
sitting on it. You're sitting on
it in a way that is very im-
portant. Get off that lid! That
is, get your wire service
people to take it seriously;
look at the problem yourself;
examine it for yourself and
get off that lid, because that
is a big part of the problem
now.
You don't know whether
changes in the frequency of
sightings is a real change, or
whether they occur just be-
cause you have given it-
serious credence in your
area, which makes people
come out with reports that
they wouldn't otherwise have
told a soul about.
(The previous speaker was
Dr. McDonald, who said that
he had concluded, after a 12-
month study of "the ex-
tremely interesting problem
of unidentified flying oh,
jects" that a proper ap-
proach was not being taken
toward them by the Air
Force or others, and.,that a
closer look should be taken.
'Dr. McDonald said, "Some-
thing is going on here of the
greatest scientific interest
that has been shoved under it
rug, ridiculed, and laughed
at." Dr. McDonald's vie; is
that UFO's very well may be
Similar sightings of flying
saucers go far back in his-
tory, where they have as-
sumed different forms for dif-
ferent people. Old records re-
fer to them as fiery dragons,
f i cry chariots, wills-o'-the-
wisp, jack-o'-lanterns, fire-
drakes, fox fire and even the
devil himself.
And now we are having ur-
ged on us a new legend to
explain a rash of mysterious
sightings. Certain UFO buffs
argue that the peculiar prop-
erties and maneuvers of
these apparitions, as reported
by reliable people of all dif-
ferent kinds, are so remark-
able that only one ex-
planation for them is pos-.
sible: they must be vehicles
from outer space, manned
by beings far more intelligent
than we, because the opera-
tors have clearly built ve-
hicles capable of something
far beyond anything we can
conceive of. This is the argu-
ment that we are asked to
accept.
On the face of it, it sounds
much like the reasoning of
Sherlock Holmes, who said on
several occasions, "It is an
old maxim of mine that when
you have excluded the impos-
sible, whatever remains, how-
ever improbable, must be the
truth." I am willing to go
along with this formula, but
only after we have followed
Holmes and excluded every
possibility but that of manned
You are on the lid. Get off
it. Ask for congressional in-
vestigation.
My report lists 18 or 20 edi-
torial comments. It shows
that some of your colleagues
have already pressed for this
- too faintly - in the past.
Have a look for yourself at
the evidence. You will find an
astounding picture of
enormous interest that has
been mishandled and mis-
represented for far too long.
UFO's. And we must also
ho
o further possi-
that
 Deceptive Reasoning
The b 1' P pprov
e
dom!
To the buffs all sightings
are true UFO's unless proved
otherwise.
often misquote various au-
thorities, or they misquote
one another, until they be-
lieve what they are saying.
Having no real logic on their
side, they resort to innuendo
and ridicule and try to dis-
credit those who fail to sup.
,port their view. The UFO
magazines all refer to me as
the archdemon of saucer-
quite simple. They try to find
someone whom they can es-
tablish as an authority, some-
one who will support their
views. Then they quote and
levers, I fee , are
much too eager to reach a i
decision. Their method is
,
scientists headed by H.P. Rob-
ertson of Cal Tech met at
,. ,, jQ,, to consider a number of
the Air Force's most convinc-
ing cases. These cases were
supposedly the ones that had
convinced the Air Force
personnel who had worked on
them as the 20 to 30 most
outstanding cases, the ones
that looked as if there was
absolutely no other ex-
planation except UFO's from
outer space to account for the
sightings. The Robertson
Committee immediately sol-
ved a number of them. The
rest they could not solve only
because of poor or in-
sufficient data. The question-
naire again! They concluded
that all cases had a natural
solution..And the report
states that there is no evi-
dence to support the idea that
UFO's are vehicles from an-
other world.
I concede that the concept other natural explanations
of manned spaceships is not exist - Dr. McDonald to the
an absolute impossibility. contrary - for the unex-
Neither are the concepts of ' plained sightings. The Air
ghosts, spirits, witches, fair- Force has given me full ac-
date. We live in the age of
space. Isn't it natural that
b e i n g s from outer space
C
should exhibit a similar inter-
est in us? But when we con-
sider that these beings - if
indeed they are beings -
have been bugging us for
centuries, why should not one
have landed on the White
House lawn and shown him-
Nevertheless, the ' UFO
buffs believe, almost as an
article of faith, that special
observers, such as military
or airline pilots, couldn't pos-
sibly mistake a meteor or a
planet or a star, a sundog or
a mirage for a UFO. This
viewpoint is absolute non-
sense, and the Air Force files
bear witness to its falsity!
They contain thousand of sol-
ved cases - sightings by the
same kind of "reliable indi-
viduals," like the pilots. But
s u c h persons have often
made huge errors in the
identification:
ies, elves, hobgloblins or the cess to their files. I concur
devil. The only trouble with ! with Dr. MacDonald that
this last list is the fact that there is no vast conspiracy
they are somewhat out of by either the Air Force or
life history of our solar sys- these ideas, and soon
tem. The number of habitable ploited
cts n the u various UFO clubs came into
yFese~~04:e7'Q~R69369Fdt40020049Qd5Bather, shining
have heard
a committee of
b
you have beard, including
mine, are just guesses. I
. have guessed that our own
Milky Way many contain as
many as a million such plan-
ets. That sounds like a lot,
but the chances are that if
this figure is right, the near-
est inhabited planet would be
so far away that if we sent
out a message to it today, we
should have to wait about 2,-
000 years to get a reply.
Alas, the evidence is poor for
intelligent life in our solar
system, although I would
rather expect to find some
low forms of life on planet
Other Reasons
position is simply this: that
With respect to UFO's, my
th.e A to conceal the facts
from e public, as many
groups have charged.
The Air Force has made its
mistakes. They never have
had enough scientists in the
project. They have failed to
follow up certain sightings of
special importance. To me
their questionnaire is ama-
self to the President of the teurish, almost cleverly de-
United States, to a member signed in certain cases to get
of the National Academy. of the wrong answers and lose
Scienhes or at least to some track of the facts. The Air
one of you editors? Force is aware of my criti-
Now, please don't misun- cfsm. And at Major Quinta-
derstand me. I think it is very
possible that intelligent life,
hopefully more intelligent
than we - may exist some-
where in the vast reaches of
outer space. But it is the
very vastness of this space
that complicates the problem.
The distances are almost in-
conceivable. The time re-
_______ quired to reach the earth -
even at speeds comparable to
that of light - range in hun-
dreds, if not thousands, of
years for some of our nearer
neighbors. And it takes light
some billions of years to
reach us from the most dis-
tant galaxies, times compa-
rable with that for the entire
nilla's invitation I have been
making constructive criticisms
and trying to help them in a
revision of the questionnaire.
It is not an easy job.
From 1947, until 1954 a be-
wildered group of Air Force
personnel tried honestly and .
sincerely to resolve the UFO
problem. i,4any highly re-
liable persons had reported
seeing objects moving at fan-
tastic speeds and apparently
taking evasive action in a
manner impossible for known
terrestrial craft. By 1952 a 'si-
zable number of those in the
Air Force group had con-
cluded that extraterrestrial
vehicles were the only expla-
p 6 196,7 , Approy%Oeh t ifas w~2
Meteor Mistaken
A huge meteor flashes by in
the sky! The copilot thinks it
is going to strike the plane
and takes evasive action. He
may even imagine that his
plane is hit by the backwash
from this UFO. The pilot dis-
rightly in the sun, floating a
more 20 feet overhead may,
to someone on the ground,
seem to be a distant object
moving at a very high
speed.
Conversely, a pilot may
think the bright object on the
horizon, in reality a star or
planet, that lies just beyond
his wing tip is a UFO. Some-
tines a layer of warm air,
sandwiched between two lay-
ers of cold air, can act as a
lens, projecting a pulsing,
spinning, vividly colored sau-
cer-like image of a planet. (I
have' seen this phenomenon
myself, despite the fact that
the previous speaker in his
lengthy manuscript tries to
discredit my sighting.) Pilots,
thinking they were dealing
with a nearby flying object,
have often tried to intercept
such images which evade, of
course all attempts to cut
them off. The distance may
seem to change rapidly as
the star fades or increases in
intensity. Because, as the pi-
lot flies along, the star may
even be completely cut off at
times by a mountain or by a
forest and it will seem to
buzz in and out from the
plane, attacking the plane.
It's realistic and very fright-
ening.
The observations of this
type fortify the UFO legend
that these objects "maneuver
-as if under intelligent con-
trol." But the pilots fail to
realize that the "intelligent
control" came from within
themselves, and I think that
the Air Force personnel of
Project Blue Book still do
not appreciate this important
UFO phenomenon.
Mirages aren't the only ap-
paritions that appear to
maneuver. I think I was the
agrees, the pilot is right. The first person to point out that
UFO proves to be a bright a special kind of reflection of
fireball or meteor ahundred the sun (or moon) from ice
miles away! such occur- crystals, sometimes called a
rences are frequent, not rare. sundog (or moondog), can
Distances, especially in also perform evasive action,
space, are hard to estimate. Layers of ice crystals are
If you're in the air, a thing necessary like those found in
you might think is 100 fet cirrus clouds. An aviator, fly-
away from you actually may ing through cirrus, sometimes
be a star that is :clear back sees a peculiar metallic-ap-
in the firmament, pearing reflection. The reflec-
tion often has a reddish tinge
on one side, a reflection of
flt1/04 : CIA-RDR69B0,369R000 a
t c t. The a ari-
 IUUU 1J11UL 1UVUL0t;0 6UULJC.
and the object seems to exe- But there are still a few
cute evasive action. As the other phenomena that can
pilot runs out of ice cAptp vedV#a6rR?'f 20O't 04
the UFO will seem to put on
a burst of speed and dis-
appear into the distance. It is
the ice-crystal analogue of a
rainbow.
Material Causes
But such behavior does not
imply, as the UFO addicts
try to imply, the presence of
an intelligent pilot to guide
it.
As we look over the Air
Force files, we find that
some 90 per cent of the sol-
ved cases result from the
presence of material objects
in the atmosphere, reflections
from planes banking in the
sun and balloons - child's
balloons, weather balloons,
lighted or unlighted, especial-
ly those enormous plastic bal-
loons as large as a 10-story
Birds, by day or night, of-
ten reflect light from their
shiny backs. Windblown kites,
hats, paper, plastic sacks,
feathers, spider webs, seed
pods, dust devils have all
contributed their share of
UFO sightings. Insects -
single insects or insects in
s w a r m s saucer-shaped
clouds, the reflection of a
searchlight on clouds, special
space experiments, such as
rocket-launched sodium vapor
releases or balloons launched
from rockets from Wallops
Island, have also produced
spectacular apparitions, vis-
ible all up and down the East
Coast. Ball lightning and the
aurora borealis occasionally
contribute.
building, which carry scien- I can see them most clear-
tific instruments sometimes , ly in a dark room or on a
to 100,000 feet - reflecting moonless night with the sky
full sunlight while the earth e v e n darker with heavy
below lies in dim twilight. clouds. I find the background
Such balloons shine more of stars on a clear night
brilliantly than Venus. Ad- somewhat distracting. Just
vertising planes or illumi- lie on your back, open your
nated blimps frequently be- eyes and see the saucers
come UFO's. spin. You will almost surely
0
that when you look at a sud-
den flash you will have an
T'VE 11t 1 om f a'~Pf 020O W& WHId
duces immediate change in
the so-called visual purple of
the retina. In a sense the ret-
inal spot where the light fell
on the eye becomes fatigued
and, for some minutes after
the flash, you will be able to
see a bright usually greenish}.,
floating spot which could be
mistaken for a UFO by some-
one unfamiliar with the prob-
lem.
But let me take an actual
case which is typical of a
large number in the files of
Project Blue Book. A child
going to the bathroom turns
on a bright light and acciden-
tally awakens one of this par-
ents who is blinded by the
s u d d e n illumination. The
child turns off the light and' the parent, for some reason,
also gets up and just happens ,
to glance out of the window.'
He is startled to see a pecu-
liar spot of light floating over
the trees and making irregu- 11
Iar jerky motions. He watch-
es the UFO for a minute or
two until it. finally dis-
appears. He can't be blamed
for failing to realize that the
erratic and often rapid move-
ments. of the UFO are due to
similar movements of his
own eye. The UFO simply ap-
pears in the direction in
which he happens to be look-
ing, and that's all. And yet
he may describe it graph-
'ically as a luminous object
sky. 7
Many such stimuli are pos-
sible by day and night; A few
ward the setting sun. , I
came to a stoplight and
looked out the side window.af
the car. I was startled to see
a large black 'object shaped
something like a dirigible
surrounded by dozens of
small black balloons. I sud-
denly realized that these
were after.-images of the sun.
The big one was where I had
been looking more fixedly.
The spots were images where
my eye had wandered. A
I once had another similar
experience. I suddenly glanced
up and was surprised to see
a whole flotilla of UFO's in
formation across the sky.
They looked like after-im-
ages, but I hadn't been
conscious of the visual sti-
mulus responsible. I quickly
retraced my steps and found
it: sunlight reflected from the
shiny surface of the fender of
a parked car.
I am sure that many
UFO's, still unknown, belong
in this class. Look fixedly at
the full moon for at least 30
seconds and then turn away.
A greenish balloon will swim
over your head and perform
maneuvers' startling or im-
possible for any real object.
I have been able to attain the
same effect with the planet
Venus when it is near maxi-
mum brilliance. Yet most ob-
servers will swear that such
UFO's are true objects. And
the Air Force questionnaire,
failing to recognize even the
existence of this kind of UFO,
contains not a single question
that would help them identify
it. In fact, the words signify-
ing UFO, unidentified flying
object, showed the state of
mind of the Air Force person-
nel who invented this abbre-
viation. What I am saying, is
that the UFO's are not un-
identifiable. They are often
not flying and many are not
even objects. It is. this point
of view, to regard the appar-
ition as actual solid objects,
that has retarded the solution
so long.
After-images possess still
another complicated charac-
teristic. Colored light tends to
produce an after-image of
complementary color. , A
green flash will cause a red
after-image and vice ver-
sa.
Color-blind persons and per-
sons with defective vision will
often experience effects dif-
UFO huff could have sworn
that he was seeing a "mother
ship" and a swarm of UFO's
in rapid flight.
ocmflnued,
eo
b F p e Ia o re ox Ling
a UFO. }app bve41Fb'P TdW 2b6'3/f1104 : CIA-RDP69B00369R000200240055-8
,~~ in the first row, would know
as far as I know, the Air
Force still does not recognize
and I think I am bringing
them to the public's attention
for the first time today. You
will see occasional reference
to some of these phenomena
but only indirectly.
Let me quote from an ar-
ticle on "Vision" in Volume
14 of the McGraw-Hill En-
cyclopedia of Science and
Technology: "...any obser-
vant I.erson can detect swirl-
ing clouds or spots of `light'
in total darkness or wh.'le
looking; at a homogeneous
field such as a bright blue
sky." So, if you want to see
flying saucers, just look up.
If you don't see them, you
probably aren't "obser-
vant."
see bright irregular patches
of light forms. Some of them
seem. gray-green but I occa-
sionally - see silver or gold
and occasionally red. I can
even imagine windows in
some of them. As you move
your eyes,. they will cavort
across the sky. To speed up
the action, just rub your eyes
like a person coming out of a
sleep. Occasionally, the whole
field will become large and
luminous. Now, I ask you,
how can you be sure that the
UFO reported by an airline
pilot is not just one of these
spurious images? And even if,
an alerted copilot confirms it,
he might also be responding
to' a similar effect in his own
eyes, since we don't know
that he is seeing exactly the
same thing that the other
man is reporting.
Eye Errors
dows! These too have, in The chemistry and physi-
their turn, produced realistic: ology of the human eye are
UFO's and I could' go on ad- c e r t a i n l y responsible for
cling almost indefinitely to many UFO sightings. The eye
this list. responds in a different way
to different kinds of stimuli.:
But the chief point that I: Taken a sudden burst of
vault to make is that a bright light like that coming
simple phenomenon like any' from a flashbulb. You news-
of the above have tricked in- paper editors, and especially
tellifyent
1 ' t
Reflections from pow-
erlines, insulators, telccvision
antennas, radars, radio tele-
 0
icrent from those of people "No, it is not," said they; To this moment I haven't
ttith normal eyesight. "you will see it turn around mentioned still another meth-
non that can produce an illus-
ion: you may forget that the
eyeball jumps a little every
time that you blink. Walking
transmits vibrations to the
eye at every step. Many indi-
viduals think they see stars,
planets or satellites oscillat-
ing when the movement is
actually that of the eye, it
self.
l L1l1 J~+~yyyJ - 00
optical p creYease`~b~I1117` 4 9
Another ~C{~/e r ?R
Hour after hour passed and
as the planet continued its
regular course, the, other
watchers began to get a little
nervous. It showed no signs
of deviating from its course.
We went out from time to
time to look at the sky.
"There it is," said one of
the observers at length point-
ing to Capella, which was
just rising a little to the East
of North; "there is the star
setting."
No, it isn't," said I.
"There is the star we have
been looking at, now quite in-
conspicuous near the meri-
dian, and that star which you
think is setting is really ris-
ing and will soon be higher
up.
A very little additional
watching showed that no de-
viation of the general laws of
Nature had occurred, but that
the observers of previous
nights had jumped at the
conclusion that two objects,
widely apart in the heavens,
were the same.
Let me give you this quota-
tion from a book:
On our return across Min-
we had an experience
nesota
which I have always remem-
bered as illustrative of the
fallacy of all human testimo-
ny about ghosts, rappings and
other phenomena of that
character. We spent two
nights and a day at Fort
Snelling. Some of the officers
were greatly surprised by a
celestial phenomenon of a
very extraordinary character
which had been observed for
several nights past. A star
had been seen, night after
night, rising in the East as
usual, and starting on its
course toward the South. But .
instead of continuing that
course across the meridian,
as stars invariably had done.
from the oldest antiquity, it
took a turn for the North,
sank toward the horizon and
finally set near the north
point of the horizon. Of
course, an explanation was
wanted.
My assurance that there
must be some mistake in the
observation could not be ac-
cepted, because this erratic
course of the heavenly body
had been seen by all of them
so plainly that no doubt could
exist on the subject. The
men who saw it were not of
the ordinary untrained kind,
but graduates of West Point,
who, if anyone, ought to be
free from optical deceptions.
I was confidently invited to
look out that night and see
for myself. We all watched
with the greatest of interest.
In due time, the planet
Mars was seen in the East
making its way towards the
South. "There it is!" was the
exclamation.
yc~ no reliable cases
i 7 a eous visual and
radar sightings. In view of
the physical properties of the
eye, the surprising fact is
that so few cases have been
reported.
Time won't permit me to
elaborate on- still another
relevant phenomenon. The
Air Force appears to have
neglected co'npletely the psy-
chological angle of mass hal-
lucination. Back in 1919, in
Spain, a not unrelated phe-
nomenon occurred. Thousands
of people - reliable people
swore that they had seen im-
ages of saints rolling their
eyes, moving their hands;
dripping drops of blood, even
stepping out of their panels.
One person would call !out,
"Look, there it goes!" and
everyone else would look and
they would see this pehnome-
non. There were many simi-
lar events recorded through
history.
Many Hoaxes
Then there are hundreds
and thousands, perhaps, of
hoaxes, like that at the Uni-
versity of Colorado when
some enterprising pranksters
made hot air balloons from
candles and plastic bags and
it gave the university officials
who were investigating the
UFO phenomenon an oppor-
tunity to see how poor the
evidence can be, a fact well
known to the legal profession.
This is still another point that
the Air Force has sometimes
failed to realize. Moreover,
their poor questionnaire has
only further confused an al-
ready confused picture.
Several times during this
talk I have used the phrase
"UFO's cavorting across the
sky." I did so deliberately be-
cause it seems to be a favor-
ite phrase of my good
friend, Dr. J. Allen Hynek of
Northwestern University, and
consultant to the Air Force
Project Blue Book. He 'has.
sometimes expressed doubts
about the UFO because stars
don't "cavort" across the
sky.
0
Those words came from a
book called "Reminiscences
of an Astronomer," published
in 1903 by Simon Newcomb,
who was in . charge of the
American Nautical Almanac
office from 1877 until 1897.
This event actually occurred
in 1860. The similarity to
modern UFO's is over-
powering. A star cavorting
across the sky! Military offi-
cers as reliable and respon-
sible witnesses!
Light Reflections
For you who wear eye-
glasses, there is still another
way of seeing a UFO. Look
directly at some bright light.
There are a lot of them
around the room here. Keep
your head turned slightly to
the left or right and you will
the human eye. I mean ra-
dar. Radar is a machine. It
can't make mistakes. Or at
least that is the common ar-
gument advanced by the UFO
buffs.
The previous speaker in his
document violently discredits
my work and reveals his ig-
norance of the phenomenon of
radio propagation of these ra-
dar waves. It so happens that
during that three-year service
in the Navy, which has al-
ready been referred to, and
22 years since then as-con-
sultant to the Central Radio
Propagation Laboratory of
the National Bureau of Stand-
ards, I have had a little ex-
perience with this particular
phenomenon and the condi-
tions. Radar is cursed with
all of the potential afflictions
that. any complicated elec-
trical gadget can suffer. But
let me mention only one: mi-
rage.
Let me explain briefly what
a radar does. It sends out a
pulse of radio waves. We
know the direction, northeast
for example. We know the
elevation above the horizon.
An echo returns. From the
interval between the trans-
mission and the return of the
signal we know how far away
the object is that reflected
the pulse. We think, there-
fore, we detect a plane - or
a UFO in flight - because
the radar directs its pulse up-
ward.
But we haven't any way of
following the pulse in its
path toward the target. A
layer of warm, dry air or
even a layer containing a few
bubbles of warm air will
bend the radar beam back to
earth. This is what we call
partial trapping and this is,
for example, what happened
in Washington in the famous
sighting in 1952.
undoubtedly see a faint, , The reflection of the beam
roundish, out-of-focus spot. after it has been directed
This is light reflected from ' backward comes back from a
the front surface of your eye- distant building, a train or a
hall, back to the lens and ship. No wonder that planes
then back into the pupil of that were sent out' to inter-
your eye. A bright source, to cept the radar UFO found
one side and slightly behind nothing. In one such case a
you, can also reach your eye well-known writer on flying
h reflection from the
throu
"
g
saucers wrote:
The dis-
"Yes, there it is," said I.
"Now, that planet is going to internal surface of the. spec- covery of visible saucers had
h 4 urse to- tacle lens. been serious enough. The dis-
co
t
on s
kee rig
ward the South." covert' now of invisible flyingsgp1Tluec
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optical 'stimuli can produce
weird effects. With all these
kinds of phenomena masque-
rading as UFO's, many of
them, like those related to
the psysiology of the human
eye still practically not in-
vestigated, I think I can rea-
sonably claim, applying the
criterion of Sherlock Holmes,
that we have not excluded all
of the impossibles. I have
shown that the arguments ad-
vanced in favor of the in-
terplanetary nature of UFO's
are fallacious. Their alleged
high speeds and ability to
maneuver, their alleged short
distances are completely un-
derestimated and they have
natural explanations.
I think it is time for the
Air Force to wrap up Project
Blue Book. It has produced
lit t I e of scientific value.
Keeping it going only fosters
the belief of persons that the
Air Force must have found
something to substantiate be-
lief in the UFO's. In making
this recorhmendatio: I kin
not criticizing the present or
recent administration of the
project. But it's time that we
put an end to chasing ghosts,
hobgoblins, visions and hallu-
cinations.
As for the true believers,
bless their little hearts, let
them go on believing in
U F 0 ' s , fairies or Santa
Claus, if they want to. Noth.%
ing will change their minds.
They will go on forever de-
manding more dollars for in-'
vestigation and more congres-
sional , investigation of the
UFO's and the Air Force.
Incidentally, I would like to
mention that a complete dis
eussion of many of these:
phenomena appears in' the'
book, "The World of Flying)
Saucers" by Lyle G. Boyd-
and myself.
SEp 01967
Approved For Release 2003/11/04: CIA-RDP69B00369R000200240055-8