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It's Jay Allen, high-necked HYNET.

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I'm chairman of the Department of Astronomy at Northwestern University and director of

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the Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center.

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When and how did you first get involved with UFOs?

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Quite by accident and by a propensity, really.

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I happened to be teaching astronomy at Ohio State University, which is just a few miles

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from Dayton.

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And when the flying saucer era really began in 47 and 48, the responsibility for checking

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it out and then monitoring it was given to the Air Force in the head right field.

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And they needed an astronomer to help pass a judgment as to how many of the reports could

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be attributed to meteors, stars, planets, so forth.

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And I just happened to be a handy astronomer.

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And I, well, you might say that one thing led to another, I became interested in some

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of the really oddball cases that clearly didn't have an astronomical explanation and my curiosity

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was to always just do what to, so how those might be explained.

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Well, we're twenty years of experience.

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What you feel is the explanation of the UFOs?

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I just don't know.

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In science, if you know the answer in advance, a priori, it's not research.

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I'm still in the data gathering phase.

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And you see, very little effort really has been spent over the past many years.

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Very little, very few funds have been spent on really looking into the matter.

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It has been treated with such ridicule and so lightly, it's always been such a power

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room topic for banter and ridicule and giggling.

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And aided in the best by the, well, I just go on and call them the limited fringe, the

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group that see in the UFO phenomenon a mechanism for themselves to further their own ideas.

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That's, for instance, I've been told that the second coming will be in a flying saucer.

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I think this is a part, there's this tremendous desire on the part of many people to believe

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in something they desperately want to, well, I guess you might say they want to find a

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more scientific father image in the sky.

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They would be delighted to have something from the outside come here and help us out.

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And so quite uncritically, not asking at all whether they're, what the evidence is, they

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will believe the most rabid cop and bull story if it further their preconceived notions.

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Well, some of this has reached such a tremendous and preposterous level in the formation of

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UFO cult pseudo religion that, well, you can easily see why no serious scientist would

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have paid any real attention.

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Most, most scientists are busy.

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They have their own projects, their own work, which is yielding results and making published

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papers and advanced in status and in scientific dignity, you might say.

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Why should they take something that is the province, at least popularly?

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Seemed to be the province of cooks and fuzzy thinkers.

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Even I have felt a bash and rather shame-faced many times in the past 20 years for reading

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reports and, for instance, I'll have a UFO report on my desk and a visiting astronomer

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comes by up to now.

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I've been, well, always rather quick to hide the report or if somebody sends me a copy

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of Flying Saucer Review or, it's a perfectly respectable magazine, even though the name

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does seem a little odd.

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It was shy or at least shame-faced in the sense about having any UFO literature or UFO

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reports around because the casual visitor coming in and seeing a flying astronomer

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report on my desk would just draw the wrong conclusions.

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So for quite a while I just took it very lightly and whenever I would generally refuse to

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let myself get into a conversation about it, just toss it off lightly like, well, I'm

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just monitoring the noise level, in which in the sense is what I was doing because it

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is the whole problem.

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As a matter of fact, the question of signal to noise or static to real program, there

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is so much noise, in fact, that so much static, so much crud that one wonders whether there

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really is anything of scientific value in it.

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But over the course of the years, these reports have continued to come in from many countries

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and have a great similarity in the reports regardless of the country and they have come

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in from people of many, people of high repute.

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I used to think and most scientists who have not looked at the subject at all have the

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mistaken impression that UFO reports come only from the mentally unbalanced or the weak

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thinkers.

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But actually this isn't so.

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Of course quite a few reports do come from people like that.

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But most of those reports hardly enough turn out to be very easily explained.

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The untutored, unsophisticated person will very understandably mistake a satellite and

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mistake a meteor for a flying saucer.

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But it's rather easy to read those out.

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I think I would say that the Beher reports, those that sort of stumped me and I can find

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no logical explanation for, there is a high chance that they come, a report like that

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comes from a person of considerable standing in their community of moderate technical training

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and certainly we might say with his head screwed on right.

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And in fact it's characteristic of these reports or rather of these people to write to me and

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say that when the letters almost start there was almost a certain sameness.

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They were right that they weren't going to say anything to anybody about this but they

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felt it was their duty as a citizen to do it and also they recognized that as a university

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professor I probably am harmless and I'm not going to give them undue publicity and they

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will say that if this will help me and my work they are happy to be any citizen as they

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can but please don't use my name and there is another reason why people will write about

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an unusual sighting and that is because they themselves are tremendously curious and perhaps

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somewhat frightened.

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They, the letters sometimes end on a rather plain to note.

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Can you tell me what it was that we saw?

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It's something we can't explain and another thing that's characteristic of the letters

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and the reports that I get generally personally and I'm getting quite a few of that sort where

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people do not want it reported to any other group who do not want it reported even to

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the report at times.

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They try to explain it themselves at first and it's sort of what I've called escalation

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of hypothesis.

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Take a typical case, one that occurred in Monticello, Wisconsin some years ago.

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Group of four people ranging in ages from 60 to a young girl of 12 and they were very

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young.

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The main protagonist was a graduate student of anthropology at a Midwestern University

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said to me and I talked with them for hours and they were just truly puzzled but completely

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sensible people.

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They said at first we thought it was an accident up on the road ahead of us because we thought

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we're flashing beacon lights and then we realized it couldn't be that because it was too high

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and then we thought it was an airplane about to crash and as it came closer we saw that

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it wasn't that and then we saw it was something that we'd never seen before in our lives and

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then this little girl who was in the back seat threw herself on the floor at the back

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of the car and just hit her head in terror and I was told later by her mother that she'd

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a week later had nightmares and was a thoroughly frightened girl.

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All the people saw were a geometrical arrangement of light, white and red that looked as they

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explained it, something like a traveling clothes tree or you hang your hat on and it was a

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suspended quite an angle because as they were alongside of the road there were telephone

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wires and they could see part of this object, I don't know if there's an object but I'll

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say object, this apparition.

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Part of this apparition was well above the wires and a part below so it's subtended

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we computed about 25 or 30 degrees and they estimated although they were smart enough

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to realize they didn't know really how far away it was they estimated it to be, they

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felt it was close, they felt it was just a matter of 100 yards away.

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That's one case, now we had many many many cases of people who said that their cars had

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been buzzed by very bright lights, the lights being so bright that they couldn't see the

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object behind them.

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People have reported that animals have become frightened and in some reports the first warning

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that something was strange came from animals in the barn raising a fuss.

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That only hallucinates so I'm always rather likely to get a case of that sort because

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it brings in another sort of witness at any rate and they report that ignition systems

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and cars fail.

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Now this seems on the face of the preposterous, how can the ignition system of a car fail?

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How can the lights go out by themselves and the radio stop?

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I can certainly see that a man may get excited, jam the brakes on and kill the engine but

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that doesn't put the lights out and it doesn't stop the radio.

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And if a report like that came from baddie people, well I would disregard it but can't

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found that they don't.

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You see they come from people who have held responsible positions in their communities

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for a number of years, they come from pilots, they come from policemen, the same policeman

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whose testimony could send you to the chair under certain circumstances, will testify

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that these things and will not be believed.

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So you see what the problem is, it's a strange phenomenon.

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Do the cases that you feel are impressive, do they include any occupant cases at all?

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A very few.

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Now you said impressive.

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Yes, impressive ones, some impressive ones do but it is so far as far as the correlation

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runs, the ones that are the most impressive from occupant state or especially from communication

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standpoint, to those so-called contact T-1s, whether in actual communication either by

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word or by mental telepathy that's taking place, up to now, not far as I can see come

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from people of as high credibility as those of lesser spectacularity.

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But the reports of that sort do exist in many countries.

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As a matter of fact some of the best reports from the standpoint of being spectacular have

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come from the Latin American countries.

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One that I frequently can say and my colleagues have told me, well you really can't believe

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what those people say, they're fallible and excitable and all that.

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On the other hand, what are the criteria for disbelief?

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What does it take not to believe a report?

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It's not only one, one must not only ask what does it take to believe a report, and must

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also ask under what conditions will I not believe a report?

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And this is the dilemma I find myself in.

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And what we need is not to jump to conclusions and say that UFOs are or are not visitors

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from space, that is not the issue.

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The issue is what causes the reports.

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The reports are the things that exist.

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They are the UFOs.

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We must find out what has caused the reports and then after we establish the validity of

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the report, then and only then start to theorize.

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Well obviously you think there are enough of these reports towards being taken seriously

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scientifically.

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Oh yes.

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Do you have any guess about what the findings will be, will we find that these are extraterrestrials?

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I just want to go on a limb and venture to say that because I recognize that because

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of my peculiar position, having been the Air Force's consultant in this for so many years,

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that I do bear a strange responsibility not because of my self, but because of the circumstances.

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I recognize that I really sort of have it in my power to mobilize the mass credulary of

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the world if I came out and held a press conference and maintained stoutly that we were being visited

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by extraterrestrials.

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And all I can say is that when I do say that, if I ever do come out and say that, I will

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be pretty darn sure that I'm right.

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It will not be a guess, but it will be based on definite evidence.

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What would you like to see done to further this whole problem of finding answers to these

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questions?

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That's a very good question.

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I'm very happy to answer that.

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I first of all would like to see the problem attacked in two distinct ways.

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I would say what you might call passive and active.

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The two approaches, I think for want of a better word or it's descriptive, I say passive and active.

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By passive, I mean the attacking, the wealth, the mountain of reports.

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Not only in this but other countries and doing something about them.

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Now, what do I mean by doing something about them?

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First of all, I mean putting them into machine readable form so that they're put on magnetic

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tape and the modern methods of data analysis and pattern recognition and numerical analysis

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applied to them.

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Reports today exist in the Air Force as well as other places as letters, as forms, as questionnaires,

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as papers of different sizes, folders of different sizes.

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This is hardly a systematic scientific way of handling data.

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The first thing is to devise a good method of data processing.

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And I feel it is just not any point to just handling United States cases alone,

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but since reports have come in from more than 70 other countries, we should likewise analyze those.

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There should be a central clearinghouse and I would like to see the United Nations act as that

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clearinghouse, the UNESCO for instance, might very well, without committing itself,

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without being a service, just like a World Health Organization, as a service for the distribution

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of vaccines or the gathering of data.

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It would be rather silly if we were in an unknown plague of disease if we concentrated only

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on how that disease acted in one country.

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We'd want to find out how it acted in all countries.

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In other words, the analysis of the reports and concentrating on what I call the high

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sigma, high C cases.

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By that I mean cases that are the sigma, what I call the strangeness index, that is,

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you can assign a number to any report from say one to five, depending on its strangeness.

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One and two would be things that are easily explained, satellite, birds, that sort of thing,

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which nonetheless, it puzzles some people, but there was no reason to puzzle them because it was,

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they had had a perfectly natural explanation.

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And the high sigma cases, the high strangeness cases that are simply those that are not

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explainable in ordinary terms.

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But still, we haven't said anything here about believing those reports.

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You can have several strange cases.

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The question now is, can they be believed?

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Well, now one can also assign another number to a report, or rather to the people who made

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the report.

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I call this my credibility index.

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The credibility index doesn't take into account the report.

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It takes into account the people.

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What is the general reputation of the people?

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Have they taken a lie detector test?

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Do they have a medical record?

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Have they any sort of record of being pranksters, of being liars?

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Are they the sort of people who you believe that they told you that they saw you go through a red light,

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or saw someone go through a red light?

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In other words, are they just ordinary, credible people?

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Now when you combine the two, you can have a strange report told by someone or people of low credibility,

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which you can disregard.

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However, the kind of reports to concentrate on are clearly the high sigma, high c,

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the strange reports of high credibility.

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Now, those reports should be studied in great detail.

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No effort is spared to squeeze any scientific information out of them possible.

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These are the ones that should be studied by modern electronic methods,

227
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and we should get the patterns of motion, patterns of geometry,

228
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patterns of geographical distribution, of temporal distribution, all that sort of thing.

229
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It is rather interesting and rather sad in a way that the phenomenon of UFOs has existed now so long,

230
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and never has there been what I would call a real, thorough investigation of any good case.

231
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I mean by good investigation, I mean in the same sense that the FDI would investigate a kidnapping, for instance,

232
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sparing no expense or time to catch the bottom of things, or the bank robbery, or a counterfeiting rate.

233
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But UFOs have been regarded as so much the province of the Cooks and the Lunatic fringe,

234
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that serious scientists have simply not taken the time or trouble to look at them, to look at the data.

235
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Well, that's the passage. I think we'd get someplace that way. At least we'd get much farther than we are.

236
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It is unlikely, however, that no matter how many reports you analyze, you're going to get any different answers.

237
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You're simply going to get a greater degree of probability that something really strange is going on.

238
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The active phase is, well, going on and getting on.

239
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Actually, if after all, if UFOs exist, I mean if there is something tangible, if there is something, some substance behind the report,

240
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then we should be able to go out and get at that substance by photograph, or, well, let's photograph perhaps the best.

241
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Now there are areas in the country which seem sometimes to be what you might call UFO hot,

242
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and there have been many cases in which a witness of a strange sighting, you might say a UFO happening or who has had a UFO experience,

243
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has had time to call the local police and they have come out, that's happened in Ravenna and in Exeter and other places.

244
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The police have actually come out and seen the same thing, but unfortunately in none of those cases did the policeman have a camera.

245
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So one of the things I would like to strongly recommend is that every squad car in the country have a loaded camera in that glove compartment.

246
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These cameras, a camera, that's ought to be cheaper than a gun, and it seems to me that if the local Kiwanis,

247
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group groups of Rotarians or some of the city's minor groups took it upon themselves to equip their own immediate community with squad cars that have cameras,

248
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or cameras for squad cars rather, we might today or might soon have some real pictures.

249
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But I'm also suggesting a central bureau, a central switchboard.

250
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Let us take this case that I described in a popular magazine recently,

251
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a case in which a man and his family were driving along and were frightened out of their wits by the approach of an extremely bright light that buzzed their cars.

252
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They said caused the engine, the radio and the lights to go out and very soon thereafter departed and everything returned to normal.

253
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If they had been able to hurry to a roadside telephone, call a central number that might be called UF4-1000 that could be used,

254
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that would be connected to some central switchboard, which was manned 24 hours a day by a group of experienced interrogators who could tell in two or three questions

255
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whether there was any substance to the report or whether it was just nonsensical or common object.

256
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Now then, if the interrogator at the opposite end of that line became convinced after a few questions that this was something worth investigating,

257
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is it the investigator could call the local police chief in that area and by this time the police chief would know to take a thing like this seriously

258
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and they would get out there and we'd get some data, first hand live data.

259
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And all we need is a good photograph and really honest to goodness authenticated photograph.

260
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We have photographs, but what can you say about them? They're photographs.

261
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We don't really know whether they're really authentic photographs or whether they are fake.

262
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Well, for anyway, that I would say is the, you've asked me the question of what I would recommend.

263
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I think maybe one thing in addition, I would recommend a deferral investigation of a few selected cases, maybe just a dozen.

264
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But all we need is one case that has been thoroughly investigated to,

265
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that one case like that might produce the evidence that would convince the scientific world that there is something of value in this subject.

266
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It's a thing, it's a question, the problem that I would like answered myself because as a sort of a one man team,

267
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I simply don't have the time obviously to do justice to this problem.

268
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You indicate that scientists have not gotten into this nor even the Air Force very much because it was the providence of the Cooke's.

269
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Well, there have also been charges that actually scientists have gotten into this, that the Air Force has gotten into it and the secrets are being kept from us.

270
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How do you feel about that?

271
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With the question that I get asked quite frequently, am I just a part of a cover-up?

272
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Well, I think it's partly a part of a cover-up.

273
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Because it strikes the average citizen that if they take the average citizen who finally gets down and read something about UFOs and read some of the reports and stories,

274
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it's inconceivable to him that our government, which is so security conscious and would spend all sorts of money on CIA to do this and that,

275
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it would seem impossible that our government could be so stupid as not to have investigated something that seems something like this.

276
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So they will question me, well, you mean, I've had many people come to me, so you mean to tell me that here this person saw this thing, said he saw this thing,

277
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not just one person, but there are witnesses. And this was observed in the radar. This was observed at a missile base.

278
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This was observed by an Air Force pilot. You mean to tell me that something, the CIA or the FBI or some high group in the government hasn't investigated this?

279
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They just can't believe their senses, I guess, because it seems to them that obviously this would have been investigated, you see.

280
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On the other hand, here we have the Condon Committee charged by the government to look into this. And not only are they charged to do it,

281
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but they are supposed to have their report reviewed first by the National Academy of Sciences.

282
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It's sort of inconceivable to me that there would be a conspiracy which would be making fools of the National Academy of Sciences,

283
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:35,600
which is what we would be doing. If the Condon group, for instance, were a cover-up group and just sort of a smoke screen,

284
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well, this is not saying that they're just making fools out of Condon, but they would be making fools out of the whole National Academy of Sciences

285
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and a fool of me, too, as far as that goes. So I have no evidence, no real evidence that there is a conspiracy or that there are things that are covering up,

286
00:27:52,600 --> 00:28:00,600
because, first of all, it's pretty hard to keep a secret over that length of time. And I feel that I would have sooner or later discovered some physicist friend

287
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:07,600
or some psychologist friend who I would have stumbled upon the fact that they were investigating it.

288
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:20,600
So you go back to the same hypothesis then that this has just been so in the Cook area that no one has taken it seriously.

289
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:33,600
First, the one thing is, one is driven to that it seems so preposterous that no one wanted to pay attention to it.

290
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:44,600
It's something like saying, somebody coming in and saying, there's a horse in your bathtub. Well, how many people would go look and say, oh, you're kidding me?

291
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:52,600
And of course, there are some people who would take the thing seriously but wouldn't even go to find out what they asked what's the color of the horse.

292
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:59,600
Of course, there are some people who would take the thing seriously but wouldn't even go to find out what they asked what's the color of the horse.

293
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:08,600
Those who believe that there are horses in bathtub, you see. So it's a very strange phenomenon.

294
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:13,600
It certainly is a phenomenon which has caused a great deal of interest.

295
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:24,600
It has, well, Gallup poll people said that when they conducted a poll on UFOs, it had the highest, that question, had the highest, or exhibited,

296
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:29,600
the people exhibited the highest awareness index of any question of that.

297
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:37,600
You know, people have to tell people, if you believe in UFOs or what about UFOs, you don't have to explain the term UFO to them.

298
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:39,600
They already, it's part of the language, you see.

299
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:47,600
So, and the names that are given to UFOs in different countries, every language has its name now for a UFO.

300
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:51,600
Avni's in Latin American countries.

301
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:54,600
Booth does in Russia.

302
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:59,600
And Patiji's Talish in Czechoslovakia.

303
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:04,600
Oh, they all, every nation, every language has a term for it now.

304
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:12,600
So it's rather strange that anything that it had that it's grabbed, you might say, so many people, so it's a great length of time,

305
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:14,600
has not had more scientific attention.

306
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:18,600
And this is all I've been asking for.

307
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:22,600
Is there anything to be given attention?

308
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:34,600
I will not, as some of my colleagues, relative to you, have looked at the data and become so impressed with the data that they have gone,

309
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:40,600
I would say, off the deep end and have declared, have become themselves, you might say, true believers.

310
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:50,600
They feel that the evidence is overwhelming that we are being visited by extraterrestrial beings.

311
00:30:50,600 --> 00:31:03,600
I must say that if we take the reports at face value and don't try to look at other possibilities, one is sort of almost driven to that.

312
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:06,600
But I personally, as yet, will not be driven to it.

313
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:14,600
I feel that there's many things about the universe that we don't know, and it's a whole UFO phenomenon.

314
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:21,600
I believe it's quite real, but does not necessarily mean intelligences from other solar systems.

315
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:24,600
What are the other possibilities?

316
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:29,600
Well, there's possibilities that the whole thing is a natural phenomenon.

317
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:35,600
Of course, if I knew what that was, we would have answers.

318
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:42,600
But let us imagine that, well, let us do this, let us imagine that we're sitting around some campfire in the covered wagon days.

319
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And the days when horsepower was the only motive power we had.

320
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:53,600
And somebody were talking about nuclear energy, for instance.

321
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The term nuclear energy wouldn't have made any meaning.

322
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We didn't know those days that the atom had a nucleus.

323
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:08,600
You see, one in just 100 years, look at how the pictures change, suppose somebody has said,

324
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:18,600
well, somebody is going to have such a powerful explosive that it can be equivalent to a million tons of TNT or something of that sort.

325
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:23,600
Well, they would have said, how are you going to get this?

326
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:29,600
Well, you'd say, well, something about the universe we don't understand yet.

327
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:36,600
And in less than 100 years, that's what we at that time didn't understand about the universe was the structure of the atom, the nucleus.

328
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:50,600
And that could very well be that the whole UFO phenomenon is a signal, an index, of another kind of property of the natural universe that we guys yet have not recognized.

329
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:55,600
And then beyond that, if I go any farther, it'll be a pure science fiction.

330
00:32:55,600 --> 00:33:05,600
You mentioned earlier that in many of the letters there were signs of fear. Do you think scientists also fear these?

331
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:16,600
Well, the great majority of scientists have not, as yet, looked, have not read enough reports, have not done enough homework to be frightened.

332
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:24,600
And as a result, you see, today, the scientists, science is writing very high, and I think rightfully so.

333
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:27,600
I wouldn't be a scientist if I didn't think so.

334
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:30,600
Scientists' judgments are generally accepted.

335
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:36,600
Their scientists are respected in their communities, and what they say very frequently carries a great deal of weight.

336
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:44,600
So that when, practically, the entire scientific establishment says there's nothing to it, it's utter nonsense.

337
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:55,600
So public doesn't know that these scientists are saying that not as a result of careful study of the data, which they assume that before a scientist would say that something was debunked,

338
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:59,600
that he has looked at it carefully, understands it, has examined the data.

339
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:08,600
They don't know that the scientist, what he's scientist has really done, has abdicated, more entirely, from his scientific,

340
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:14,600
I think, Hippocratic Oath, you might say, and where he's supposed to weigh and consider carefully.

341
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:18,600
But it has simply said, in effect, short-cut, short-circuited, the whole thing, says,

342
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:22,600
well, the whole thing's over-posterous, it can't be, therefore it isn't.

343
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:27,600
This is the thinking process that has gone on, you see.

344
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:34,600
So, well, I guess that's about all I can say on that point.

345
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:40,600
You said you would not commit yourself on the matter of this being extraterrestrial.

346
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:50,600
Do you think it is possible that it could be? Do you think from another galaxy people could come here, or humanoid, I should say, of some kind, could come here?

347
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:59,600
Well, let's first of all take up the point as to whether other civilizations exist or can exist.

348
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:07,600
I think most astronomers today, most scientists would say the evidence, or not evidence, we don't have evidence, except of a statistical nature.

349
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:23,600
But it would seem preposterous, statistically preposterous, that the Sun would be the only star out of billions of trillions to have planets, or at least one planet, with intelligence and life on it.

350
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:28,600
It seems it would be an utter sport of nature, that would be the case.

351
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:33,600
It would be something like saying that only my cat can have kittens.

352
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:36,600
No other cat in the world can have kittens, only mine.

353
00:35:36,600 --> 00:35:40,600
If only our star, the Sun, can have planets, no other one can have them.

354
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,600
Well, it doesn't seem right, it just doesn't seem likely.

355
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:48,600
But of course the problem is, getting here, the distances we know are so vast,

356
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:57,600
and the ordinary principles of physics are, I can put it this way, that according to our present understanding of physics, it would be impossible.

357
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:09,600
But of course, I can also imagine somebody writing a paper, a very learned paper, in the year 1900, and saying that it's utterly impossible by all the laws of physics to have an explosive greater than TNT.

358
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They would give learning equations about showing the ultimate in chemical reactions, and showing that clearly anybody who would believe that you could have an explosive much more powerful than TNT is enough.

359
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,600
And yet we have Hiroshima.

360
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:38,600
Now, recently Markowitz in Science has showed quite conclusively, and quite well at any rate, that UFO reports do not obey classical physics.

361
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:41,600
This is something I wouldn't have argued with ten years ago.

362
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:45,600
Obviously the reports don't obey classical physics.

363
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:48,600
But neither do atoms obey classical physics.

364
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:59,600
Whereas Markowitz has suggested that because the UFO phenomenon doesn't obey classical physics, that the Air Force and the Condit Committee in Colorado should shut their doors,

365
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:06,600
he might very well have suggested 30 or 40 years ago that we stop all our physics laboratories because atoms don't obey classical physics.

366
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:17,600
So he's excellent as far as he's gone, but he has written a fine treatise on cows, whereas the problem concerns oranges.

367
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:22,600
So, well, I guess that's about all I can say on that point.

368
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:38,600
The scientist, however, in approaching this problem, and I would say that I, if it hadn't been for the accident of my having been asked to look at this, I would be numbered in that same group.

369
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:46,600
I know it, because I wouldn't have taken the time to look at it, and I would have said, well, it's obviously not, and so why bother?

370
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:56,600
The scientist is so frequently trapped in his own manner of thinking he should think more like a philosopher than a scientist at times.

371
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,600
Well, I guess we've come a long way.

372
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:09,600
In your position, you've reaped a lot of criticism over the years that you sat on the data for 18, 20 years without doing anything about it,

373
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:20,600
that you've debunked a lot of reports that were otherwise taken quite seriously, such as Michigan and the swamp gas,

374
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:24,600
and now you're being criticized because you said, let's look into these things.

375
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:29,600
What is your position on all this criticism that's been heaped on your head?

376
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:34,600
Well, it certainly has been heaped, I must say.

377
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:39,600
But as a scientist, science starts with healthy skepticism.

378
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:44,600
There's a difference between being open-minded and being credulous.

379
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:51,600
Open-minded means that you are willing to look into a matter, but it doesn't mean that you're going to accept any cock and roll story.

380
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:56,600
So, so often people mistake open-mindedness with credulity.

381
00:38:56,600 --> 00:39:06,600
But without doubt, even today when I go to right field and look at the examiners I do each month, the reports that have come in,

382
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:15,600
my first attempt is literally to knock down every story, every report that comes in, a terracish red, see if it'll stand up.

383
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:22,600
I will not go to great lengths to try deliberately to explain a way of things,

384
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:31,600
but when the thing is obviously Venus and the moon, I'm not going to say that it's something else,

385
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:40,600
but when very clearly I see the report is a meteor, represents a meteor, or a mirage,

386
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:49,600
then I will simply have to pit my scientific understanding of things like that over against ten or a dozen witnesses who just don't understand those things.

387
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:57,600
So I do deliberately go out and try to find a logical, physical explanation for every report that comes in.

388
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:06,600
And as I go through these reports at right field each month, I may go through 20, 25 that are just run-of-the-mill garden variety,

389
00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:11,600
you might say, UFO reports, and then suddenly one comes along, which is a corker.

390
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:19,600
Generally, by several witnesses, as far as I can see, good repute,

391
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:27,600
I have no reason, our priority, to negate their story.

392
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:33,600
Therefore, then I come across that, and I've got to really take a very solid and serious look at it.

393
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:40,600
Nonetheless, I still try to find some natural explanation.

394
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:42,600
Sometimes reaching fairly far.

395
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:50,600
Now, in the swamp gas case that you mentioned, I did not give that as the final definitive solution.

396
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:59,600
I merely suggested at the time in my press release that swamp gas was a possible physical solution,

397
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:04,600
because after all, when in two locations you see lights for several hours,

398
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:13,600
and the lights are in both cases associated with the swampy area, isn't it logical to say that maybe the swamp has something to do with the lights?

399
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:20,600
Well, that, as you may recollect, that was a very hectic news conference.

400
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:27,600
I understand from my friends that it was the largest news conference, press conference, ever held in the Detroit Press Club.

401
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:31,600
It was a madhouse and a wild circus, really.

402
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:41,600
And as soon as I got the word swamp gas out, as a sort of possible explanation, the reporters jumped on that.

403
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:47,600
That was it. Not only was swamp gas the solution of the Michigan thing, but as far as the reporters were concerned,

404
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:52,600
it was the solution for all the UFOs. Well, this is not at all what I meant.

405
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:58,600
But nonetheless, I must admit that I've been criticized quite a bit for being a debunker,

406
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:05,600
and I will unabashedly say that anything that I can do to debunk the cooks and debunk the crackpots

407
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:12,600
and the Scheisters and the Charlesons and the people who write carcide books on the subject to make a fast buck,

408
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:15,600
then I think I'm doing a service in being a debunker.

409
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:19,600
But there are two sides to the coin, two sides to the situation.

410
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:28,600
When I do come across a group of serious people of good repute who in all seriousness and honesty

411
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:36,600
have made a report that they didn't want to make, but felt that they should make it because of their civic duty,

412
00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:44,600
or out of a very deep sense of scientific curiosity, then again it is my duty to take those reports seriously

413
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:48,600
and do what I can to find out what was the cause of the report.

414
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:52,600
And so we finally come to the crux of the matter and the real question.

415
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:58,600
The real question at the moment at any rate, quite contrary to public popular opinion,

416
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:04,600
the question is not whether UFOs as reported are extraterrestrial visitors

417
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:09,600
or the results of extraterrestrial visitation, that's jumping too far ahead.

418
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:17,600
The question that must be answered and a central scientific question is what causes the UFO report.

419
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:21,600
They might be extraterrestrial, we must keep that possibility in mind,

420
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:29,600
even though we know of no physical means of transporting a being from a distant solar system here,

421
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:37,600
our physics, our knowledge of the solar system, of natural law, simply does not encompass this.

422
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:43,600
We don't know how, but still we must believe it in all fairness as a possibility.

423
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:50,600
But there are, in the universe, there have been total surprises in the past 100, 200 years

424
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:53,600
and I don't think we're at the end of our surprises yet.

425
00:43:53,600 --> 00:44:00,600
The UFOs may represent a phenomenon which is as would be estranged to us today,

426
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:06,600
and as unexplainable, because we don't have the words, the means to look at it, to even think about it,

427
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:10,600
as nuclear energy would have been to our forefathers.