Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects — Hearings Before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives (90th Congress, 2d Sess., No. 7)

Brief

On July 29, 1968, Rep. J. Edward Roush convened a scientific symposium before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, inviting live testimony from J. Allen Hynek, James E. McDonald, Carl Sagan, Robert L. Hall, James A. Harder, and Robert M. L. Baker Jr., with prepared papers from six additional scientists. Hynek — who had served as the Air Force's scientific UFO consultant for twenty years — described a persistent residue of credible reports that resisted conventional explanation and documented reported electromagnetic effects on vehicles during close encounters. The committee took no institutional position, and Chairman Miller explicitly disclaimed any intent to criticize the Air Force's concurrent UAP operations. The full record, including group discussion and six prepared papers, was published as Committee Print No. 7 of the 90th Congress.

Metadata

Agency

U.S. House Committee on Science and Astronautics

Release

1968-07-29

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

251 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED

Tags

close encounter, electromagnetic vehicle effects, aerial phenomena, congressional hearing, scientific testimony, extraterrestrial hypothesis, 1968

Key points

• Rep. Roush framed the symposium around three competing hypothesis categories for UAP: purely psychological phenomena, natural physical phenomena, and 'advanced technological machinery manned by some kind of intelligence, that is, the extraterrestrial hypotheses.'p.4
• The committee explicitly took no institutional position; Chairman Miller added a specific disclaimer that the session was not intended to criticize the Air Force, which held statutory responsibility for UAP investigation.p.5
• Hynek disclosed he had served as scientific consultant to the Air Force on UFOs for twenty years but testified 'as a private citizen and scientist and not as a representative of the Air Force.'p.6
• Hynek estimated approximately 30 percent of then-current UFO cases had probable astronomical causes, but his sustained interest was captured by the non-astronomical residue that resisted explanation from credible witnesses.p.7
• Hynek offered a working scientific definition: UFOs are 'reports of aerial phenomena which continue to defy explanation in conventional scientific terms.'p.7
• Hynek documented a pattern of close-encounter reports in which vehicle motors stopped, headlights dimmed or failed, and radios went dead in the presence of a hovering illuminated object, with all functions restoring after the object departed.p.8
• Hynek identified a 'scientific taboo on even the passive tabulation of UFO reports,' noting that no major scientific journal — including the American Physical Society or the American Astronomical Society — would accept UAP papers given the anecdotal evidence base.p.8
• Hynek recounted that the then chief scientist at the Pentagon asked how much longer they were 'going to look at this stuff,' to which Hynek replied that serious investigation — on the order of an FBI criminal inquiry — had never actually taken place.p.9
• Hynek reported that many scientists had privately expressed interest in UFO research but were waiting for 'the scientific stigma' to be removed before publicly engaging.p.9

Verbatim

• We approach the question of unidentified flying objects as purely a scientific problem, one of unanswered questions. Certainly the rigid and exacting discipline of science should be marshaled to explore the nature of phenomena which reliable citizens continue to report.

  p.4

• These hypotheses range from the conclusion that they are purely psychological phenomena, that is, some kind of hallucinatory phenomena; to that of some kind of natural physical phenomena; to that of advanced technological machinery manned by some kind of intelligence, that is, the extraterrestrial hypotheses.

  p.4

• The UFO reports which in my opinion have potential scientific value are those -- and this may serve us as a working definition of UFO's -- are those reports of aerial phenomena which continue to defy explanation in conventional scientific terms.

  p.7

• There appears to be a scientific taboo on even the passive tabulation of UFO reports. Clearly no serious work can be undertaken until such taboos are removed.

  p.8

• He asked me just how much longer we were "going to look at this stuff." I reminded him that we hadn't really looked at it yet that is, in the sense, say, that the FBI looks at a kidnapping, a bank robbery, or a narcotics ring.

  p.9

• Many scientists have expressed to me privately their interest in the problem and their desire to actively pursue UFO research as soon as the scientific stigma is removed.

  p.9

Most interesting

• Donald Rumsfeld — later Secretary of Defense under two presidents — introduced Hynek to the committee as his Illinois constituent, calling him 'a son of Illinois.'
• Hynek's starting position, before his Air Force appointment, was to dismiss the entire subject as 'rank nonsense, the product of silly seasons,' making his eventual advocacy for serious inquiry the more striking reversal.
• Carl Sagan, who would later become the most prominent public skeptic of extraterrestrial visitation claims, appeared on the same panel as Hynek and McDonald — both of whom held distinctly more open views on the phenomenon's origins.
• Stanton Friedman's prepared paper was published with the title 'Dr.' — an error the congressional editors flagged in a footnote on the table-of-contents page itself, noting it 'was an error by the original congressional/GPO editors, not repeated elsewhere in the record.'
• Hynek used the metaphor of a stage magician to describe his epistemic situation: certain that the Air Force's explanations did not account for the data, while lacking the competence to identify what actually did — 'much akin, perhaps, to the account we might expect from an aborigine encountering a helicopter for the first time.'
• The Library of Congress had already compiled what Hynek called an 'impressive' UFO bibliography by 1968, prompting his observation that the subject became 'a problem for the librarian even before it did for the scientist.'
• The symposium's structure was explicitly divided by discipline: Hynek, McDonald, and Sagan presented in the morning on physical-science dimensions, while Hall (sociology), Harder (engineering), and Baker (sensors/film analysis) presented in the afternoon.