1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,800 Professor MacDonald recorded his talk in Sydney on a recent visit to Australia, New Zealand 2 00:00:06,800 --> 00:00:13,000 and Tasmania to investigate UFO sightings in this part of the world. 3 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:16,080 Professor James E. MacDonald. 4 00:00:16,080 --> 00:00:24,000 I suppose one good place to begin with my remarks on the UFO problem is to tell you 5 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:29,200 briefly why I happen to be down in Australia and New Zealand and Tasmania, why I've been 6 00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:33,200 studying this problem of the Australian UFO sightings. 7 00:00:33,200 --> 00:00:41,800 It comes to this, I've spent about 12-13 months in the States in interviewing witnesses in 8 00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:47,200 key cases attempting to unravel this very puzzling and very intriguing mystery. 9 00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:54,200 One of the questions that keeps coming up is the question of are there sightings of 10 00:00:54,200 --> 00:00:57,200 essentially the same type in other parts of the world? 11 00:00:57,200 --> 00:01:03,200 Well it turns out that there are large numbers of reports in the publications of various 12 00:01:03,200 --> 00:01:09,200 private UFO investigating groups in England, America, Australia, France and so on that quite 13 00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:16,200 clearly indicate that but certainly as a scientist I am not entirely happy with taking hearsay 14 00:01:16,200 --> 00:01:22,200 evidence and I've been down here in Australia interviewing witnesses to find out for myself 15 00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:27,200 in direct face-to-face or in some cases phone interviewing exactly what happened in individual 16 00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:32,200 cases and what the credibility of the witnesses is, how witnesses may be and thoroughly the 17 00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:36,200 cases have been checked and so on down the line. 18 00:01:36,200 --> 00:01:46,200 And just to very briefly indicate what I've found in that investigation, it's this, the 19 00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:55,200 picture in Australia with respect to UFO sightings, observations of unconventional objects, 20 00:01:55,200 --> 00:02:01,200 maneuvering sometimes quite close to ground, sometimes within tens to hundreds of feet of 21 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:08,200 very credible, reliable observers is just not appreciably different in Australia, New Zealand 22 00:02:08,200 --> 00:02:13,200 and Tasmania from what it is in the States, very strong similarity. 23 00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:18,200 There's just a little bit of evidence that indicates to me there may even be a few more 24 00:02:18,200 --> 00:02:24,200 sightings per square mile or per capita here than in the States but I wouldn't stand firmly 25 00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:28,200 on that feeling that I've gotten. 26 00:02:28,200 --> 00:02:35,200 One thing I have noticed is that lots of witnesses after 15 or 20 or 30 minutes of interviewing 27 00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:41,200 them bring up the point that several other friends of theirs have also seen objects at close range. 28 00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:46,200 Sometimes I've been able to check these, sometimes I just put it aside as evidence that there 29 00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:49,200 are other reports. 30 00:02:49,200 --> 00:02:56,200 The thing I've been doing is taping, I have about 10,000 feet of tape I noticed while 31 00:02:56,200 --> 00:03:02,200 I'm listing up and have interviewed about 70 Australians or New Zealanders. 32 00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:09,200 I've been down to Hobart, Tasmania, some extremely interesting cases in Tasmania and the problem 33 00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:14,200 is to try to find out what has happened in these cases. 34 00:03:14,200 --> 00:03:18,200 There's a great deal of reluctance to report them, that's exactly the same in the States 35 00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:20,200 as it seems to be down here. 36 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:27,200 People have been ridiculed and made fun of by official groups, by press and radio and television 37 00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:28,200 and scientists too. 38 00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:36,200 There's been a great deal of completely unbased, I emphasize that, scourning and scoffing about 39 00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:41,200 this problem and that's driven the problem underground, just the same kind of comments. 40 00:03:41,200 --> 00:03:47,200 You ask people, did you ever report it to the United States Air Force or down here, did you 41 00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:48,200 report it to the RAF? 42 00:03:48,200 --> 00:03:50,200 And the answer is typically no. 43 00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:52,200 Did you report it to the press? 44 00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:57,200 Well sometimes it did and one woman that I interviewed not so long ago pointed out that she 45 00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:02,200 described the case in some detail and reported her after why she didn't use more water in 46 00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:03,200 what she's been drinking. 47 00:04:03,200 --> 00:04:07,200 She was quite incensed and I would agree with that. 48 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:16,200 This whole attitude of vertical has been engendered and I'm afraid greatly encouraged by the 49 00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:21,200 American Air Force investigation, Project Blue Book, which has been in operation for about 50 00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:27,200 14 years and which is presented certainly within the States and I've learned down here, 51 00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:32,200 regarded quite highly in other parts of the world and that's completely unjustified. 52 00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:37,200 I've taken an extremely good look at the official Project Blue Book investigation and to put 53 00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:43,200 briefly, it's been done superficially and by persons of extremely low scientific competence. 54 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:47,200 It has to be regarded as essentially zero. 55 00:04:47,200 --> 00:04:49,200 It is not a scientific investigation. 56 00:04:49,200 --> 00:04:54,200 For instance, when I got started looking at this problem intensively about a year ago and 57 00:04:54,200 --> 00:04:58,200 got in there, it became a great surprise to me to find out that Project Blue Book, the 58 00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:05,200 American UFO investigation headquarters project consists of a major, a sergeant and a secretary. 59 00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:06,200 Imagine that. 60 00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:09,200 When you contrast that with the kind of press releases that are put out about the great 61 00:05:09,200 --> 00:05:15,200 expertise that's used, the thorough investigations and the indications that only 2 or 3% of 62 00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:20,200 unknowns and probably those would be explained, the Air Force insists, if they had a little 63 00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:21,200 more data. 64 00:05:21,200 --> 00:05:25,200 When you contrast the pronouncements, the assurances that there's nothing to it, with 65 00:05:25,200 --> 00:05:30,200 the very low level of which it's actually been investigated, when you compare the official 66 00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:35,200 explanations with the details of the reports and then go back and check them yourself as 67 00:05:35,200 --> 00:05:41,200 I've done, you end up, as I have ended up, with a conclusion that this problem has been 68 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:47,200 completely lost sight of in America and perhaps it's not unjustified to suggest that in other 69 00:05:47,200 --> 00:05:53,200 parts of the world, the large amounts of money that seem to be at the disposal of our Air 70 00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:58,200 Force are misconstrued as indicating we've probably done a very large, very extensive, 71 00:05:58,200 --> 00:06:00,200 very thorough study of the problem. 72 00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:02,200 That is absolutely incorrect. 73 00:06:02,200 --> 00:06:08,200 Well, the type of sightings that are on record, thousands of cases in the U.S. involves cigar 74 00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:13,200 shaped objects, discs, hovering, sometimes at very low altitude. 75 00:06:13,200 --> 00:06:15,200 There's a wide range of other phenomena. 76 00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:18,200 It won't take time to give you all the details. 77 00:06:18,200 --> 00:06:24,200 There are many inexplicable, scientifically inexplicable baffling phenomena, very high 78 00:06:24,200 --> 00:06:29,200 accelerations, sometimes high speed objects moving without any obvious sonic booms, though 79 00:06:29,200 --> 00:06:36,200 I hasten to interject that sometimes there are unexplained sonic booms that could be UFOs. 80 00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:43,200 Many peculiar luminous phenomena and some of them down in Australia will really baffle 81 00:06:43,200 --> 00:06:46,200 every scientist who ever takes a look at these. 82 00:06:46,200 --> 00:06:50,200 It's the same thing in the United States, but mainly cigar shaped objects and disc shaped 83 00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:54,200 objects, and maneuvering in our airspace. 84 00:06:54,200 --> 00:07:00,200 And written off by official groups as non-existent, just as if it was a lot of nuts seeing things, 85 00:07:00,200 --> 00:07:02,200 a lot of people who can't be trusted. 86 00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:06,200 When you go out and talk to the people, you find that yes, there are some, you know, some 87 00:07:06,200 --> 00:07:10,200 incompetent people who have seen something and haven't quite identified it. 88 00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:12,200 There are certainly nuts. 89 00:07:12,200 --> 00:07:17,200 Certainly in the United States there's a very annoyingly visible cultist crackpot friends 90 00:07:17,200 --> 00:07:22,200 that's grown up around the problem and that discolors it and puts a lot of scientists off. 91 00:07:22,200 --> 00:07:23,200 Very true. 92 00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:32,200 And there are completely sincere misidentifications of, you know, planets and balls, wall lightning, 93 00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:37,200 fireballs, luminous phenomena one type another, even aircraft and so on. 94 00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:41,200 And experienced investigators such as those that have been working in Sydney and Melbourne 95 00:07:41,200 --> 00:07:47,200 and Tasmania and other parts of the world, these are private investigating groups, not 96 00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:48,200 the official groups. 97 00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:51,200 The official groups, it's very hard to know what to say about them. 98 00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:56,200 They come out with such outrageous, absurd explanations that one is really hard put to 99 00:07:56,200 --> 00:07:58,200 know how to sort that out. 100 00:07:58,200 --> 00:08:06,200 But these are sightings that are being investigated include a lot of quite unconventional phenomena 101 00:08:06,200 --> 00:08:12,200 that are not any product of our technology or Australia or Russian or English technology. 102 00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:14,200 They are not plasma phenomena. 103 00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:19,200 They are not sun dogs and pelicans and all the rest of the things that one hears about. 104 00:08:19,200 --> 00:08:24,200 They are beyond the present pale of science and they're being ignored by science, being 105 00:08:24,200 --> 00:08:26,200 ignored by official groups. 106 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:29,200 And that has got to change very, very rapidly. 107 00:08:29,200 --> 00:08:37,200 Question arises, what are these UFOs, the ones that passed the test of not being put 108 00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:41,200 aside as fireballs and planets or what could they be? 109 00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:45,200 And that of course is the ultimately important question. 110 00:08:45,200 --> 00:08:47,200 Not easy to offer an answer. 111 00:08:47,200 --> 00:08:53,200 One can only consider hypotheses, guesses, big gifts in front of all of them. 112 00:08:53,200 --> 00:09:00,200 But when you look at these various hypotheses, psychological, advanced technology, hoax, 113 00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:08,200 fabrication, fraud, poorly understood, geophysical phenomena, you run through all of those. 114 00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:12,200 This is certainly what I've done in the past year of checking. 115 00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:20,200 You find yourself ending up with the seemingly observed, seemingly improbable hypothesis. 116 00:09:20,200 --> 00:09:24,200 These things may be coming from somewhere else. 117 00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:28,200 And just where that is is a great, big question mark. 118 00:09:28,200 --> 00:09:34,200 All that we know about the astronomy and planetary meteorology of the solar system seems to argue against 119 00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:39,200 a planetary, as an intra-solar system, origin of the objects. 120 00:09:39,200 --> 00:09:46,200 All that we know about the structure of the galaxy makes quite clear that the next nearest source 121 00:09:46,200 --> 00:09:50,200 of origin is quite an embarrassing number of light years away. 122 00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:58,200 And when you confront that distance and look at it in terms of present-day terrestrial technology of propulsion, 123 00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:03,200 we're just beginning, of course, so to speak, we're just beginning in that business on Earth. 124 00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:05,200 And that has to be kept in mind. 125 00:10:05,200 --> 00:10:10,200 But when you look at it in terms of present-day or foreseeable propulsion techniques, 126 00:10:10,200 --> 00:10:19,200 it's very, very baffling, essentially not possible to explain how any kind of objects, surveillance probes, 127 00:10:19,200 --> 00:10:25,200 or what have you, could be got into the Earth's environment from an extra solar, 128 00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:28,200 that is, across interstellar distances. 129 00:10:28,200 --> 00:10:36,200 But the rub there, the thing to keep your eye on seems to me, is the proviso in terms of our present knowledge, 130 00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:38,200 or foreseeable technology. 131 00:10:38,200 --> 00:10:46,200 You've got to realize, and actually I find many laymen, I really find laymen more aware of this than some fellow scientists, 132 00:10:46,200 --> 00:10:53,200 they are more sensitive to it, you have to realize that given another 100 years or 1000 years, 133 00:10:53,200 --> 00:10:57,200 terrestrial technology will be an entirely different thing from what it is now, 134 00:10:57,200 --> 00:11:01,200 it's a safe extrapolation because you have only to look back 100 years, 135 00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:08,200 things like radio, television, lasers, nuclear fusion, fission, 136 00:11:08,200 --> 00:11:13,200 countless other technological devices and systems that we take for granted now, 137 00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:17,200 or of course incredible, 100 years ago, and 100 years is just nothing, 138 00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:22,200 just a twinkling of an eye in galactic, even geologic time standards. 139 00:11:22,200 --> 00:11:25,200 So it is entirely conceivable, like it's almost probable, 140 00:11:25,200 --> 00:11:30,200 that elsewhere in the galaxy are advanced civilizations. 141 00:11:30,200 --> 00:11:34,200 In fact, this is very, it becomes very respectable to say this nowadays, 142 00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:39,200 it's generally granted by astronomers that far from here in the reaches of the galaxy, 143 00:11:39,200 --> 00:11:44,200 there must be other societies that are essentially sentient beings, 144 00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:46,200 whose technologies have swept far beyond ours, 145 00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:53,200 but what nobody grants, and what everybody stalls on and blocks their further thoughts on, 146 00:11:53,200 --> 00:11:56,200 with respect to UFOs, is nobody thinks they can get here. 147 00:11:56,200 --> 00:11:59,200 Well, I don't have any answers to that, I certainly want to emphasize that, 148 00:11:59,200 --> 00:12:02,200 I'm the slightest idea how anything would get here from say, 149 00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:07,200 Talsy to I or Epsilon or Ribbon I or anything, 10 or 15 light years away. 150 00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:14,200 But I'm afraid in looking at the situation, looking at Australian, American and other sightings, 151 00:12:14,200 --> 00:12:18,200 examining the credibility of the observers, looking at the content of these observations, 152 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:27,200 I'm afraid that it boils down to craft of some kind, machine-like objects that have been around for 20 years, 153 00:12:27,200 --> 00:12:31,200 ignored by all of us scientists, swept aside and ridiculed, 154 00:12:31,200 --> 00:12:35,200 and nobody has any good knowledge of this problem. 155 00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:40,200 All these years have been wasted scientifically, we've got to get at this right away, 156 00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:43,200 we've got to get on a global scale, 157 00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:48,200 and with the best scientific talent, not just in the United States or not just in Australia, 158 00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:52,200 but the world's best scientific talent has to get on that. 159 00:12:52,200 --> 00:12:58,200 I spoke along these lines only a short time ago, this summer, 160 00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:01,200 in the United Nations at the Outer Space Affairs Group, 161 00:13:01,200 --> 00:13:04,200 presented a statement to the Outer Space Affairs Group, 162 00:13:04,200 --> 00:13:08,200 urging immediate UN action on the problem, 163 00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:10,200 was very pleased to see that it had some effect, 164 00:13:10,200 --> 00:13:14,200 by the way, also sent copies of that statement to about 60 embassies in Washington, 165 00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:17,200 64 embassies, care of their scientific attachés, 166 00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:21,200 hoping to stimulate more interest in any and all parts of the world. 167 00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:24,200 I didn't get a chance to talk to Utat, I had a date to see him, 168 00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:26,200 but it was right in the middle of the US, 169 00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:31,200 and he had a security council crisis and he couldn't see me, I'm going to try again to see him, 170 00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:36,200 but only a very short time ago, a very interesting statement was made by Utat to Drew Pearson, 171 00:13:36,200 --> 00:13:40,200 saying that the problem of the UFOs, 172 00:13:40,200 --> 00:13:44,200 now this is the Secretary General of the United Nations speaking, 173 00:13:44,200 --> 00:13:48,200 saying that the problem of the UFOs is the greatest international problem, 174 00:13:48,200 --> 00:13:52,200 second only to the present one of the Vietnam War. 175 00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:56,200 I think that's very interesting, I tabled him from Australia when I heard that, 176 00:13:56,200 --> 00:13:59,200 by long distance phone call from San Francisco, 177 00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:03,200 I cabled Secretary General Utat and strongly endorsed his statement, 178 00:14:03,200 --> 00:14:06,200 except I expressed disagreement in my opinion, 179 00:14:06,200 --> 00:14:10,200 the UFO problem is the greatest scientific problem, 180 00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:14,200 the greatest international problem that stands before us, 181 00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:20,200 and I'm hoping to see it elevated to that status in a very great hurry. 182 00:14:20,200 --> 00:14:27,200 We've been listening to the American physicist Professor James E. McDonald at the University of Arizona.