STATEMENT ON UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS

Prepared statement submitted to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, 
July 29, 1968, by James E. McDonald Ph.D.

[ PART 2 ]

WHY DON'T ASTRONOMERS EVER SEE UFOs?

   I have had this question put to me by many persons, including a number of astronomers. Once I was speaking to a group from an important laboratory of astronomy when the director asked why astronomers never see them. In the room, among his staff, were two astronomers who had seen unconventional objects while doing observing but who had asked that the information they had given me about their sightings be kept confidential. I under stand such strictures, but some of them make things a bit difficult. This phenomenon of professional persons seeing unidentified objects and then being extremely loath to admit it is far more common than one might guess. After hearing of an evidently very significant sighting by a prominent physical scientist who was hiking in some western mountains when he spotted a metallic-looking disc, examined it with binoculars, and saw it shoot up into the air (according to my second-hand report from a professional colleague), I tried for months to secure a direct report of it from him; he was unwilling to discuss it openly with me. NICAP has had reports from prominent executives in large technical corporations who insisted that, just because of their positions, their names not be used publicly. Similar instances could be cited almost ad infinitum. The very types of witnesses whose testimony would carry greatest credence often prove to be the most reluctant to admit their sightings; they seem to feel they have the most to lose. Within a day of this writing, I spoke to a veteran airlines pilot about a sighting in which he was involved about a decade ago. After the official "explanation" was publicized, he decided he'd never report another one. I predict that social psychologists are going to have a field day, in a few years, studying the "pluralistic ignorance" that led so many persons to conceal so many sightings for so long.

   Returning, however, to the question of why astronomers never see UFOs, a relevant quantitative consideration needs to be cited at once. According to a recent count, the membership of the American Astronomical Society is about 1800; by contrast, our country has about 350,000 law-enforcement officers. With almost 200 times as many police, sheriffs' deputies, state troopers, etc., as there are professional astronomers, it is no surprise that many more UFO reports come from the law-enforcement officers than from the astronomers. Furthermore, the notion that astronomers spend most of their time scanning the skies is quite incorrect; the average patrolman almost certainly does more random looking about than the average professional astronomer.

   Despite these considerations, there are on record many sightings from astronomers, particularly the amateurs, who far outnumber the professionals. A few examples will be considered.

1.  Case 20.  Las Cruces, N.M., August 20, 1949.

   A good account of the sighting by Dr. Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the planet Pluto, is given by Menzel (Ref. 25). From my own discussions with Dr. Tombaugh, I confirmed the main outlines of this incident. At about 10:00 p.m. on 8/20/49, he, his wife, and his mother-in-law were in the yard of his Las Cruces home, admiring what Tombaugh described as a sky of rare transparency, when Tombaugh, looking almost directly towards zenith, spotted an array of pale yellow lights moving rapidly across the sky towards the southeast. He called them to the attention of the two others, who saw them just before they disappeared halfway to the horizon. The entire array subtended an angle which Tombaugh put at about one degree, and it took only a few seconds to cross 50 or 60 degrees of sky. The array comprised six "windowlike" rectangles of light, formed into a symmetric pattern; they moved too fast for aircraft, too slowly for a meteor, and made no sound. Menzel quotes Tombaugh as saying, "I have never seen anything like it before or since, and I have spent a lot of time where the night sky could be seen well."

Discussion.

   Dr. Menzel explains this phenomenon as resulting from reflection of lights from the ground, possibly "the lighted windows of a house" reflected by an inversion or haze layer aloft. The movement he explains as resulting from a ripple on the haze layer. Such an "explanation" is not merely difficult to understand; it is incredible. For an "inversion layer" to produce such a near-normal reflection of window lights would demand a discontinuity of refractive index so enormously large compared with anything known to occur in our atmosphere as to make it utterly out of the question. However, it has been just such casual ad hoc explanations as this by which Menzel has, in his writings, used meteorological optics to rationalize case after case with no attention to crucial quantitative details. It is a simple matter to show that even inversions of intensity many 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 upwards, 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 conventional 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 an 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 colleague established), a frequently cited reason being that the American astronomer, Menzel, had given adequate optical explanations 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 visually observed a star like object drifting slowly westward. Under 8-power binocular magnification, the light exhibited finite angular diameter, so a telescope was used to examine it. In the telescope, it appeared as a composite of four smaller objects. There was a central sphere around which, "at a distance of two diameters, were three spheres resembling the one in the center." The outer spheres slowly rotated around the central sphere as the array gradually moved across the sky, diminishing in size as if leaving the Earth. After about 20 minutes' observation, the astronomers noted the outer spheres moving away from the central object, and by about 10:00 p.m., the entire group had moved so far away that they were no longer visible.

Discussion.

   I have no first-hand information on this report, of course. The group of objects was seen at an angular elevation of about 60 degrees, far too high to invoke any mirage-effects or other familiar refractive anomalies. Furthermore, the composite nature of the array scarcely suggests an optical distortion of the telescope, a possibility also rendered improbable from the observed angular velocity and apparent recessional motion.

5.  Case 24.  Kislovodsk, Caucasus, August 8, 1967.

   Zigel, who is affiliated with the Moscow Aviation Institute, reports in the same article (Ref. 38), a sighting at 8:40 p.m., 8/8/67, made by astronomer Anatoli Sazanov and colleagues working at the Mountain Astrophysical Station of the USSR Academy of Sciences, near Kislovodsk. Sazanov and ten other staff members watched an " asymmetric crescent, with its convex side turned in the direction of its movement" moving eastward across the northern sky at an angular elevation of about 20 degrees. Just ahead of it, and moving at the same angular speed was a point of light comparable to a star of the first magnitude. The crescent-like object was reddish-yellow, had an angular breadth of about two-thirds that of the moon, and left vapor-like trails aft of the ends of the crescent horns. As it receded, it diminished in size and thus "instantly disappeared".

Discussion.

   If we may accept as reliable the principal features of the sighting, how might we account for it? The "faintly luminous ribbons" trailing from the horns suggest a high-flying jet, of course; but the asymmetry and the reddish-yellow coloration fail to fit that notion. Also, it was an object of rather large angular size, about 20 minutes of arc, so that an aircraft of wingspan, say, 150 feet would have been only about five miles away whence engine-noise would have been audible under the quiet conditions of a mountain observatory. More significant, if it had been an aircraft at a slant range of five miles, and at 20 degrees elevation, its altitude would have been only about 9000 ft above the observatory. For the latitude and date, the sun was about ten degrees below the western horizon, so direct sun-illumination on an aircraft at 9000 ft above observatory level would be out of the question. Hence the luminosity goes unexplained. Clearly, satellites and meteors can be ruled out. The astronomers' observation cannot be readily explained in any conventional terms. Zigel remarks that the object was also seen in the town of Kislovodsk, and that another reddish crescent was observed in the same area on the evening of July 17, 1967.

6. Case 25. Flagstaff, Ariz., May 20, 1950.

   Near noon on 5/20/50, Dr. Seymour Hess observed an object from the grounds of the Lowell Observatory. Although Hess' principal field of interest has been meteorology, we may here consider him an astronomer-by-association, since he was at Lowell doing work on planetary atmospheres, on leave from Florida State University. Spotting an unusual, small object moving from SE to NW, he had time to send his son after binoculars, which he used in the later portions of his observation. He said it looked somewhat disc-shaped, or perhaps somewhat like a tipped parachute. It had no wings or visible means of propulsion. Dr. Hess indicated to me that he probably had it in sight a total of about three minutes, during which it passed directly between him and a cloud, before disappearing (into a cloud Hess feels, though this point was not certain). From meteorological data bearing on the cloud-base height, Hess deduced that the cloud bases lay 12,000 ft above terrain (vs. Weather Bureau visual estimate of 6000 ft above terrain). The zenith angle was about 45 degrees, so the slant range would have been 17,000 ft or 8,000 ft, depending on which cloud height is accepted. For its 3 minutes estimated angular diameter (dime at 50 ft, Hess estimated), the diameter would then come out of the order of 10 to 15 feet. His subjective impression was that it was possibly smaller than that.

Discussion.

   The possibility that this might have been a balloon or some other freely drifting device comes to mind. However, Hess noted carefully that the clouds were drifting from SW to NE, i.e., at right angles to the object's motion. He estimated its speed to be in the neighborhood of 100 to 200 mph, yet no engine noises of any kind were audible. It appeared dark against the bright cloud background, but bright when it was seen against blue sky. No obvious explanation in conventional terms seems to fit this sighting.

7. Many other sightings by both professional and amateur astronomers could be listed. Vallee (Ref. 17) discusses in detail a November 8, 1957 observation by J. L. Chapuis of Toulouse Observatory in France of what appeared through a small telescope to be a yellowish, elliptical body, with distinct outlines, leaving a short trail behind it. It was seen by other observers in three separate locations, executed maneuvers entirely excluding meteoric origin, and was regarded as an unexplainable phenomenon by all of the witnesses. Hall (Ref. 10) lists nine examples of astronomer sightings of unidentified objects, several of which are quite striking. Ruppelt (Ref. 5) remarks that an astronomer working under contract to the official UFO investigatory program interviewed 45 American astronomers during the summer of 1952, of whom five (11 per cent) had seen what they regarded to be UFOs. Although the sample is small, that percentage is well above the population percentage who say they have seen UFOs, which suggests that perhaps astronomers may sight more UFOs than they report as such. Indeed, with the recent publication of Ref. 7, further interesting information on that 1952 poll is now at hand. The contract astronomer wrote at that time (Ref. 7, Rept. 8), "...certainly another contributing factor to their desire not to talk about these things is their overwhelming fear of publicity. One headline in the nation's papers to the effect that 'Astronomer Sees Flying Saucer' would be enough to brand the astronomer as questionable among his colleagues." Unfortunately, we scientists are by no means as open-minded and fearlessly independent as we are sometimes pictured. It is often quite difficult to persuade a scientist to let his confidential report of a UFO sighting become a fully open UFO report; and my own experience suggests that perhaps astronomers, as a group, are just a bit more sensitive on this score than other scientists. At any event, perhaps the above-cited cases will suggest that some astronomers have seen unidentified flying objects.

METEOROLOGISTS AND WEATHER OBSERVERS LOOK AT THE SKIES FREQUENTLY.  WHY DON'T THEY SEE UFOs?

1. Case 26. Richmond, Va., April 1947.

   To begin an answer to that rhetorical question, we might consider an observation made by a weather observer at the Richmond, Va., U. S. Weather Bureau station, about two months before the first national publicity concerning UFOs. Walter A. Minczewski, whom I located at the same Weather Bureau office where he made the sighting in 1947, was making a pilot balloon observation, when he spotted a silvery object that entered the field of his theodolite (which was trained on the balloon he had released). In the account that Minczewski sent me, he stated that "the bottom was flat and the top was slightly dome-shaped"; and when he tried to see it with naked eye, he could not spot it. (Typical pilot balloon theodolites have magnifications of about 20 to 25, and angular fields that are usually about a degree across.) It was a "clear bright morning" when he spotted the object, and it lay to his NNE at an elevation of about 45 degrees. Whether Minczewski really saw the upper surface or formed his mental impressions without realizing that the theodolite may have inverted the image is now unclear, and my questioning did not settle that point.

Discussion.

   A report of this sighting is in the official files, a circumstance which greatly surprised Minczewski, since he had discussed it only with his fellow workers. In the ensuing two decades, he has never again seen anything like it. Clearly, the probability of an object crossing the small angular field of a meteorological theodolite is quite low, if only chance were involved here. He tried to track it but lost it, due to its high angular velocity, after about five or six seconds, he recalled. No obvious conventional explanation suggests itself for this early sighting.

2. Case 27. Yuma, Ariz., February 4, 1953.

   Weather Bureau observer S.H. Brown was tracking a pilot balloon at 6000 ft over Yuma at 1:50 p.m. MST on 2/4/53 when first one and then a second unidentified object moved across his theodolite field, somewhat as in the preceding case. I obtained an account of this sighting from V.B. Cotten, Meteorologist-in-Charge at the Yuma station. The full account is too long for recapitulation here. Both objects appeared to be of the order of a minute of arc in diameter and appeared "almost round, a solid dull pure white color, with a thin white mist completely edging each object." The first object moved into the optical field and curved upwards to the west, with the theodolite oriented to about 53 degrees elevation, 157 degrees azimuth. About 20 seconds later, a second object entered the field and moved in and out of the field erratically two times, to rejoin the first object. Brown was able to track the pair thereafter, as they jointly changed both azimuth and elevation. Because he had a stopwatch at hand for the balloon observation (which he did not complete because of following the unknown objects), he was able to determine that he followed the pair of objects for five minutes (1350 to 1355), until he lost sight of them against a cirrus cloud deck to the SSW. At the termination of the observation, his instrument was pointed to 29 degrees elevation, 204 degrees azimuth.

Discussion.

   This case is carried as Unidentified in the official files (see Ref. 7 for official summary). At times these objects lay near the sun's position in the sky, which might suggest forward-angle scattering of sunlight by airborne particles. However, initially, the objects were detected at angular distance of about 40 degrees from the solar position, which would not yield appreciable low-angle scattering. Furthermore, if these were airborne scatterers, they would almost certainly be separated by random turbulence within as long a period as five minutes, yet the observer's report indicates that they maneuvered together within angular separations of the order of the roughly one-degree field of such theodolites. The fact that the second object did go out of the field only to return to the vicinity of the first object strains the airborne particle hypothesis. Thus the official categorization of Unidentified seems reasonable here.

3.  Case 28.  Upington, Cape Province, December 7, 1954.

   R.H. Kleyweg, Officer-in-Charge of the Upington Meteorological Station, had just released a balloon for upper-wind measurement and was shielding his eyes from the sun trying to spot the balloon to get his theodolite on it. Seeing an object east of the sun, moving slowly to the west, he thought it was his balloon and got the theodolite on it, only to find that it was white, whereas he had released a red balloon. An account in the Natal Mercury, January 28, 1955, quoted Kleyweg as saying that it seemed "like a half-circle with the sun reflecting off the sloping top." He had no difficulty following it for about three minutes, but then it began to accelerate and, after another minute, he was unable to track fast-enough to keep it in optical view (Ref. 10).

Discussion.

   Kleyweg was quoted in the cited press source as saying, "I have followed thousands of meteorological balloons. This object was no balloon." A South African student doing graduate work in my Department, Petrus DuToit, has confirmed this sighting, having had an account of it directly from Kleyweg. An accelerating airborne half-circular object with sloping top seems best categorized as an unidentified flying object.

4. Case 29. Arrey, New Mexico, April 24, 1949.

   Charles B. Moore, Jr., was with four enlisted Navy personnel making a pilot balloon observation preparatory to release of a Skyhook balloon at the White Sands Proving Ground in the middle of the morning of 4/24/49. The balloon was airborne and was under observation by one of the men when Moore became aware that a white object which he took to be the balloon was in a part of the sky well away from where the theodolite operator had his instrument trained. As Moore has explained directly to me in discussing this famous case, he thought the operator had lost the balloon. Moore took over, swung the 25-power scope onto the "balloon" he had spotted, and found that it was in fact an ellipsoidal white object moving at a rapid angular velocity towards the NE. With stopwatch and recording forms at hand, it was possible for the team of five men to secure some semi-quantitative data on this sighting; Moore disengaged the vernier drives to track manually, and followed the object as it sped from the southwest into the northeast skies. At its closest approach, it was moving at about 5 degrees/sec. Just before Moore lost it in the distance to the northeast, its angular elevation began to increase, as if it were climbing, a quite significant point. The object had a horizontal length about two to three times greater than its vertical thickness. Moore never got a sufficiently clear view to identify any finer details if any were present. Another balloon was immediately released to check the slim possibility that a high-speed jet from SW to NE might have carried some airborne object across the sky; but the winds were blowing more or less at right angles to the object's path to the 93,000 ft level, and were rather weak (Ref. 10). The angular diameter of the object was estimated at about a minute of arc (which in the 25-power theodolite would appear to Moore as about three-fourths the apparent size of the moon).

Discussion.

    Moore's sighting is carried as Unidentified in official files. Menzel (Ref. 24) says of it:

   It would be interesting to hear Menzel present a quantitative defense of that astonishing disposition of this interesting sighting. Here five witnesses, with aid of a tracking device giving better than rough angular coordinate information on the movements of an unknown object, observe the object move through an arc of over 90 degrees that took it into a part of the sky about that same large-angular distance from the real balloon's location, and Menzel adduces a "lens of air" to explain it away. Astronomers find atmospheric scintillation a very serious observational problem because stellar images are often erratically shifted by tens of seconds of arc from their mean position as a result of atmospheric turbulence effects. In the 5/24/49 Moore sighting, Menzel is proposing that the atmosphere carried a refracted image of the balloon northeastward at a steady rate of excursion that finally totaled several thousand times the magnitude of refractive angular image-displacements known to occur with bad seeing. I feel obliged to repeat an observation I have made before: If the transmission properties of the Earth's atmosphere were as anomalous as Menzel assumes in his handling of UFO observations, he and his colleagues would be out of business. The official categorization of Unidentified for the Moore sighting seems inescapable. It might be added that, over the years, there have been very many UFO observations of significant nature from the vicinity of White Sands Proving Ground, many involving instrumental tracking, many made by experienced observers. A long and impressive list of them could easily be compiled, yet all have been slowly lost from official cognizance by a process that is characteristically at the heart of response to the UFO problem.

5.  Case 30. Admiralty Bay, Antarctica, March 16, 1961.

   This listing of UFO sightings by meteorologists could be extended very considerably by drawing on my file of such cases. To cite just one more that also indicates the global scale of the UFO phenomena, a very unusual luminous unidentified aerial object seen by a meteorologist and others aboard the U.S.S. Glacier at about 6:15 p.m. on 3/16/61 in the Antarctic will be mentioned. I have quite recently received, through French UFO investigator Rene Fouere, a rather detailed summary of this sighting by Brazilian meteorologist Rubens J. Villela, whose earlier account I had seen but paid little attention to (Ref. 10). The point I had missed, prior to reading Villela's detailed description of the circumstances of the sighting, was the very important feature of a low cloud overcast present at about 1500 ft above the sea. With three shipmates on the flying bridge, Villela suddenly saw

an object which for a moment they took to be an unusual meteor.

Villela stated in his summary,

   His account emphasizes that the boundaries of the object(s) were definite and sharp, not diffuse. Villela's account indicates that a total of six persons were above-decks and saw this striking phenomenon. It is to be emphasized that, in the estimated 10 seconds that this lasted, the object was moving below a cloud deck that lay only about 1500 feet above the sea, so that, for the reported elevation angle of about 50 degrees, the slant range from observers to object was perhaps of the order of 2000 ft. Villela had the subjective impression that the egg-shaped initial form was about as big as a small airplane.

Discussion.

   In a recent book aimed at showing that a majority of the most interesting UFOs are an atmospheric-electrical plasma related to ball lightning, Philip J. Klass (Ref. 39) cites the preceding case as a good example of the sort of observation which he feels he can encompass in his "plasma-UFO" hypothesis. To the extent that he treats only the breakup into two parts, he has some observational basis for trying to interpret this as something akin to ball lightning. But almost at that point the similarity ends as far as meteorologically recognized characteristics of ball lightning go. The highly structured nature of the object and its rays, its size, its horizontal trajectory, its presence in a foggy area with low stratiform clouds free of thunderstorm activity scarcely suggest anything like ball lightning. Nor does this account suggest any meteoric phenomenon at sub-cloud altitudes. I would regard this as just one more of a baffling array of inexplicable aerial phenomena which span so wide a range of characteristics that it is taxing to try to invent any single hypothesis to rationalize them all. The full spectrum of UFO phenomena will, I predict, come as a shock to every scientist who takes the necessary time to look into the wealth of reports accumulated in various archives over the past two decades and more. Official assertions to the effect that UFO reports in no way defy explanation in terms of present scientific and technological knowledge are, in my opinion, entirely unjustified. The Villella sighting seems a case in point. And meteorologists do see UFOs, as the foregoing cases should suggest.

DON'T WEATHER BALLOONS AND RESEARCH BALLOONS ACCOUNT FOR MANY UFOs?

   Probably the most categorical statement ever made attributing UFO observations to balloons appeared in a Look magazine article by Richard Wilson in February 1951, entitled, "A Nuclear Physicist Exposes Flying Saucers." Dr. Urner Liddel, then affiliated with the Navy cosmic ray research program using the large Skyhook balloons, was quoted as saying, "There is not a single reliable report of an observation (of a UFO) which  is not attributable to the cosmic balloons." When one considers the large number of UFO reports already on record by 1951 in which reliable airlines pilots, military personnel, and other credible witnesses have observed unidentified objects wholly unlike a high-altitude, slowly drifting pear shaped Skyhook balloon, that assertion appears very curious. Neverthe less, that many persons have misidentified Skyhook balloons and even the smaller weather balloons used in routine meteorological practice is unquestioned. A Skyhook seen against the twilight sky with back illumination yields a strangely luminous, hovering object which many observers, especially if equipped with binoculars, were unprepared to identify correctly in the 1946-51 period when Skyhook operations were tied up with still-classified programs. To this extent, Liddel's point is reasonable; but his sweeping assertion fails to fit the facts, then or now.

   Actually, in official case-evaluations, one finds Skyhook balloons invoked relatively infrequently compared with "weather balloons." But in many of the latter cases, the balloon hypothesis is strained beyond the breaking point. The official criterion used (Ref. 7, p. 135) is extremely loose:

With no specification of heights, shapes, distances, etc. Using such a  criterion, it is easy to see why so many "balloon" explanations figure in the  official summaries. There are even "balloon" UFOs whose speed, when inferred  from the report, comes out to be supersonic! The tiny candles or flashlight  bulbs hung on pilot balloons for night-tracking have been repeatedly made the  basis for explanations of what witnesses described as huge luminous objects  at close range. Within only days of this writing, I have checked out such a  case near Tucson where four adult witnesses saw, on July 2, 1968, a half-moon-shaped orange-red object hovering for several minutes at what they estimated to be a few hundred feet above terrain and perhaps a few miles away over open desert. They watched it tip once, right itself, then accelerate and rise over a mountain range and pass off into the distance in some tens of seconds. Because a weather balloon had been released earlier (actually about an hour and forty-five minutes earlier) from the Tucson airport Weather Bureau station, the official explanation, published in the local press, was that the witnesses had seen a "weather balloon". A pilot balloon of the small type (30-gram) used in this instance rises at about 600 ft/min, the tiny light on it becomes invisible to the naked eye beyond about 10,000 ft slant-range, and the upper-level winds weren't even blowing toward the site in question. Also the angular size estimated for the observed reddish half-moon was about twice the lunar diameter, and some said about four times larger. A pilot balloon light would have to be within about 20-30 feet to appear this large. Yet such a case will enter the files (if even transmitted to higher echelons) as a "balloon", swelling the population of curious balloon-evaluations in official files.

1. Case 31. Ft. Monmouth, N.J., September 10, 1951.

   It is clear from Ruppelt' s discussions (Ref. 5) that a series of radar and visual sightings near Ft. Monmouth on 9/10/51 and the next day were of critical importance in affecting official handling of the UFO problem in the ensuing two-year period. Many details from the official file on these sightings are now available for scientific scrutiny (Ref. 7). Here, a sighting by two military airmen flying in a T-33 near Ft. Monmouth will be selected from that series of events because the sighting was eventually tagged as a weather balloon. As with any really significant UFO case, it would require far more space than can be used here to spell out adequately all relevant details, so a very truncated account must be employed. While flying at 20,000 ft from a Delaware to a Long Island airbase, the two men in the T-33 spotted an object "round and silver in color" which at one stage of the attempted intercept appeared flat. The T-33 was put into a descending turn to try to close on the object but the latter turned more tightly (the airmen stated) and passed rapidly eastward towards the coast of New Jersey and out to sea. A pair of weather balloons (probably radiosonde balloons but no information thereon given in the files) had been released from the Evans Signal Laboratory near Ft. Monmouth, and the official evaluation indicates that this is what the airmen saw.

   However, it is stated that the balloons were released at 1112 EDST, and the sighting began at about 1135 EDST with the T-33 over Point Pleasant, N.J. In that elapsed time, a radiosonde balloon, inflated to rise at the 800-900 ft/min rate used for such devices, would have attained an altitude of about 17-18,000 ft, the analysis notes. From this point on, the official analysis seems to be built on erroneous inferences. The airmen said that, as they tried to turn on the object, it appeared to execute a 120-degree turn over Freehold, N.J., before speeding out over the Atlantic. BUt from the upper winds for that day, it is clear that the Ft. Monmouth balloon trajectory would have taken it to the northeast, and by 1135, it would have been about over the coast in the vicinity of Sea Bright. Hence, at no time in the interval involved could the line of sight from T-33 to balloon have intersected Freehold, which lies about 15 miles WSW of the balloon release-point. Instead, had the airmen some how seen the radiosonde balloon from Pt. Pleasant, it would have lain to about their N or NNE and would have stayed in about that sector until they passed it. Furthermore, the size of the balloon poses a serious difficulty for the official analysis. Assuming that it had expanded to a diameter of about 15 feet as it ascended to about the 18,000-ft level, it would have subtended an arc of only 0.6 min, as seen from the T-33 when the latter passed over Pt. Pleasant. This angular size is, for an unaided eye, much too small to fit the airmen's descriptions of what they tried to intercept. In a press interview (Ref. 40), the pilot, Wilbert S. Rogers of Columbia, Pa., said the object was "perfectly round and flat" and that the center of the disc was raised "about six feet" and that it appeared to be moving at an airspeed of the order of 900 mph. The entire reasoning on which the balloon evaluation is elaborated fails to fit readily established points in the official case-summary.

Discussion.

   The possibility that a pilot can be misled by depth perception errors and Coordinate-reference errors to misconstrue a weather balloon as a fast-maneuvering object must always be kept in mind. But in the Ft. Monmouth instance, as in many others that could be discussed in detail, there is a very large gap between the balloon hypothesis and the facts. The basic sighting-report here is quite similar to many other daytime sightings by airborne observers who have seen unconventional disc-like objects pass near their aircraft.

2.  Case 32.  Odessa, Wash.,  December 10. 1952.

   According to an official case-summary (Ref. 7, Rept. 10), two airmen in an F-94 "made visual and radar contact with a large, round white object larger than any known type of aircraft" near 1915 PST on 12/10/52 near Odessa. The radar operator in the F-94 had airborne radar contact with the object for 15 minutes, and during that same interval, ground radar was also tracking it. The summary states that "the object appeared to be level with the intercepting F-94 at 26,000 to 27,000 ft," and it is pointed out that "a dim reddish-white light came from the object as it hovered, reversed direction almost instantaneously and then disappeared." It is stated that the skies were clear above 3000 ft. The official evaluation of this incident is "Possible Balloon", although the report notes that no upper-air research balloon was known to be in the area on this date. The principal basis for calling it a balloon was the observers' description of "large, round and white and extremely large", and it was remarked that the instrument package on some balloon flights is capable of yielding a radar return.

Discussion.

   To conclude that this was a "Possible Balloon" just on the basis of the description, "large, round and white and extremely large", and thereby to ignore the instantaneous course reversal and the inability of a 600-mph jet to close with it over a period of 15 minutes seems unreasonable. We may ignore questions of wind speeds at the altitude of the object and the F-94 because both would enjoy the same "tail wind effect". In 15 minutes, the F-94 would be capable of moving 150 miles relative to any balloon at its altitude. On the other hand, airborne radar sets of that period would scarcely detect a target of cross-section represented by the kinds of instrument packages hung on balloons of the Skyhook type, unless the aircraft were within something like 10 or 15 miles of it. Yet it is stated that the F-94 was pursuing it under radar contact for a time interval corresponding to an air path ten times that distance. Clearly, categorizing this unknown as a "balloon" was incompatible with the reported details of the case.

   On the other hand, there seems no reason to take seriously Menzel's evaluation of this Odessa F-94 sighting (Ref. 25, p. 62). Menzel evidently had the full file on this case, for he adds a few details beyond those in Ref. 7, details similar to those in Ruppelt's account of the case (Ref. 5):

   He indicates that after the pilot banked to avoid collision he could not again locate it visually, although another brief radar contact was obtained. Having recounted those and other sighting details, Menzel then offers his interpretation:

   Now stars just above the viewer's horizon do scintillate and do undergo turbulent image-displacement, but one must consider quantitative matters. A refractive excursion of a stellar image through even a few minutes of arc would be an extremely large excursion. To suggest that a pilot would report that Sirius did a chandelle is both to forget realities of astronomy and to do injustice to the pilot. In fact, however, Menzel seems to have done his computations incorrectly, for it is easily ascertained that Sirius was not even in the Washington skies at 7:15 p.m. PST on 12/10/52. It lay at about 10 degrees below the eastern horizon. A further quite unreasonable element of Menzel's explanation of the Odessa case is his easy assertion that the radar returns were anomalous results of the "atmospheric conditions". Aircraft flying at altitudes of 26,000 ft do not get ground returns on level flight as a result of propagation anomalies. These extreme forcings of explanations recur throughout Menzel's writings; one of their common denominators is lack of attention to relevant quantitative factors.

3. Case 33. Rosalia, Wash., February 6, 1953.

   Another official case-summary of interest here is cited by Menzel (Ref. 25, p. 46). Keyhoe (Ref. 4), who studied the case-file on it much earlier, gives similar information, though in less detail. A B-36, bound for Spokane was over Rosalia, Wash., at 1:13 a.m. when, as Menzel describes it,

Menzel states that the B-36

   The light was blinking, and Keyhoe mentions that the blink-interval was estimated at about 2 seconds.

   Menzel concurs in the official evaluation of this as a "weather balloon", noting that a pilot balloon had been released at Fairchild AFB at 1:00 a.m., and remarking that the

He says that

   In fact, Rosalia lies 33 statute miles SSE of Fairchild, or about twice as far as Menzel indicates. The net drift of the balloon cannot be deduced simply from the winds in the 7-10,000-ft layer; and, in fact, an examination of the upper-wind data for that area on February 6 indicates that the winds at lower levels were blowing out of the southwest. The trajectory of the balloon would have taken it initially east-north-east, then east, and finally curving back to the southeast as it got up to near the 10,000-ft levels. By that time, it would have been already east of Spokane, nowhere near Rosalia.

   The small light (candle or flashlight bulb) used on night pibal runs is almost invisible to the naked eye beyond a few miles' distance. (A 1-candle source at 3000 ft is equivalent to a star of about the first magnitude. At 6 miles, then, one finds that the same source equals the luminosity of a sixth-magnitude star, the limit of human vision under the most favorable conditions. For a pilot, looking out of a cockpit with slight inside glare to spot a 1-candle source against a dark back ground would require that the source be only a few miles away.) At some 30 miles, the B-36 pilot could not have seen the small light on a balloon east of Spokane.

   Menzel states that

   Neither inference is supportable. The light used on pilot balloons is a steady source; only if one were right above it, with its random swing causing intermittent occultation, would one ever perceive blinking. But then, flying at B-36 speeds, the pilot would have swept over the sector of perceptible occultation in only a matter of seconds. Yet here the pilot watched it for a reported 3-5 minutes. Furthermore, "circling climb" cannot be called "typical of a balloon's course." The balloon trajectory is controlled by the ambient wind shears and only with unusually strong directional shears would a pilot flying a straight course perceive a pilot balloon to be "circling."

   In all, there appear to be so many serious difficulties with the balloon explanation for the Rosalia sighting that it is not possible to accept Menzel's statement:

4.  Case 34.  Boston. Mass., June 1, 1954.

   At 0930 EDST, a Paris-New York TWA Constellation was passing near Boston when the cockpit crew spotted "a large, white-colored disc-like object" overhead (Ref. 41). Capt. Charles J. Kratovil, copilot W. R. Davis, and flight engineer Harold Raney all watched it for a total time of 10 minutes as they flew on their own southwestward course to New York. They would occasionally lose it behind overlying clouds. Knowing that they were flying into headwinds, they concluded that it could not be any kind of balloon, so they radioed the Boston airport control tower, which informed him that jets were scrambled and saw the object, but could not close with it.

   After landing in New York, Capt. Kratovil was informed that official spokesmen had attributed the sighting to a "weather balloon" released from Grenier AFB, in New Hampshire.

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 Constellation 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 labeled, had the evaluators kept relevant quantitative 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 UFOs 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 35. 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 seemed comparable to that of a conventional aircraft,

In another passage, the official case-file remarks that

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."

The airmen felt obliged to consider the possibility that their six attempted intercepts involved more than one unknown. Hemphill mentions that, in the first attempted intercept

             "the target put on a tremendous burst of speed and dived so fast that we were unable to
             stay with it."

After this head-on intercept, Hemphill did a chandelle back to his original 6000-ft altitude and tried a stern interception,

             "but the aircraft immediately outdistanced us. The third target was spotted visually by
             myself,"

Hemphill's signed statement in the case-file continues.

             "I had an excellent silhouette of the target thrown against a very reflective undercast by a full
             moon. I realized at this time that it did not look like any type of aircraft I was familiar with,
             so I immediately contacted my Ground Control Station..."

which informed him there were no other known aircraft in the area. Hemphill's statement adds further that,

            "The fourth target passed directly over my ship from astern to bow at a speed of roughly
            twice that of my aircraft, 200 mph. I caught just a fleeing glimpse of the aircraft; just enough
            to know that he had passed on. The fifth and sixth targets were attempted radar
            interceptions, but their high rate of speed put them immediately out of our range."

(Note the non-committal terminology that treats each intercept target as if it might have been a separate object.) A sketch of what the object looked like when seen in silhouette - against the moonlit cloud deck is contained in the file. It was estimated to be about the size of a fighter aircraft, but had neither discernible wings nor tail structures. It was somewhat bullet-shaped, tapered towards the rear, but with a square-cut aft end. It seemed to have "a dark or dull finish".

Discussion.

   Ground radar stations never detected the unknown that was seen visually and contacted by airborne radar. The report indicates that this may have been due to effects of "ground clutter", though the F-61 was seen intermittently on the ground units. The airmen stated that no exhaust flames or trail were seen from this object with its "stubby, clean lines". The total duration of the six attempted intercepts is given as 10 minutes. We deal here with one of many cases wherein radar detection of an unconventional object was supported by visual observation. That this is carried as Unidentified cannot surprise one; what is surprising is that so many other comparable instances are on record, yet have been ignored as indicators of some scientifically intriguing problem demanding intensive study.

2. Case 36. Nowra, Australia, September, 1954.

   The first UFO case to command general press attention in the Australian area seems to have been a combined radar-visual sighting wherein the pilot of a Hawker Seafury from Nowra Naval Air Station visually observed two unknown objects near him as he flew from Canberra to Nowra (Ref. 43). Press descriptions revealed only that the pilot said "the two strange aircraft resembling flying saucers" were capable of speeds much beyond his Seafury fighter. He saw them flying nearby and contacted Nowra radar to ask if they had him on their scope; they informed him that they had three separate returns, at which juncture he described the unidentified objects. Under instructions from the Nowra radar operator, he executed certain maneuvers to identify himself on the scope. This confirmed the scope-identity of his aircraft vs. the unknowns. As he executed the test maneuvers, the two unknowns moved away and disappeared. No explanation of this incident was offered by Naval authorities after it was widely reported in Australian and New Zealand papers about three months after it occurred.

Discussion.

It is mildly amusing that the press accounts indicated that

            "the pilot, fearing that he might be ragged in the wardroom on his return if he abruptly
            reported flying saucers, called Nowra by radio and asked whether the radar screen showed
            his aircraft."

Only after getting word of three, not one, radar blips in his locality did he radio the information on the unknowns, whose configuration was not publicly released. This is in good accord with my own direct experience in interviewing Australian UFO witnesses in 1967; they are no more willing than Americans to be ridiculed for seeing something that is not supposed to exist.

3.  Case 37. Capetown South Africa, May 23, 1953.

   In November 1953, the South African Air Force released a brief announcement concerning radar-tracking of six successive passes of one or more unknown high-speed objects over the Cape. On January 1, 1967, in a transoceanic short wave broadcast from South Africa, the authenticity of this report was confirmed, though no additional data beyond what had been cited earlier were presented. In the six passes, the target's altitude varied between 5,000 and 15,000 ft, and its closest approach varied between 7 and 10 miles. Speeds were estimated at over 1200 mph, well beyond those of any aircraft operating in that area at that time.

Discussion.

   This report, on which the available information is slim, is cited to indicate that not only visual sightings but also radar sightings of seemingly unconventional objects appear to comprise a global phenomenon. By and large, foreign radar sightings are not readily accessible, and not easily cross-checked. Zigel (Ref. 38) briefly mentions a Russian incident in which both airborne and ground-based radar tracked an unidentified in the vicinity of Odessa, on April 4, 1966, the ground-based height-finding radar indicating altitudes of well over 100,000 ft. Such reports, without accessory information, are not readily evaluated, of course.

4. Case 38. Washington, D.C., July 19, 1952.

   By far the most famous single radar-visual sighting on record is the one which occurred late in the evening of July 19, and early on July 20, 1952, in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. (Refs. 2, 4, 5, 10, 24, 25). A curiously similar incident occurred just one week later. The official explanation centered around atmospheric effects on radar and light propagation. Just before midnight on July 19/20, CAA radar showed a number of unidentified targets which varied in speed (up to about 800 mph) in a manner inconsistent with conventional aircraft. A number of experienced CAA radarmen observed these returns, and, at one juncture, compatible returns were being received not only at the ARTC radar but also on the ARS radar in a separate location at Washington National Airport, and on still a third radar at Andrews AFB. Concurrently, both ground and airborne observers saw unidentifiable lights in locations matching those of the blips on the ground radar.

Discussion.

   I have interviewed five of the CAA personnel involved in this case and four of the commercial airline pilots involved, I have checked the radiosonde data against well-known radar propagation relations, and I have studied the CAA report subsequently published on this event. Only an extremely lengthy discussion would suffice to present the serious objections to the official explanation that this complex sighting was a result of anomalous radar propagation and refractive anomalies of the mirage type. The refractive index gradient, even after making allowance for instrument lag, was far too low for "ducting" or "trapping" to occur; and, still more significant, the angular elevations of the visually observed unknowns lay far too high for radar-ducting under even the most extreme conditions that have ever been observed in the atmosphere. Some of the pilots, directed by ground radar to look for any airborne objects, saw them at altitudes well above their own flight altitudes, and these objects were maneuvering in wholly unconventional manner. One crew saw one of the unknown luminous objects shoot straight up, and simultaneously the object' s return disappeared from the ARTC scope being watched by the CAA radar operators. The official suggestion that the same weak (1.7"C) low-level "inversion" that was blamed for the radar ducting could produce miraging effects was quantitatively absurd, even if one overlooks the airline-pilot sightings and deals only with the reported ground-visual sightings. From the CAA radar operators I interviewed, as well as from the pilots I talked to about this case, I got the impression that the propagation-anomaly hypothesis struck them as quite out of the question, then and now. In fact, CAA senior controller Harry G. Barnes, who told me that the scope returns from the unknowns

            "were not diffuse, shapeless blobs such as one gets from ground returns under anomalous
            propagation."

but were strong, bright pips, said that

            "anomalous propagation never entered our heads as an explanation."

Howard S. Conklin, who, like Barnes, is still with FAA, was in the control tower that night, operating an entirely independent radar (short-range ARS radar) . He told me that what impressed him about the sighting that night was that they were in radio Communication with airlines crewmen who saw unidentified lights in the air in the same area as unknowns were showing up on his tower radar, while simultaneously he and Joseph Zacko were viewing the lights themselves from the tower at the D.C. Airport. James M. Ritchey, who was at the ARTC radar with Barnes and others, confirmed the important point that simultaneous radar fixes and pilot-sightings occurred several times that night. He shared Barnes' view that the experienced radar controllers on duty that night were not being fooled by ground 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 airborne objects. He observed high speed lights moving above his aircraft in directions 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 of 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 not easy to secure good information on subsequent cases in most instances. A radar case in which both ground-radar and airborne radar contact were involved occurred 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 GCI scope to approach the unknown, the latter suddenly executed a 180 degree 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 it continued on its northbound course. At the time of first radar lock on, the F-94 was 20 miles west of Pt. Huron, Mich. The GCI scope revealed the unknown to be changing speed erratically, and at one stage it was evidently moving at a speed of over 1400 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, GCI observed the unknown blip slow down, and shortly after it was lost from the GCI scope.

Discussion.

   This case is still carried as an official Unknown. The case summary (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."

Menzel, however, asserts that the pilot did see Capella, and that the air borne 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 degree course-reversal exhibited by the blip on the GCI scope just 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 20 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 and time of this incident, and see nothing in them that would support Menzel's interpretations. I have queried experienced military pilots and radar personnel, and none have heard of anything like "ground returns" from atmospheric conditions with aircraft radar operated in the middle troposphere. If Menzel is not considering 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 have very 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 Patuxent River NAS is one that I have checked on. It involved three successive passes of an unknown moving at speeds estimated at about 7000 mph. It is an interesting case, one that came to light for somewhat curious reasons. A low overcast precluded any visual sightings from control tower personnel, so this is not a radar-visual case. I found no conventional explanation to account for it. 

   It has to be stressed that there are many ways in which false returns cane seen on radarscopes, resulting not only from ducting of ground returns but also from interference from other nearby radars, from internal electronic signals within the radar set, from angels and insects (weak returns), etc. Hence each case has to be examined independently. After studying a number of official evaluations of radar UFO cases, I get the impression that there would probably be more radar Unknowns if there were less tendency to quickly explain them away by qualitative arguments that overlook pertinent quantitative matters. Even at that, there are too many conceded unknowns in official files to be ignored. A famous case in UFO annals involved a B-29 over the Gulf of Mexico, where several unknowns were tracked on the airborne scopes and were seen simultaneously by crew men, moving under the aircraft as they passed by (Refs. 4, 10, 25). This one is still carried as Unidentified in official files. Still another famous combined radar-visual case, which Hynek has termed "one of the most puzzling cases I have studied," occurred between Rapid City and Bismarck on August 5, 1953. It involved both ground and airborne radar and ground and airborne visual sightings, but is far too long and complex to recapitulate here. 

   Perhaps the above suffices to indicate that UFOs are at times seen on radar and have been  seen for many years. The question of why we don't hear a great deal about such sightings, especially with newer and more elaborate surveillance radars, is a reasonable question. Some of the answers to that one are posed by the statement of Dr. Robert M. L. Baker, Jr., in these proceedings. Other parts of the answer must be omitted here.

WHY AREN'T THERE NUMEROUS PHOTOS OF UFOs IF THEY REALLY EXIST?

   Here is a question for which I regard available answers as still unsatisfactory. I concede that it does seem reasonable to expect that there should, over the past 20 years, be substantially more good photos than are known to exist. Although I do not regard that puzzle as satisfactorily answered, neither do I think that it can be safely concluded that the paucity of good photos disproves the reality of the UFOs. Many imponderables enter into consideration of this question.

1. Some general considerations.

   If one had reliable statistics on the fraction of the population that carried loaded cameras with them at any randomly selected moment (I would guess it would be only of the order of one per cent) and had figures bearing on the probability that a UFO witness would think of taking a photo before his observation terminated, then these might be combined with available information on numbers of sightings to attempt crude estimates of the expected number of UFO photos that should have accumulated in 20 years. Then one would need to weight the data for likelihood that any given photo would find its way to someone who would make it known in scientific circles, and then this figure might be compared with the very small number of photos that appear to stand the test of the exceedingly close scrutiny photos demand." 

   A general rule among serious UFO investigators with whom I have been in touch is that the UFO photo is no better than the photographer (Hall). Many hoax photos have been brought forth. A UFO photo can be sold; this attracts hoax and fraud to an extent not matched in anecdotal accounts. Many photos have been clearly established as fraudulent in nature; far larger numbers seem so suspicious on circumstantial grounds that no serious investigator gives them more than casual attention.

   An interesting, even if very crude check on the likelihood of securing photos of UFOs from the general populace is afforded by fireball events. On April 25, 1966, a fireball rated at about magnitude -10, arced northward across the northeastern U.S. From the total geographic area over which this fireball was visually detected, the population count is about 40 million persons. According to one account (Ref. 43), 200 visual accounts were turned in, and I infer that only 6 photos were submitted. The fireball was visible for a relatively long time as meteors go, about 30 seconds, and was, of course, at a great altitude (25 to 110 km). That 6 photos were submitted (at time of publication of the cited article) from a potential population of sighters of 40 million might seem to argue that perhaps we really cannot expect to get many photos of UFOs. However, one of the principal reasons for citing the foregoing is to bring out the difficulties in drawing any firm conclusions. A phenomenon lasting 30 seconds scarcely permits the observer time to collect his wits and to swing into photographic action if he does have a loaded camera. UFO sightings have often extended over much longer than 30 seconds, by contrast, affording far better opportunity to think of snapping a photo. But, on the other hand, sighting a UFO in daytime at close range, judging from my own witness-interviewing experience, is a far more disconcerting and astonishing matter than viewing a brilliant meteor. Thus one can go back and forth, with so little assurance of meaningfulness of any of the relevant weight factors that the end result is not satisfactory. I simply do not know what to think about the paucity of good UFO photos, though I do feel uncomfortable about it.

2. Case 40. Corning, Calif., July 4, 1967.

   A case that may shed at least a bit of light on the paucity of photos involves a multiple-witness sighting near dawn at Corning, Calif., on 7/4/67. I have interviewed four witnesses who sighted the object from two separate locations involving lines of sight at roughly right angles, serving to confirm the location of the object as almost directly over Highway 5 just west of Corning. Jay Munger, proprietor of an all-night bowling alley, was having coffee with two police officers, Frank Rakes and James Overton, when he spotted the object through the front window of his place. All three rushed out to the parking lot to observe what they described as a large flattened sphere or possibly football-shaped object, with a brilliant light shining upward from the top and a dimmer light shining down from the underside. The dawn light was such that the object was visible by reflected light even though the object's beams were discernible. It appeared at first to be hovering almost motionless at a few hundred feet above ground, and all three felt it lay about over Hwy. 5 (which estimate proved correct from sightings made on the highway by the independent witnesses). Their estimates of size varied from a diameter of maybe 50 feet to about 100 ft. It was silent, and the three men all emphasized to me that the quiet morning would have permitted hearing any kind of conventional aircraft engines. All three said they had never before seen anything like it. Munger decided to phone his wife to have her see the thing, and by the time he came back out from phoning, the object had moved southward along the highway by about a quarter of a mile or so. At about that juncture, it began to accelerate, and moved off almost horizontally, passing out of sight to the south in an additional time estimated at about 10-20 seconds.

   This case is relevant to the photo question since Officer Overton was on duty and had in his patrol car both binoculars and a loaded camera. When I asked him why he didn't try to get a picture of the object, he admitted that he was so astonished by the object that he never even thought of dashing for the camera. I asked Munger to go through the motions that would yield a time estimate of the period he was inside phoning, to get a rough notion of how long Overton, along with Rakes, looked at it without thinking of the camera. The time was thus estimated by Munger as about a minute and a half, possibly two minutes.

Discussion.

   It may be hazardous to try to draw any conclusions from such a case, but I do think it suggests the uncertainty we face in trying to assess the likelihood of any given witness getting a photo of a UFO he happens to see. A colleague of mine at the University of Arizona was out photographing desert flowers on a day when a most unusual meteorological event occurred nearby -- a tornado funnel came down from a cloud. Despite having the loaded camera at hand, despite having just been taking other pictures, and despite the great rarity of Arizona tornadoes, that colleague conceded that it wasn't till much later that the thought of getting a photo rose to consciousness, by which time the funnel was long since dissipated.

   In the Trinidad, Colo., case of March 23, 1966 (Case 14 above), Mrs. Frank R. Hoch pointed out to me that she had loaded still and movie cameras inside the house, yet never thought about getting a photo. Again, the reason cited was the fascination with the objects being viewed. I think this "factor of astonishment" would have to be allowed for in any attempt to estimate expected numbers of photos, but I would be quite unsure of just how to evaluate the factor quantitatively.

3.  Case 41.  Edwards AFB, May 3, 1957.

   Occasionally, one could argue, UFOs ought to come into areas where there were persons engaged in photographic work, who were trained to react a bit faster, and who would secure some photos. One such instance evidently occurred at Edwards AFB on the morning of 5/3/57. I have managed to locate and interview three persons who saw the resultant photos. The two who observed the UFO and obtained a number of photos of it were James D. Bittick and John R. Gettys, Jr., both of whom I have interviewed. They were at the time Askania cameramen on the test range, and spotted the domed-disc UFO just as they reached Askania #4 site at Edwards, a bit before 8:00 a.m. that day. They immediately got into communication with the range director, Frank E. Baker, whom I have also interviewed, and they asked if anyone else was manning an Askania that could be used to get triangulation shots. Since no other camera operators were on duty at other sites, Baker told them to fire manually, and they got a number of shots before the object moved off into the distance. Bittick estimated that the object lay about a mile away when they got the first shot, though when first seen he put it at no more than 500 yards off. He and Gettys both said it had a golden color, looked somewhat like an inverted plate with a dome on top, and had square holes or panels around the dome. Gettys thought that the holes were circular not square. It was moving away from them, seemed to glow with its own luminosity, and had a hazy, indistinct halo around its rim, both mentioned. The number of shots taken is uncertain; Gettys thought perhaps 30. The object was lost from sight by the time it moved out to about five miles or so, and they did not see it again. They drove into the base and processed the film immediately. All three of the men I interviewed emphasized that the shots taken at the closer range were very sharp, except for the hazy rim. They said the dome and the markings or openings showed in the photos. The photos were shortly taken by Base military authorities and were never seen again by the men. In a session later that day, Bittick and Carson were informed that they had seen a weather balloon distorted by the desert atmospheric effects, an interpretation that neither of them accepted since, as-they stated to me, they saw weather balloons being released frequently there and knew what balloons looked like. Accounts got into local newspapers, as well as on wire services (Ref. 44). An Edwards spokesman was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, "This desert air does crazy things." An INS wire-story said, "intelligence officers at Edwards...would say almost nothing of the incident."

Discussion.

   I have not seen the photos alleged to have been taken in this incident, I have only interviewed the two who say they took them and a third person who states that he inspected the prints in company with the two Askania operators and darkroom personnel. I sent all of the relevant information on this case to the University of Colorado UFO project, but no checks were made as a result of that, unless done very recently. It would be rather interesting to see the prints.

4. Photographic sky-survey cameras might be expected to get photos of UFOs from time to time. However, one finds that, in many sky-photography programs in astronomy, tracks that do not obviously conform to what is being sought, say meteor-tracks, are typically ignored as probable aircraft. Indeed, a very general pattern in all kinds of monitoring programs operates to bias the system against seeing anything but what it was built to see. Nunn-Baker satellite cameras are only operated when specific satellites are computed to be due overhead, and then the long axis of the field is aligned with the computed trajectory. Anything that crosses the field and leaves a record on the film with an orientation markedly different from the predicted trajectory is typically disregarded. Photographic, radar, and visual observing programs have a large degree of selectivity intentionally built into them in order not to be deluged with unwanted "signals". Hence one must be rather careful in suggesting that our many tracking systems surely ought to detect UFOs. There's much evidence to suggest that, if they did, the signal would be ignored as part of a systematic rejection of unwanted data. Even in the practices of the GOC (Ground Observer Corps), some units received instructions to report nothing but unidentified aircraft. (But for examples of some UFOs that did get into the GOC net, see Hall, Ref. 10.)

   Although I am aware of a few photos allegedly showing UFOs, for which I have no reason at present to doubt the authenticity (for example a series of snapshots taken by a brother and sister near Melbourne, Australia, showing a somewhat indistinct disc in various positions), I must emphasize that the total sample is tiny. Compared with that, I have seen dozens of alleged UFO photos which I regard as of dubious origin. Other UFO photos of which I am aware are still in process of being checked in one way or another.

   To summarize, I do have the impression that we ought to have more valid UFO photos than the small number of which I am aware.

IF UFOs ARE REAL, SHOULDN'T THEY PRODUCE SOME REAL PHYSICAL EFFECTS?

   Again, the answer is that they do. There are rather well-authenticated cases spanning a wide variety of "physical effects." Car-stopping cases are one important class. UFOs have repeatedly been associated with ignition failures and light-failures of cars and trucks which came near UFOs or near which the UFOs moved. I would estimate that one could assemble a list of four or five dozen such instances from various parts of the world. Interference with radios and TV receptions have been reported many times in connection with UFO sightings. There are instances where UFOs have been reported as landing, and after departure, holes in the ground, or depressions in sod or disturbed vegetation patterns have been described. In many such instances, the evident reliability of the witnesses is high, the likelihood of hoax or artifice small. A limited number of instances of residues left behind are on record, but these are not backed up by meaningful laboratory analyses, unfortunately. 

   A physical effect that does not typically occur under conditions where the description of events might seem to call for it, relates to sonic booms. Although there are on record a few cases where fast-moving UFOs were accompanied by explosive sounds that might be associated with sonic booms, there are far more instances in which the reported velocity corresponded to supersonic speeds, yet no booms were reported. A small fraction of these can be rationalized by noting that the reporting witnesses were located back within the "Mach cone" of the departing UFO; but this will not suffice to explain away the difficulty. One feels that if UFOs are solid objects, capable of leaving depressions in soil or railroad ties when they land, and if they can dash out of sight in a few seconds (as has been repeatedly asserted by credible witnesses), they should produce sonic booms. This remains inexplicable; one can only lamely speculate that perhaps there are ways of eliminating sonic booms that we have not yet discovered; perhaps the answer involves some entirely different consideration.

   If we include among "physical effects" those that border on the physiological, then there appear to be many odd types. Repeatedly, tingling and numbness have been described by witnesses who were close to UFOs; in many instances outright paralysis of a UFO witness has occurred. These effects might, of course, be purely psychological, engendered by fear; but in some instances the witnesses seem to have noted these effects as the first indication that anything unusual was occurring. A number of instances of skin-reddening, skin-warming, and a few instances of burns of very unusual nature are on record. These physiological effects are sufficiently diverse that caution is required in attempting generalization. Curiously, a peculiar tingling and paralysis seem to be reported more widely than any other physiological effects. A person who is almost unaware of the ramifications of the UFO evidence may think it absurd to assert that people have been paralyzed in proximity to UFOs; the skeptic might find it inconceivable that such cases would go unnoticed in press and medical literature. Far from it, I regret to have to say, on the basis of my own investigations. I have encountered cases where severe bodily damage was done, or where evident hazard of damage was involved, yet the witness and his family found ridicule mounting so much faster than sympathy that it was regarded wiser to quietly forget the whole thing. At an early stage of my investigations I would have regarded that as quite unbelievable; UFO investigators with longer experience than mine will smile at that statement, but probably they will smile with a degree of understanding. I could cite specific illustrations to make all this much clearer, but will omit them for space-limitations, except for a few remarks in the next section.

IS THERE ANY EVIDENCE OF HAZARD OR HOSTILITY IN THE UFO PHENOMENA?

   Official statements have emphasized, for the past two decades, that there is no evidence of hostility in the UFO phenomena. To a large degree, this same conclusion seems indicated in the body of evidence gathered by independent investigators. The related question as to potential hazard is Perhaps less clear. There are on record a number of cases (I would say something like a few dozen cases) wherein persons whose reliability does not seem to come into serious question have reported mild, or in a very few instances, substantial injury as the result of some action of an unidentified object. However, I know of only two cases for which I have done adequate personal investigation, in which I would feel obliged to describe the actions as "hostile". That number is so tiny compared with the total number of good UFO reports of which I have knowledge that I would not cite "hostility" as a general characteristic of UFO phenomena.

   One may accidentally kick an anthill, killing many ants and destroying the ants' entrance, without any prior "hostility" towards the ants. To walk accidentally into a whirling airplane propeller is fatal, yet the aircraft held no "hostility" to the unfortunate victim. In the UFO phenomena, we seem to confront a very large range of unexplained, unconventional phenomena and if among them we discern occasional instances of hazard it would be premature to adjudge hostility. Yet, as long as we remain so abysmally ignorant of over-all nature of the UFO problem, it seems prudent to make all such judgments tentative. If UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin, we shall need to know far more than we now know before sound conclusions can be reached as to hazard-and-hostility matters. For this reason alone, I believe it to be urgently important to accelerate serious studies of UFOs.

   In the remainder of this section, I shall briefly cite a number of types of cases that bear on questions of hazard:

1. Car-stopping cases.

   In a two-hour period near midnight, November 2-3, 1957, nine different vehicles all exhibited ignition failures, and many suffered headlight failures as objects described as about 100-200 ft long, glowing with a general reddish or bluish glow, were encountered on roads in the vicinity of the small community of Levelland, Tex. (Ref. 10, 13, 14). This series of incidents became national headline news until officially explained in terms of ball lightning and wet ignitions. However, on checking weather data, I found that there were no thunderstorms anywhere close to Levelland that night, and there was no rain capable of wetting ignitions. Although I have not located any of the drivers involved, I have interviewed Sheriff Weir Clem of Levelland and a Levelland newspaperman, both of whom investigated the incidents that night. They confirmed the complete absence of rain or lightning activity. The incidents cannot be regarded as explained. 

   This class of UFO effect is by no means rare. In France in the 1954 wave of UFO sightings, Michel (14) has described many such cases involving ignition-failure in motorbikes, cars, etc. Similar instances were encountered in my checks on Australian UFO cases. There are probably of the order of a hundred cases on record (see Ref. 10 for a list of some dozens). In only a very few cases has there been any permanent damage to the vehicle's electrical system. In the Levelland case, for example, as soon as the luminous object receded from a given disturbed vehicle, its lights came back on automatically (in instances where the switches had been left on), and the engines were immediately restartable. The latter point in itself makes the "wet ignition" explanation unreasonable, of course.

   It is unclear how such effects might be produced. One suggestion that has been made as to ignition-failure is that very strong magnetic fields might so saturate the iron core of the coil that it would drive the operating point up onto the knee of the magnetization curve, so that the input magnetic oscillations would produce only very small output effects. Only a few oersteds would have to be produced right at the coil to accomplish this kind of effect, but when one back-calculates, allowing for shielding effects and typical distances, and assumes an inverse-third-power dipole field, the requisite H-values within a few feet of the "UFO dipole" end, to speak here somewhat loosely, come out in the megagauss range. Curiously, a number of other back-calculations of magnetic fields end up in this same range; but obviously terrestrial technologies would not easily yield such intensities. Clear evidence for residual magnetization that might be expected in the foregoing hypothesis does not exist, so far as I know. The actual mechanism may be quite unlike that mentioned.

   How lights are extinguished is even less clear, although, in some vehicles, relays in the lighting circuits might be magnetically closed. The lights pose more mystery than the ignition. Such cases do not constitute very disturbing questions of hazard or hostility. One might argue that highway accidents could be caused by lighting and ignition failures; however, more serious highway-accident dangers are implicit in other UFO cases where no electrical disturbance was caused. Many motorists have reported nearly losing control of vehicles when UFOs have swooped down over them; this hazard is distinctly more evident than hazard from the car-stopping phenomenon. Indeed, the number of instances of what we might term "car-buzzing" instances that have involved road-accident hazards is large enough to be mildly disturbing, yet I know of no official recognition of this facet of the UFO problem either. An incident I learned of in Australia involved such fright on the part of the passengers of the "buzzed" vehicle that they jumped out of the car before it had come to a stop, and it went into a ditch. A similar instance occurred not long ago in the U.S. For reasons of space-limitations, I shall not cite other such cases, though it would not be difficult to assemble a list that would run to perhaps a few dozen.

2.  Mild radiation exposure.

   By "radiation" here, I do not mean exposure to radioactivity or to other nuclear radiations, but skin irritations comparable to sunburn, etc. I have interviewed a number of persons who have experienced skin-reddening from exposure to (visible) radiations near UFOs. Rene Gilham, of Merom, Indiana, watched a UFO hovering over his home-area on the evening of Nov. 6, 1957, and received mild skin-burns, for example. I found in speaking with him that the symptoms were gone in a matter of days, with no after-effects. The witnesses in a car-stopping incident at Loch Raven Dam, Md., on the night of Oct. 26, 1958, who were close to a brightly luminous, blimp-sized object after getting out of their stopped car, experienced skin-reddening for which they obtained medical attention. Without citing other such instances, I would say that these cases are not suggestive of any serious hazard, but they warrant scientific attention.

3.  More serious physical injuries.

   James Flynn, of Ft. Myers , Fla., in a case that has been rather well checked by both APRO and NICAP investigators, reportedly suffered unusual injuries and physical effects when he sought to check what he had taken to be a malfunctioning test vehicle from Cape Canaveral that had come down in the Everglades, March 15, 1965. I have spoken with Flynn and others who know him and believe that his case deserved much more than the superficial official attention it received when he reported it to proper authorities. He was hospitalized for about a week, treated for a deep hemorrhage of one eye (without medical evidence of any blow), and suffered loss of all of the principal deep-tendon reflexes for a number of days, according to his physician's statement, published by APRO (Ref. 45).

   An instance of more than mere skin-reddening, associated with direct contact with a landed unidentified object reportedly occurred in Hamilton, Ontario, March 29, 1966. Charles Cozens, then age 13, stated to police and to reporters (and recounted to me in a telephone interview with him and his father) that he had seen two rather small whitish, luminous objects come down in an open field in Hamilton that evening. He moved towards them out of curiosity, and states that he finally moved right up beside them, and touched the surface of one of them to see what it felt like. It was not hot, and seemed unusually smooth. One of the two small (8 ft by 4 ft plan form, 3-4 feet high) bun-shaped objects had a projection on one end that the boy thought might have been some kind of antenna, so he touched it, only to have his hand flung back as a spark shot out from the end of the projection into the air. He ran, thinking first to go to a nearby police substation. But, on looking over his shoulder after getting to the edge of the field and seeing no objects there, he decided the police might not believe him and ran to his home. His parents, after discussing the incident at some length with the frightened boy, notified police, which is how the incident became public knowledge. Two others in Hamilton saw that night seemingly similar objects, but airborne rather than on the ground. Cozens was treated for a burn or sear on the hand that had been in contact with the projection at the moment the spark was emitted. On questioning both the boy and his father, I was left with the impression that, despite the unusual nature of the report, it was described with both straightforwardness and concern and that it must be given serious consideration. Clearly one would prefer a number of adult witnesses to an individual boy; yet I believe the case will stand close scrutiny.

   There are a few other such reports of moderate injury reportedly sustained in direct physical contact with landed aerial objects for which I do not yet feel satisfied with the available degree of authentication. It would be very desirable to conduct far more thorough investigations of some foreign cases of this type, to check the weight of the evidence involved. That only a very small number of such cases is on record should be emphasized.

4. Rare instances suggesting overt hostility.

   In my own investigative experience, I know of only two cases of injuries suffered under what might be describable as overt hostility, and for which present evidence argues authenticity. There are other reports on record that might be construed as overt hostility, but I cannot vouch for them in terms of my own personal investigations.

   In Beallsville, Ohio, on the evening of March 19, 1968, a boy suffered moderate skin burns in an incident of puzzling nature. Gregory Wells had just stepped out of his grandmother's house to walk a few tens of yards to his parents' trailer when his grandmother and mother heard his screams, ran out and found him rolling on the ground, his jacket burning. After being treated at a nearby hospital, he described to parents, sheriff's deputies, and others what he had seen. Hovering over some trees across the highway from his location, he had seen an oval-shaped object with some lights on it. From a central area of the bottom, a tube-like appendage emerged, rotated around, and emitted a flash that coincided with ignition of his jacket. He had just turned away from it and so the burn was on the back of his upper arm. In the course of checking this case, I interviewed a number of persons in the Beallsville area, some of whom had seen a long cylindrical object moving at very low altitude in the vicinity of the Wells' property that night. There is much more detail than can be recapitulated here. My conversations with persons who know the boy, including his teacher, suggest no reason to discount the story, despite its unusual content. 

   After checking the Beallsville incident, I checked another report in which burn-injuries of a more serious nature were sustained in a context even more strongly indicative of overt hostility. I prefer not to give names and explicit citation of details here, but I remark that there appears to me, on the basis of my present information and five interviews with persons involved, to be basis for accepting the incident as real. Partly because of its unparalleled nature, and partly because some of the evidence is still conflicting, I shall omit details and state only that the case, taken together with other scattered reports of injuries in UFO encounters, warrants no panic response but does warrant far more thorough investigation than any that has been conducted to date.

5. UFOs and other electromagnetic disturbances.

   There are so many instances in which close-passage of an unidentified flying object led to radio and television disturbance that this particular mode of electromagnetic effect of UFOs seems incontrovertible. One would require nothing more than broad-spectrum electromagnetic noise to account for these instances, of course.

   There is a much smaller number of instances, some of which I have checked, in which power has failed only within an individual home coincident with nearby passage of a UFO. Magnetic saturation of the core of a transformer might conceivably account for this phenomenon.

   Then there are scattered instances in which substantial power distribution systems have failed at or very near the time of observation of aerial phenomena similar, broadly speaking, to one or another UFO phenomenon. I have personally checked on several such instances and am satisfied that the coincidence of UFO observation and power outage did at least occur. Whether there is a causal connection here, and in which direction it may run, remains quite uncertain. Even during the large Northeast blackout, November 9, 1965, there were many UFO observations, several of which I have personally checked. I have inquired at the Federal Power Commission to secure data that might illuminate the basic question of whether these are merely fortuitous, but the data available are inadequate to permit any definite conclusions. In other parts of the world, there have also been reports of system outages coincident with UFO sightings. Again, the evidence is quite unclear as to causal relations.

   There is perhaps enough evidence pointing towards strong magnetic fields around at least some UFOs that one might hypothesize a mechanism whereby a UFO might inadvertently trigger a power outage. Perhaps a UFO, with an accompanying strong magnetic field, might pass at high speed across the conductors of a transmission line, induce asymmetric current surges of high transient intensity, and thereby trip circuit breakers and similar surge-protectors in such a way as to initiate the outage. There are some difficulties with that hypothesis, of course; but it could conceivably bear some relation to what has reportedly occurred in some instances.

   I believe that the evidence is uncertain enough that one can only urge that competent scientists and engineers armed both with substantial information on UFO phenomena and with relevant information on power-system electrical engineering, ought to be taking a very close look at this problem. I am unaware of any adequate study of this potentially important problem. Note that a problem, a hazard, could exist in this context with out anything warranting the label of hostility.

MISAPPLICATIONS OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS IN PAST UFO EXPLANATIONS

1. General Comments.

   Since the bulk of UFO reports involve objects reportedly seen in the air, it is not surprising that many attempts to account for them have invoked principles of atmospheric physics. Over the past twenty years, many of the official explanations of important UFO sightings have been based on the premise that observers were misidentifying or misinterpreting natural atmospheric phenomena. Dr. D.H. Menzel, former director of Harvard Observatory, in two books on UFOs (Ref. 24, 25), has leaned very heavily on atmospheric physics and particularly meteorological optics in attempting to account for UFO reports. More recently, Mr. Philip J. Klass, Senior Avionics Editor of Aviation Week, has written a book (Ref. 39) purporting to show that most of the really interesting UFO reports are a result of unusual atmospheric plasmas similar to ball lightning. Over the years, many others have made similar suggestions that the final explanation of the UFOs will involve some still not fully understood phenomenon of atmospheric physics. 

   As a scientist primarily concerned with the field of atmospheric physics, these suggestions have received a great deal of my attention. It is true that a very small fraction of all of the raw reports involve misidentified atmospheric phenomena. It is also true that many lay observers seriously misconstrue astronomical (especially meteoric) phenomena as UFOs. But, in my opinion, as has been emphasized above and will be elaborated below, we cannot explain-away UFOs on either meteorological or astronomical grounds. To make this point somewhat clearer, I shall, in the following, remark on certain past attempts to base UFO explanations on meteorological optics, atmospheric electricity, and radar propagation anomalies.

2. Meteorological Optical Explanations

   Mirages, sundogs, undersuns, and various refraction and refraction phenomena associated with ice crystals, inversions, haze layers, and clouds have been invoked from time to time in an attempt to account for UFO observations. From my study of the past history of the UFO problem and from an examination of recent "re-evaluations" of official UFO explanations, I have the strong impression that many alterations of explanations for classic UFO cases that have been made in the official files in the last few years reflect the response to the writings of Menzel (especially Ref. 25). I have elsewhere (Ref. 2) discussed a number of specific examples of what I regard unreasonable applications of meteorological optics in Menzel's writings. Some salient points will be summarized here.

   A principal difficulty with Menzel's mirage explanations is that he typically overlooks completely stringent quantitative restrictions on the angle of elevation of the observer's line of sight in mirage effects. Mirage phenomena are quite common on the Arizona desert, but both observation and optical theory are in good accord in showing that mirage effects are confined to lines of sight that do not depart from the horizontal by much more than a few tens of minutes of arc. Under some extremely unusual temperature conditions in the atmosphere (high latitude regions, for example), one may get miraging at elevation angles larger than a degree, but these situations are extremely rare, it must be emphasized. In Menzel's explanations and in certain of the official explanations, however, mirages are invoked to account for UFOs when the observer's line of sight may depart from the horizontal by as much as five to ten degrees or even more. I emphasize that this is entirely unreasonable. If it were the case that all UFOs were reported essentially at the observer's horizon, then one would have to be extremely suspicious that we were dealing with some unusual refraction anomalies. However, as has been shown by many cases cited above and has been long known to serious investigators of UFO phenomena, no fixed correlation exists. Some of the most interesting UFOs have been seen at close range directly overhead, quite obviously ruling out mirage explanations. The 1947 sighting by Arnold near Mt. Rainier is explained officially and by Menzel as a mirage, yet the objects which he saw (9 fluttering discs) changed angular elevation, moved across his view through an azimuthal range of about 90 degrees, and were seen by him during the period when he was climbing his own plane through an altitude interval that he estimates to be of the order of 500 to 1000 ft. Anyone familiar with mirage optics would find it utterly unreasonable to claim that such an observation was satisfactorily explained as a mirage. Similarly, as has been noted above, the 1948 sighting by Eastern Airlines pilots Chiles and Whitted, once explained by Menzel as a "mirage", involves quantitative and observational factors that are not even approximately similar to known mirage effects, There are some extremely rare and still not well-explained refractive anomalies in the atmosphere, such as those that have been discussed by Minnaert, but good UFO observations are so much more numerous than those types of rare anomalies that it is quite out of the question to explain the former by the latter. 

   Sundogs, or parhelia, are a quite well-understood phenomenon of meteorological optics. Refractions of the sun's rays on horizontally falling tabular ice crystals produce fuzzy, brownish-colored luminous spots at about 22 degrees to the left and right of the sun when suitable ice-crystal clouds are present. Rarer phenomena, produced by the moon rather than the sun, are termed paraselenae. Sundogs are relatively common, but it is probably true that many laymen are not really conscious of them as a distinct optical phenomenon. For this reason, it might seem sensible to suggest that some observers have been misled by thinking that sundogs were UFOs. However, anyone with the slightest knowledge of meteorological optics talking directly to such a witness would, within only a few moments of questioning, establish what was involved. Instead of dealing with anything like a sharp-edged "object", one would quickly find that the observer was describing a very vague spot of light which he saw to the left or right of the sun, probably very near the horizon. To blandly suggest, as Menzel has done, that Waldo Harris in the 10/2/61 sighting near Salt Lake City was fooled by a sundog is to ignore either all of the main features of the report or to ignore all of what is known about sundogs.

   Undersuns, or sub-suns, can be seen rather frequently when flying in jet aircraft at high altitudes. They are a reflection phenomenon produced by horizontally floating ice crystals, which reflect an image of the sun (or at night the moon) and can give surprisingly sharp solar images in still air where turbulence does not cause appreciable tilting of the ice crystals. Here again, it is probably true that many laymen may be sufficiently unaware of this optical phenomenon that they could be confused when they see one. But, as with sundogs, the stringent quantitative requirements on the location of this optical effect relative to the sun would permit any experienced investigator to quickly ascertain whether or not an undersun was involved in this specific sighting. The effect involves specular reflection of the sun's rays, whence the undersun is always seen at a negative angle of elevation in which the observer's line of sight to the undersun is just as far below the horizon as the sun momentarily lies above that same observer's horizon. Clearly, many of the UFO cases that have been cited in examples given above do not come anywhere near satisfying the angular requirements for an undersun. In my own experience, I have only come across two or three reports, out of thousands that I have examined, where I was led to suspect that the observer was fooled by an undersun.

   "Reflections off clouds" have been referred to repeatedly in Menzel's writings, never with any quantitative discussion of precisely what he means. But the impression is clearly left that many observers have been and are continuing to be fooled by some kind of cloud-reflections. Aside from the above-described undersun, I am unaware of any "cloud-reflection phenomenon" that could produce anything remotely resembling a distinct object. Clouds of droplets or ice crystals do not provide a source of specular reflection (except in the case of horizontally-floating ice crystals observed from above with a bright luminary, such as sun or moon, in the distance - undersun). What Menzel could possibly have in mind when he talks loosely about such cloud reflections (and he does so on many different places in his books), I cannot imagine.

   Inversions are invoked by Menzel, and in official evaluations, to account for certain UFO sightings. Inversions produced by radiational cooling or by atmospheric subsidence are relatively common meteorological phenomena. In some cases, quite sharp inversions with marked temperature differences in rather small vertical distances are known to occur. It is such inversion layers that are responsible for some of the most striking desert mirages of the looming type. To experience a looming mirage, the observer's eye must be located in or near the atmospheric layer wherein the temperature anomalously increases with height (inversion layer), and the miraged target in the object-field must also lie in or near the inversion layer. Inversion layers are essentially horizontal, and the actually-encountered values of the inversion lapse rates are such that refraction anomalies are confined to very small departures from the horizontal, as noted above under remarks on mirages. All of these points are well-understood principles of meteorological optics. However, Menzel has attempted to account for such UFOs as Dr. Clyde Tombaugh saw overhead at Las Cruces in August 1949 in terms of "inversion" refraction or reflection effects. Since I have discussed the quantitative unreasonableness of this contention elsewhere, I will not here elaborate the point, except to say that if inversions were capable of producing the optical disturbances that Menzel has assumed, astronomers would long since have given up any attempt to study the stars by looking at them through our atmosphere.

   Other atmospheric-optical anomalies have been adduced by Menzel in his UFO discussions. He has repeatedly suggested that layers of haze or mist cause remarkable enlargement of the apparent images of stars and planets. By enlargement, he makes very clear that he means radial enlargements in all directions such that the eye sees not a vertical streak of the sort well-known to astronomers as resulting from near horizon refraction effects, but rather a circular image of very large angular size. Menzel even describes a sighting that he himself made, over Arctic regions in an Air Force aircraft, in which the image of Sirius was enlarged to an angular size of over ten minutes of arc (one-third of lunar diameter). I have discussed that sighting with a number of astronomers, and not one is aware of anything that has ever been seen by any astronomer that approximates such an instance. In fact, it would require such a peculiar axially-symmetric distribution of refractive index, which miraculously followed the speeding aircraft along as it moved through the atmosphere, that it seems quite hopeless to explain what Menzel has reported seeing in terms of refraction effects.

   Dr. Menzel's writings on UFOs have evidently had, in some quarters, a marked effect on attitudes towards UFOs. I regard that effect as deleterious. If I felt that we were dealing here with just a slight difference of opinion about rather controversial scientific matters on the edge of present knowledge, I would withhold strong comment. However, I wish to say for the record, that I regard the majority of Dr. Menzel's purported meteorological-optical UFO explanations as simply scientifically incorrect. I could, but shall not here, enlarge upon similar critique of official explanations that have invoked such arguments.

3. Atmospheric Electricity

   One phenomenon in the area of atmospheric electricity to which appeal has been made from the earliest years of investigations of the UFO phenomena is that of ball lightning. For example, a fairly extensive discussion of ball lightning was prepared by the U.S. Weather Bureau for inclusion in the 1949 Project Grudge report (Ref. 6). It was concluded in that report that ball lightning was most unlikely as an explanation for any of the cases which were considered in that report (about 250). Periodically, in succeeding years, one or another writer has come up with that same idea that maybe people who report UFOs are really seeing ball lightning. No one ever felt this idea worth pursuing very far, until P.J. Klass began writing on it. Although his ideas have received some attention in magazines, there is little enough scientific backup to his contentions that they are quite unlikely to have the same measure of effect that Menzel's previous writings have had. For that reason, I shall not here elaborate on my strong objections to Klass' arguments. I spelled them out in considerable detail in a talk presented last March at a UFO Symposium in Montreal held by the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute. Klass has, in my opinion, ignored most of what is known about ball lightning and most of what is known about plasmas and also most of what is known about interesting UFOs in developing his curious thesis. It cannot be regarded as a scientifically significant contribution to illumination of the UFO problem.

4. Radar Propagation Anomalies

   In the past twenty years, there have been many instances in which unidentified objects have been tracked on radar, many of them with concurrent visual observations. Some examples have been cited above. It is always necessary to approach a radar unidentified with full knowledge of the numerous ways in which false returns can be produced on radar sets. The physics of "ducting" or "trapping" is generally quite well understood. As with mirages, the allowed angle of elevation of the radar beam can only depart from zero by a few tens of minutes of arc for typically occurring inversions and humidity gradients. Ducting with beam angles in excess of a degree or so would require unheard of atmospheric temperature or humidity gradients. Care must be taken in interpreting that statement, since beam-angles have to be distinguished from angles of elevation of the beam axis. For the latter reason, a beam-axis elevation of, say, two degrees still involves emission of some radar energy at angles so low that some may be trapped, yielding "ground returns" despite the higher elevation of the axis. All such points are well described in an extensive literature of radar propagation physics.

   In addition to trapping and ground return effects, spurious returns can come from insects, birds, and atmospheric refractive-index anomalies that generate radar echoes termed "angels". These are low-intensity returns that no experienced operator would be likely to confuse with the strong return from an aircraft or other large metallic object.

   Also, other peculiar radar effects such as interference with other nearby sets, forward scatter from weak tropospheric discontinuities (see work of Atlas and others), and odd secondary reflections from ground targets need to be kept in mind.

   When one analyzes some of the famous radar-tracking cases in the UFO literature, none of these propagation anomalies seem typical as accounting for the more interesting cases. Several examples have already been discussed above (Cases 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39).

SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

   In summary, I wish to emphasize that my own study of the UFO problem has convinced me that we must rapidly escalate serious scientific attention to this extraordinarily intriguing puzzle.

   I believe that the scientific community has been seriously misinformed for twenty years about the potential importance of UFOs. I do not wish here to elaborate on my own interpretation of the history behind that long period of misinformation; I only wish to urge the Committee on Science and Astronautics to take whatever steps are within their power to alter this situation without further delay.

   The present Symposium is an excellent step in the latter direction. I strongly urge your Committee that further efforts in the same direction be made in the near future. I believe that extensive hearings before your Committee, as well as before other Congressional committees having concern with this problem, are needed.

   The possibility that the Earth might be under surveillance by some high civilization in command of a technology far beyond ours must not be overlooked in weighing the UFO problem. I am one of those who lean strongly towards the extraterrestrial hypothesis. I arrived at that point by a process of elimination of other alternative hypotheses, not by arguments based on what I would call "irrefutable proof." I am convinced that the recurrent observations by reliable citizens here and abroad over the past twenty years cannot be brushed aside as nonsense, but rather need to be taken extremely seriously as evidence that some phenomenon is going on which we simply do not understand. Although there is no current basis for concluding that hostility and grave hazard lie behind the UFO phenomenology, we cannot be entirely sure of that. For all of these reasons, greatly expanded scientific and public attention to the UFO problem is urgently needed.

   The proposal that serious attention be given to the hypothesis of an extraterrestrial origin of UFOs raises many intriguing questions, only a few of which can be discussed meaningfully. A very standard question of skepticism is "Why no contact?" Here, the best answer is merely a cautionary remark that one would certainly be unjustified in extrapolating all human motives and reasons to any other intelligent civilization. It is conceivable that an avoidance of premature contact would be one of the characteristic features of surveillance of a less advanced civilization; other conceivable rationales can be suggested. All are speculative, however; what is urgently needed is a far more vigorous scientific investigation of the full spectrum of UFO phenomena, and the House Committee on Science and Astronautics could perform a very significant service by taking steps aimed in that direction.

REFERENCES

1. NICAP Special Bulletin, May 1960: Admiral Hillenkoeter was a NICAP Advisory Board member at the time of making the quoted statement.

2. McDonald, J.E., 1967: Unidentified Flying Objects: Greatest Scientific Problem of our Times, published by UFO Research Institute, Suite 311, 508 Grant Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15219.

3. Keyhoe, D.E., 1950: Flying Saucers Are Real, Fawcett Publications New York, 175 pp.

4. Keyhoe, D.E., 1953: Flying Saucers From Outer Space, New York, Henry Holt Co., 276 pp.

     Keyhoe, D.E., 1955: Flying Saucer Conspiracy, New York, Henry Holt & Co., 315 pp.

     Keyhoe,D.E., 196O: Flying Saucers Top Secret, New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 283 pp.

5. Ruppelt, E.J., 1956: The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Co., 243 pp. (Paperback edition, Ace Books, 319 pp.)

6. Project Grudge, 1949: Unidentified Flying Objects, Report No. 102 AC 49/15-100, Project XS-304, released August, 1949. I am indebted to Dr. Leon Davidson for making available to me his copy of this declassified report.

7. NICAP, 1968: USAF Projects Grudge and Bluebook Reports 1-12 (1951-1953), declassification date 9 September, 1960. Published by NICAP as a special report, 235 pp.

8. Bloecher, T., 1967: Report on the UFO Wave of 1947, available through NICAP.

9. Cruttwell, N.E.G., 1960: Flying Saucers Over Papua, A Report on Papuan Unidentified Flying Objects, 45 pp., reproduced for limited distribution; parts of this report have been reproduced in a number of issues of the APRO _Bulletin_.

10. Hall, R.H., 1964: The UFO Evidence, Washington, D. C. , NICAP, 184 pp.

11. Olsen, P.M., 1966: The Reference for Outstanding UFO Sighting Reports, Riderwood, Maryland, UFO Information Retrieval Center, Inc., P.0. Box 57.

12. Fuller, J.G., 1966: Incident at Exeter, New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 251 pp. (Berkeley Medallion paperback, 221 pp.)

13. Lorenzen, C.E., 1966: Flying Saucers, New York, Signet Books, 278 pp.

      Lorenzen, C.E., and L.J., 1967: Flying Saucer Occupants, New York, Signet Books, 215 pp.

      Lorenzen, C.E., and L.J., 1968: UFOs Over the Americas, New York, Signet Books, 254 pp.

14. Michel, A., 1958: Flying Saucer and the Straight Line Mystery, New York, Criterion Books, 285 pp.

      Michel, A., 1967: The Truth About Flying Saucers, New York
      Pyramid Books, 270 pp. (Paperback edition of an original 1966
      book.)

15. Stanway, R.H., and A.R. Pace, 1968: Flying Saucers, Stoke-on Trent, England, Newchapel Observatory, 85 pp.

16. Vallee, J., 1965: Anatomy of a Phenomenon, Chicago, Henry Regnery Co., 210 pp. (Paperback edition, Ace Books, 255 pp.)

17. Vallee, J., and J. Vallee, 1966: Challenge to Science, Chicago, Henry Regnery Co., 268 pp. (Also in paperback)

18. Lore, G.I.R., Jr., and H.H. Denault, Jr., 1968: Mysteries of the Skies, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall Inc., 237 pp.

19. Fort, C., 1941: The Books of Charles Fort, New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1125 pp.

20. Stanton, L.J., 1966: Flying Saucers Hoax or Reality?, New York, Belmont Books, 157 pp.

21. Young, M., 1967; UFOs Top Secret, New York, Simon & Schuster, 150 pp.

22. Time Magazine, July 14, 1947, p. 18.

23. Fuller, C., 1950: The Flying Saucers - Fact or Fiction?, Flying Magazine, July 1950, p. 17.

24. Menzel, D. H., 1953: Flying Saucers, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 319 pp.

25. Menzel, D.H., and L.G. Boyd, 1963: The World of Flying Saucers, Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Co., 302 pp.

26. Shalett, S., 1949: What You Can Believe About Flying Saucers, Saturday Evening Post, April 30, 1949, and May 7, 1949.

27. CSI Newsletter, No. 11, February 29, 1956 (Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York).

28. Flying, June 1951, p. 23.

29. Davidson, L., 1966; Flying Saucers: An Analysis of the Air Force Project Bluebook Special Report No. 14, Ramsey, New Jersey, Ramsey-Wallace Corp.

30. American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1967; Problems of Journalism, Proceedings of the 1967 Convention of the ASNE, April 20-22, 1967, Washington, D.C., 296 pp.

31. Keyhoe, D.E., 1950: Flight 117 and the Flying Saucer, True Magazine, August 1950, p. 24.

32. Salt Lake Tribune, Tuesday, October 3, 1961, p. 1.

33. UFO Investigator, Vol. 3, No. 11, Jan-Feb 1967.

34. LANS, 1960: Report on an Unidentified Flying Object Over Hollywood, California, Feb. 5, 1960 and Feb. 6, 1960, Los Angeles NICAP Subcommittee, 21 pp., mimeo.

35. UFO Investigator,  Vol. 1, No. 12, April 1961.

36. McDonald, J.E., 1968: UFOs - An International Scientific Problem, paper presented at a Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, Montreal, Canada, March 12, 1968.

37. Darrach, H.B., Jr., and Robert Ginna, 1952: "Have We Visitors from Space?", Life Magazine, April 7, p. 80 ff.

38. Zigel, F., 1968: "Unidentified Flying Objects," Soviet Life, February, 1968, No. 2(137), pp. 27-29.

39. Klass, Philip J., 1968: UFOs - Identified, New York, Random House, 290 pp.

40. International News Service, datelined Sept. 12, 1951, Dover, Del.

41. New York Times, June 2, 1954; New York World Telegram, June 1, 1954;  New York Post, June 1, 1954; New York Daily News, June 2, 1954.

42. Official file on October 15, 1948 Fukuoka case, Project Bluebook.

43. Melbourne (Australia) Sun, December 16, 1954; Melbourne Herald, December 16, 1954; Auckland Star, December 16, 1954.

44. Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1957; New York Journal-American, May 10, 1957.

45. APRO Bulletin, May-June, 1965, p. 1-4.