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free to examine, to question, to disagree.

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The subject of today's discussion are flying saucers only science fiction.

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The moderator of The Open Mind is Eric F. Goldman, professor of history at Princeton University,

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and author of Rundigul with Destiny and The Crucial Decade.

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To introduce the topic and guests for this week here is Mr. Goldman.

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Hello ladies and gentlemen.

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I'm of course in the space age, and since 1947 at least that space age has been characterized

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by thousands of reports of unidentified objects in the air.

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Flying saucers as they are properly called, or UFOs, unidentified flying objects,

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as they are known in more scientific circles.

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The responsibility for investigating these reports rests with a branch of the Air Force located in Ohio.

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And this official agency states that there is no persuasive evidence that genuine flying objects from another planet exist.

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But the popular belief in them in some quarter goes on and perhaps not.

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Very recently, I heard many people around Exeter, New Hampshire became very sure that something quite genuine was in air-air.

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Well, The Open Mind is open minded about this subject too.

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And I had no to discuss it. Here to my far left, Mr. R. Leo Sprinkle, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Wyoming.

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Here to my immediate left, Mr. John G. Fuller, author, journalist, and columnist for the Saturday Review,

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who has been engaged in extensive research into that alleged flying saucer episode in Exeter, New Hampshire.

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Here to my immediate right, D. H. Menzel, director of Harvard College's Observatory.

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Next, Professor Menzel, Frank B. Salisbury, professor of plant physiology at Colorado State University,

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much of whose research concerns possible life on Mars.

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And to my far right, Mr. J. A. Heineck, chairman of the astronomy department and director of the Linnheimer Astronomical Research Center at Northwestern University.

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Mr. Menzel, Mr. Fuller has written about this particular Exeter, New Hampshire episode in the current Look magazine.

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And he concludes his account, after having told what this, that, and what a person has said, by saying,

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Confidential comments made to me by Coast Guard men and military in the area, support the layman's testimony,

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and confirm reports, even of radar sightings and a scrambling by jet fighters.

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Collusion, hope, or mistaken identity by so many people seems improbable.

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The continued official silence surrounding the subject of UFOs seems as mysterious as the Exeter story itself.

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I haven't noticed any particular silence about the subject.

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The Exeter sightings seem pretty much run of the mill to me.

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And as I've looked over the reports, both the official reports and the unofficial ones that you're referring to,

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I have found that the pattern is very similar to those in the many thousands of pieces that I have examined in the airport files.

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And you stayed in your book, The World of Flying Saucers, you stayed flatly.

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Now that was up to 1963 when you published that.

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No fact so far determined suggests that a single unidentified flying object has originated outside our own planet,

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and that is your opinion as of 1966 still.

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That is correct, yes.

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I was going to ask Dr. Menzel a question.

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I went up to Exeter for 24 days.

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I interviewed 60 people.

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I tape recorded 70 hours of tape.

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I cross-examined these people. I did not just interview them.

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I threw questions at them that would try to throw them off.

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I tried to disprove this.

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Now were you up there in Exeter, Dr. Menzel, to investigate this?

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No, I was not.

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Well, why weren't you up there if you're so interested in it?

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Because I don't have time to investigate every one of the cases.

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And I can ask you the same question about many of the other cases.

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You are seem to have concentrated on this Exeter case.

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I never had any experience with the UFOs before, but I did go up there with an open mind to try to examine if necessary.

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If I could disprove it, I would have been glad to.

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But this was such a startling case in that the police officers who were involved with this

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cited it at the low, pre-top level and watched it for eight or nine minutes

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while the two of them checked each other out and three other civilians reported the same phenomenon

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within the hour and within a distance of, say, six miles.

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I believe you said that the object was seen at a distance of 100 feet.

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Is that the initial sighting was below pre-top level.

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Now the trees were estimated to be at 70 feet.

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It came up behind those trees and then moved toward them and hovered 100 feet in the air.

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You're right, 100 feet in that case.

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Did any of you other gentlemen read Mr. Fuller's piece or do you know the backs of the answers?

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I read it today, yes.

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I read it also.

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Would you comment, sir?

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I was very impressed.

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It would seem to me that this would be the kind of the sighting that ought to be thoroughly investigated

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because I'd like to hear Dr. Menzel's ideas about how it's run of the mill.

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It seemed to me that it was not run of the mill, that there was enough detail involved

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that it's pretty hard to imagine all the planet Venus or weather balloon or something like that.

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The usual explanations which must fit many of these sightings.

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I was tremendously impressed by the reproducibility almost, which you imply here.

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The one young lad went and sat out on the mountainside till he saw it again with his mother.

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And here would have been a chance for the Air Force or whoever was interested to move in

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and perhaps do something really scientific for change instead of studying it after the fact

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that we otherwise would always have to do.

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This is what I feel.

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By run of the mill, I meant the disagreement between the two observers, the two police officers.

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One of them said a hundred feet and that seems to be the person that you have quoted,

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but the other one said 9,000 feet away and possibly two to three miles.

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And this is in exact the same place in the official report.

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Well now, Dr. Menzel, could I say this?

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The tape recorded the two policemen on the spot and I had them re-enact everything that went on.

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He did not say 9,000 feet.

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He said it was just immediately over the trees when the second policeman, the patrolman, David Hunt, arrived.

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Now in the official report from the Air Force, do you recall how they explained this?

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I explain what?

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How they explained the sighting, the Air Force, what the official Air Force report was?

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This is very close to an Air Force base and I know that there was some operation in the neighborhood.

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Dr. Heineck, I think, would be, was investigated the case more closely than I would be able to.

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The Air Force reported it as operation Big Blast, a high-altitude exercise from West Overfield, Massachusetts,

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between the hours of 12 midnight and 2 a.m. on September 2, 1964.

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The sighting took place on September 3, 1964 at 3 a.m. 65.

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65, I'm sorry, I apologize on that.

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Now, the Air Force, the two policemen, when they got this report from the Air Force and when it was released with local papers, were furious.

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They wrote three letters, two letters, to the major Quinton Miller of the Wright-Patterson Air Defense Command,

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Foreign Technology Division, and they asked him to please immediately write and withdraw this report

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because it implied that they had no sensibilities, that they were incapable of discerning the difference

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between a plane or a planet or a high-altitude exercise.

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Petrolman Bertrand was in the Korean War for four years.

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He refueled from KC-97 tankers.

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He knew every plane not only by sight but by sound.

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He knew helicopters.

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He attempted to place this object within the category of conventional aircraft.

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He did everything he could to it.

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When David Hunt arrived about four to five minutes after Lieutenant Bertrand instantly threw himself on the ground,

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began to pull his gun because the thing came so close to them,

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Lieutenant Bertrand did everything he could to rule out the possible things.

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The three of them, an 18-year-old boy, Petrolman David Hunt, Petrolman Eugene Bertrand,

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sat there for between eight and nine minutes and tried to rule everything out.

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Now the Pentagon went, after the second letter arrived from these policemen,

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the Pentagon as of yesterday finally wrote to Eugene Bertrand and David Hunt and apologized

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because they could not identify this object.

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Now I want to get these facts absolutely straight.

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Now, excuse me, let me get this straight.

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As of this letter, the position of the official agency having to do with it is that they do not have this one explained.

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Now they don't, but they first explained it.

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The first statement was they did explain it.

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And it was not the persistence of these two policemen which made them withdraw their first explanation.

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Mr. Hunt, would you come in, please?

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Yes, I spent two days last week at Redfield on this case.

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And one thing immediately ruled out the big blast operation.

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That if all the planes from that were down by 135.

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Yeah, that's what it was.

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And this was due to some misunderstanding earlier.

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The Pentagon office had not the exact time on the writing.

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And this was pointed out and I called Lieutenant Branch,

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who had been one of the men from P's Air Force Base to come down.

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And certainly from the manner in which they reported it, I don't see in this case at least how it could have been D-47.

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No, they ruled that out.

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I mean, they saw D-47 and prepared it for them.

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It's rather interesting.

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I should say, Mr. Goldman, that I've been the Air Force investigator.

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No, that's incorrect.

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I've been consultant to the Air Force for the last 18 years on this subject.

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I am not here this evening speaking before the Air Force, but as an astronomer.

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As an astronomer, yes.

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During those 18 years of reports, one of the things that it's interested in,

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I'm not sure whether it occurred in this case or not, but is the S, which I might call the escalation of interpretation,

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the better report, then generally the man will try to explain it as something perfectly natural.

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For instance, in the Monticello case.

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I mean, the man who sees it.

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The man who sees it.

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There are first poor people there.

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I thought it was blinker lights from a car on the road.

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They thought it had been from accident.

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That was explanation one.

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Explanation two was a little too high.

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Therefore, it's probably a plane coming into crash.

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In that particular case, the little girl in the back seat was so frightened that she just toppled over and covered her head.

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And then they stroked by another interpretation.

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By the way, these were two graduate students in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin.

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Quite articulate.

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The plane was very similar actually to the Exeter case.

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Similar to the Toledo case.

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Similar to the Lordeo in the Mexico case.

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In every case, we have a phenomenon that exists.

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I'll go that far.

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But I will not go to jump from that.

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A phenomenon exists to a tremendous jump that we're being visited from outer space.

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I wouldn't be here.

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Mrs. Springer, you haven't commented yet.

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I'd like to say that in one respect, I agree with Professor Minthold's point of view that this is a run-of-the-mill report.

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I wasn't at the scene, and so I haven't had an opportunity to investigate personally, but I've read many, many reports.

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And I'd say it's run-of-the-mill in this sense that something is happening and people are reporting these things.

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And yet the interpretation I place on what is run-of-the-mill might be quite different.

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Because it seems to me that there are so many sightings which must be interpreted in various ways.

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There seem to me to be four tenable hypotheses.

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One, UFO reports are statements from persons who sense known phenomena and perceive them as unknown phenomena.

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Two, reports are statements by people who are attempting to defraud others by making false claims.

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Three, the reports are statements by persons who are perceiving unknown phenomena based upon internal psychic stimuli

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or from other persons, psychic projections.

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Or fourth, they're sensing and perceiving unknown phenomena which may be extraterrestrial phenomena.

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And it seems to me that although one and two hypotheses explain many reports, they do not explain all.

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And it seems to me that there's not sufficient evidence to reject any one of these hypotheses,

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particularly for a large number of group sightings as opposed to looking at individual sightings.

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And therefore as a psychologist, it's of interest to me, regardless of what the explanations are,

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because something is happening.

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To me, it'd be a more fantastic world to have psychic projections make objects appear in the sky

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that others see than it would be to have a world in which to be visited by other worlds.

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But whichever explanation is, I'm interested in.

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Why haven't psychologists taken more of an interest in this?

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Why haven't psychologists studied prior psychology or hypnosis? They're afraid.

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Afraid of what?

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Why haven't astronomers made more of it?

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He said afraid. I'm curious about that.

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The psychologists base much of their work. This is my opinion. I don't speak for all psychologists from this.

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Obviously.

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I think that they attempt to base their work upon that, which has been true of biologists.

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And biologists, in my opinion, have based their approach on that done by physicists.

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And I think that this is one reason why there's an interesting description by a man named Frank,

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saying that what is right, what is good, what is moral, is perceived to be based on what we believe the world to be like.

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And we believe the world to be like what we see in the sky and the physical laws.

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It seems to me that the reason why psychologists have been so far unwilling to investigate these things

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is because the present scientific knowledge says that there ain't no such thing as other intelligent beings.

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Well gentlemen, beneath all of the discussion so far has been the implication on the part of some of you that the government,

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the official agency of the Air Force having to do with investigating these, is let us say reluctant to take them seriously,

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even if they should be taken seriously.

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Now, I know this Mr. Menzel, in your book The World of Flying Saucer, you maintain, let me quote you directly,

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if a spaceship came, no one would be more eager to acknowledge it than our government officials.

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We take the difficult point of view. All governments would feel it necessary to protect the human race if necessary

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and to establish diplomatic relations with the alien race if possible.

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Mr. Thor, I think you have the opposite feeling, is there some reason the government...

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I feel that either they don't know, or they know, they don't know and they are afraid to admit that,

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or that they do know a lot more than they've released and they are afraid of disruption if it is true.

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It's one of those two things I don't know.

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I think the actual governmental point of view, and I can speak to it because I have never been an official consultant to the Air Force,

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but I can see the pattern as I have studied it through the last 15 years or so.

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The Air Force is not definitely concerned with flying saucers from outer space,

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but they are seriously concerned with any threat to our national security.

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And they are also interested in knowing what possible potential enemy powers may be doing.

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Therefore, when they see something bright moving through the sky, they want to know what it is.

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And I know that whenever there is an area that is at least a bit critical,

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I'm sure there must be a lot of flying saucers reported over South Vietnam at the present time,

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at least things that will be called flying saucers, because we've been concentrating, I think, far too much on the expert case.

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This is just one case.

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Oh, I realize that.

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00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:07,000
No, it's still likely to be written.

219
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:18,000
The interesting thing about it was that I took a microcosm where a rather alarming and officially documented case was and went into it in depth.

220
00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:20,000
And this is not done too often.

221
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:25,000
They reported from all over, but I went up there expecting to find one case.

222
00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:33,000
I tracked down about eight leads on the police flotters and ended up with 60 people who were reliable people.

223
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:34,000
They weren't nuts.

224
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:35,000
I mean, I have a lot.

225
00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:37,000
This is one fear I have.

226
00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:39,000
I hate these nuts and poops involved with this.

227
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:42,000
These were average or better than average intelligence.

228
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:46,000
They were reliable citizens of the area.

229
00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:55,000
They not only had seen them, but I concentrated then on low level, below treetop level, down to five or six feet off the ground.

230
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The reports now.

231
00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:00,000
I'm a journalist enough to not say this is where the report is.

232
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:07,000
And I have here 203 pages of transcriptions of cross-examinations of these people.

233
00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:20,000
And I think if you read these cross-examinations, you would find that this many people, you couldn't possibly be either psychic or that's inaccurate in the reports that they got.

234
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:22,000
Now that's what I can report.

235
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:32,000
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to raise a question in regard to the same question that is of concentrating not only on individual case, but also on patterns or groups of cases.

236
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:48,000
I'm surprised and I wondered if Professor Menza would be willing to comment on the fact that Michelle's book, The Straight Line Mystery, is not discussed in your book.

237
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:55,000
And yet I believe that it was a 58 book, so there would have been time for you and Mrs. Boyd to have seen it.

238
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:58,000
What is your reaction to The Straight Line Mystery?

239
00:19:58,000 --> 00:20:02,000
I don't know that book, but for the benefit of our audience, what is the book about?

240
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:16,000
My interpretation would be that Michelle, a Frenchman, engineer, has found a very interesting datum, or using mini-data, he has found a very interesting observation.

241
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:27,000
That is that UFO sightings, as reported by various persons in France, these reports, when mass media,

242
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:39,000
when the map is used to place pins corresponding to the places where the UFOs are sighted, these can be the points along which lines can be drawn.

243
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:46,000
At first he wasn't sure whether these were mathematically straight lines or whether they were circles on the Earth.

244
00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:49,000
And so I called it orthotony or something like this.

245
00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:56,000
Now apparently he has concluded that these lines correspond to circles on the Earth.

246
00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:59,000
And I wondered what your reaction to this finding is.

247
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:05,000
Well I have looked into it carefully from the mathematical standpoint. I'm well aware of this book.

248
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:12,000
I didn't consider it sufficiently important to go into it when Mrs. Boyd and I wrote our book on the world of flying saucers,

249
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:22,000
but people criticized me for passing it by, so I did give a very thorough and scientific analysis to his contention.

250
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:25,000
Now let me state precisely what it is that he does.

251
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:34,000
He takes all of the sightings that are reported in certain French newspapers from the hour of midnight to the following day.

252
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:41,000
And he plots the point where the observer was at the moment he saw the flying saucer.

253
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:46,000
Not where this supposedly the flying saucer was, but where the observer was when he saw it.

254
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:53,000
And then he has maybe 10, 15, 20, 30 sightings covering all of France.

255
00:21:53,000 --> 00:22:03,000
He discovers that too is surprised that he can draw straight lines connecting three points, sometimes four, sometimes even more of these.

256
00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:13,000
Well I found that you can take a dozen catnip seeds, throw them on the map of France,

257
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:20,000
confine them with the earth in the same boundaries, and you can draw exactly the same set of straight lines.

258
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:21,000
It's a purely random.

259
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:28,000
Did you also follow up what he found and concluded in 1962, and that is that many of these sightings conform to an earthly circle?

260
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:40,000
That is, there is absolutely not enough data in his observations to justify that contention.

261
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:46,000
When you say absolutely, does that mean then that you still regard this as a mystery or you regard it as no mystery?

262
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:55,000
No mystery. It's just one of those sort of hallucinations that I'm afraid that...

263
00:22:55,000 --> 00:23:06,000
This is one thing that hits us pretty much, not only because of my background, but also because I belong to a couple of organizations studying hypnosis and parapsychology.

264
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:17,000
I wonder to what extent hallucinations and delusions can be used to explain these sightings, or to what extent they can be used to explain away these sightings?

265
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:22,000
Well, are you still on the orthotonic problem now or something else?

266
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:26,000
You used the term hallucination. I wonder what you mean.

267
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:34,000
Well, I mean it's a self-hallucination that you'll see all of these straight lines and you begin to believe that these straight lines must be real,

268
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:37,000
but actually you can show that they're doing entirely the chance.

269
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:42,000
Well, he has one set of six points that are pretty impressive.

270
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:51,000
I talked to him in 62 when he told me about this world and over business, and I talked to him in 64 and he wasn't sure anymore.

271
00:23:51,000 --> 00:24:01,000
But it is an interesting phenomenon because he tried to do one thing that would be valuable, I believe,

272
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:06,000
and that is he tried to do something objective where you didn't have to believe the witness.

273
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:09,000
You simply tried to see if there was some relationship.

274
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:21,000
I finally disagree with your book, but I do agree with you in this case only because there hasn't been enough scientific study on the subject,

275
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:30,000
and it seems to me that with such a massive amount of statistics, not only exeter but everywhere else,

276
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:42,000
that the professors of astronomy should be eager to set out with a good, solid program and really disprove it.

277
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:49,000
I don't care what you do, but to go out enthusiastically to prove or disprove.

278
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:57,000
Well, this brings us back again to this question of the attitude of the official agency which is responsible for saying to the public,

279
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:01,000
let's take this seriously or let's not take this seriously.

280
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:06,000
Mr. Heineck, I think you've had most experience with that particular phase of things.

281
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:09,000
How would you describe the attitude of that agency?

282
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:19,000
Well, to the amount of work that they've been able to do on these things, first of all, the Air Force is not primarily a scientific organization.

283
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:23,000
Their charge, as Dr. Menzel pointed out, is the defense of the country.

284
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:33,000
There are something like two reports per day, and if they were to be investigated in depth with the relatively small group they have,

285
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,000
it would be impossible.

286
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:45,000
May I understand that there are two reports of flying saucer, alleged flying saucer, episodes, or two people reporting?

287
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:49,000
No, two reports per day. Sometimes there are many people reporting a given case.

288
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,000
Two cases today.

289
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:56,000
And let me emphasize that UFOs, as far as I'm concerned, exist as reports.

290
00:25:56,000 --> 00:26:02,000
They are reports, and the question is now what is the stimulus that gives rise to that report?

291
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:13,000
I would like to pause in this remark now and ask the question here is to, the question of hallucination has come up.

292
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:19,000
I think we were facing, in this manner of respect, after 18 years of looking at this, the face of the poverty of hypotheses.

293
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:27,000
It's either considered complete bunk on one hand, or we're being visited by space people on the other.

294
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:32,000
Surely we should be ingenious enough to think of other hypotheses.

295
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:39,000
What is the status in psychology of mass hallucination? How many people can be mass hallucinated to see the same thing?

296
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:47,000
This is a good question, and I don't believe that I'm an expert on this, and I don't believe there is about anyone else, as far as I know, from the literature.

297
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:52,000
This is one reason why I've recently become interested in parapsychology and also in hypnosis.

298
00:26:52,000 --> 00:27:13,000
Wondering if the literature in these areas of knowledge might give some clues as to how so many people who apparently are emotionally upset can describe, with great detail, the same thing.

299
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:26,000
It seems to me that there are only two good hypotheses in this respect, and that is, either there are many people who are good actors who are involved in a conspiracy,

300
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:41,000
or else there is some kind of psychic projection going on between one person, another person, another person, and then something appears based upon one person's illusion or hallucination that others are able to participate in.

301
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:45,000
And to me, this is a very interesting world, if it could be that way.

302
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:57,000
I've even heard, and this is, I think it was reported in the National Observer, but I'm not even sure of that, that in these experiments with the LSE drugs and so forth, that one person had a hallucination,

303
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:07,000
and two people with whom this person was in close friendship, close contact, but geographically separated, had the same identical hallucination.

304
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,000
Do you know of anything I think that had been documented?

305
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:28,000
Not in terms of LSE, although I'm familiar with Bloom's book in this regard, but I am familiar with some cases in which experimentally, persons are able to call out cards which correspond with the cards that are being turned over by other persons.

306
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,000
But this is quite an incident from the whole picture, the whole thing.

307
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:41,000
One of the things that I've been very much interested in, the reports are interesting in themselves, there is a phenomenon, but I'm really more interested in the way in the people who make the reports.

308
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:54,000
There's a spectrum of reports and a spectrum of reporters, and sometimes, or I hope you will give me permission to read just a few reports from letters from...

309
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,000
Well, I think it's quite relevant on this stage.

310
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,000
Because...

311
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:04,000
Alright, I have to say, it's just happened to happen along.

312
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:17,000
I think the human side of this thing tends to be missed occasionally, because the reporters are, in general, I found quite sincere people who are honestly puzzled,

313
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:26,000
and you'd be quite surprised if, if I could mention publicly, some of the rather prominent people who have...

314
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:32,000
Just to put it positively, we have a phenomenon, as I said before, I simply cannot get myself to believe it in the start of it.

315
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:34,000
I believe it's a documentary completely.

316
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:38,000
I just can't see the point of how we can be...

317
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:43,000
Well, actually, there were patients who seemed to be in the radar, I'll pick them up, all our satellite surveys, I'll put them up.

318
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,000
Well, we'll come back to that.

319
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:49,000
Since I have to make one...

320
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:51,000
Let me stay on the people.

321
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,000
Let me stay on the unradar beam.

322
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,000
Alright, here's one.

323
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:59,000
During World War II, I was a pilot in the US Air Force, and all my flying experience was kind of limited.

324
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:02,000
In all that time, I never once, night or day, observed anything I knew from the skies.

325
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:09,000
Now at the age 43, I've observed phenomena which are beyond my comprehension, and which tax my sense of reasoning and fidelity.

326
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:14,000
I am postmaster here at Baker, and I hesitated before repeating the subject to the post-inspector,

327
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:20,000
but after a great deal of serious thinking, I felt that I could not be a good American citizen if I did not ask these questions.

328
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:24,000
What was the lie about keeping where it had come from?

329
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:28,000
Here's another man who was prompted to report a sighting after hearing of other sightings.

330
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:35,000
He was very anxious to have his name withheld from the press due to his business position.

331
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:37,000
Here's another one.

332
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,000
This phenomenon was witnessed by four other persons who would substantiate this report.

333
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:44,000
Believe me, this was no hallucination or mirage. It was real.

334
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,000
Another one here.

335
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:51,000
Gentlemen, are you afraid to answer this letter? Willing to divulge what it was?

336
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:56,000
No, I do not think it was hostile armed. It left no vapor trail. What move did I do not know?

337
00:30:56,000 --> 00:31:00,000
If you do not know what this was, the dark thicks is not time you found out.

338
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:02,000
Gentlemen, I challenge you to answer this letter.

339
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:04,000
Pranked though, I never expect to hear from you.

340
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:06,000
This was real from the Secretary of the Air Force.

341
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:08,000
Did you hear from me?

342
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,000
That's not my department.

343
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:14,000
Here's another one addressed to the US Air Force Chief of Staff.

344
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:17,000
No one in authority will listen to my description of them.

345
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,000
I have been told they do not exist, that they were an optical illusion.

346
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:23,000
But I know better. I saw them. They do exist.

347
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:27,000
If there was just a telephone number we could call when these things are sighted,

348
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:31,000
then stations in the direction they are going could be alerted.

349
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:35,000
All right, now, this has to do with...

350
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:40,000
These people are, as you say, responsible people, or reasonably responsible.

351
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:44,000
Those that I have talked to personally on the phone or have visited,

352
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:49,000
I have found remarkably articulate and head screwed on.

353
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,000
So this leads to your further puzzlement.

354
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,000
Yes, I'm puzzled.

355
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:58,000
You agree with Mr. Menzel here that from the physical point of view,

356
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:01,000
as an astronomy, you simply cannot accept...

357
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:04,000
I can't accept these right-angled terms.

358
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,000
Newton's laws have not been abrogated.

359
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,000
And you bring up the question now, which I do wish we could move to.

360
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:12,000
Mr. Solberg, would you move us to that?

361
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,000
In the physical area, the radar pickup and so forth.

362
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:19,000
That isn't exactly what I had in mind, but it's closely related.

363
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,000
I got into this in a different way.

364
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:27,000
I'm a biologist, but I took a course in geochemistry at Caltech from Harrison Brown,

365
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:31,000
and had to write a paper about life on Mars in 1962.

366
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:35,000
I've been interested in the subject ever since.

367
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:40,000
There haven't been very many biologists who have wondered about the markings on Mars

368
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:43,000
and what they might mean and the possibilities that there could be life there and so on.

369
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:46,000
And I've had a lot of fun doing this.

370
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,000
It's completely speculation.

371
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,000
The only real conclusion that I have is that we have no conclusions

372
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,000
and that we have to wait until we land something there

373
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:57,000
to get some much better pictures or something before we can really decide,

374
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:03,000
although it's possible to argue in favor of life on Mars,

375
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:08,000
some sort of vegetable life that accounts for the markings and their change in color and so on.

376
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,000
We're doing experiments now that show us that plant life,

377
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:15,000
even as we know it here on the Earth, is much more hardy than we'd ever imagined

378
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:21,000
and can stand extremely severe conditions that previously we just assumed would be fatal.

379
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:25,000
Well, I got to this point and it was lots of fun.

380
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:28,000
And then it turns out that there are some other observations,

381
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:33,000
the canals of Mars that have been discussed since 1877.

382
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:35,000
What do they mean?

383
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:39,000
Are they real and are they earthquake cracks or what are they?

384
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,000
Are they some sign of intelligence?

385
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:45,000
There's a possibility that they could be a sign that there's intelligence on Mars.

386
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:50,000
And this is the most, the best known aspect of the whole picture,

387
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:55,000
but we've also seen flares on Mars that are very puzzling and difficult,

388
00:33:55,000 --> 00:34:01,000
very much like the flying saucers in a way because they don't fit into our picture of the physical universe.

389
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:09,000
They're too bright and too short to be volcanoes and a little too long in duration to be meteorite impacts,

390
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:14,000
too frequent to be meteorite impacts, I suppose, of that magnitude.

391
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,000
What are they? We haven't any idea.

392
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:20,000
The satellites of Mars are extremely interesting.

393
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:24,000
They're different from the other satellites in the solar system that we've known.

394
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:28,000
They're smaller, they have circular orbits in the plane of the Mars.

395
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaking as a physiologist, you feel that there are a lot of things in this unexplained category

396
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,000
that are, if you will, similar to the lack of information.

397
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:46,000
To conclude, the point of it is, I believe Dr. Menzel and what Dr. Heineck has just expressed,

398
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:55,000
to them the idea of intelligence on some other planet close enough to visit us seems very unlikely

399
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,000
in terms of the picture that they've developed.

400
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:03,000
But I had developed a different picture, namely that there could be intelligence on Mars,

401
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:09,000
realizing fully that when we get there these phenomena might have some other explanation.

402
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:15,000
But now the conclusion that's usually stated against intelligence on Mars is,

403
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:21,000
if they launch those satellites, which are huge in terms of artificial objects,

404
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:28,000
if they built that canal system, they ought to be able to visit us, and if they could, they would.

405
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:33,000
Obviously they would want to land on the White House lawn and say, take me to your leader.

406
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:38,000
Well, the argument is, since they haven't, therefore they don't exist.

407
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:40,000
And I'm not sure this is a valid argument.

408
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:47,000
If they were intelligent, I suppose they could have the reasons for not wanting to contact us directly.

409
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:52,000
Maybe they're waiting for a Republican administration or something like that.

410
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:56,000
They could have some sort of reason for not wanting to make this formal contact.

411
00:35:56,000 --> 00:36:00,000
And I asked myself the question at this stage in 1962,

412
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:04,000
is there any evidence that they might be observing us?

413
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,000
And that's what got me into this story.

414
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:11,000
But I just want to explain that it's possible to get into this story from a different standpoint,

415
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:20,000
where it does seem reasonable, if you're willing to speculate, and not take it too seriously, to consider...

416
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:22,000
You can go to a pardon.

417
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:25,000
Consider the idea that we could be visited from outer space.

418
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,000
To me, this is not so unlikely as you imply.

419
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:37,000
Well, moving to the next stage in this then, we've talked about some of the human aspects of this,

420
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:45,000
and the related studies which can lead not to explanation, but to the feeling that there are a lot of unexplained things.

421
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:49,000
We haven't discussed this sheer physical end of the thing.

422
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:55,000
Mr. Fuller, I gather you feel strongly that there are some physical mysteries about this.

423
00:36:55,000 --> 00:37:02,000
I, as a reporter now, and I'm way out of below these fellows' class in the science end,

424
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:07,000
but as a reporter, and I think a reporter has a valid position here,

425
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:14,000
I feel that there are definite physical manifestations, which I don't think documentals...

426
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:21,000
I think you give them sort of short shift of a... I may say so right now.

427
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:27,000
First, there are pictures which have been taken, and you can hallucinate a camera.

428
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:30,000
Second, there are many radar reports.

429
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:37,000
Third, there are... The effect of animal behavior is constantly repetitious.

430
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:48,000
There are dogs cowering and howling and going to corner horses and cattle kicking up and consistently reported.

431
00:37:48,000 --> 00:38:00,000
So, and next, the electrical disturbances like ignitions of cars, radios, and television interference, and lights going out.

432
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:14,000
Again, I am not a UFO expert, but I must say that I've done more research in one particular case than I've heard any astronomer doing.

433
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:23,000
And also, I want to open to say that these objects, especially in the Exeter area where I only had the opportunity of exploring,

434
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:28,000
the reports were all low level. I don't think they didn't have much to do with astronomy.

435
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:34,000
I mean, 100 feet or below the free-stop level is not an astronomer's area.

436
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:38,000
Mr. Menzo, would you comment on this sheer physical aspect of things, John?

437
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:42,000
Yes, I'd like to comment on a number of things that Mr. Fuller said.

438
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:45,000
First of all, his statement, you can't hallucinate a camera.

439
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:53,000
I think that's probably true, but the man who is behind the camera can certainly produce a lot of things,

440
00:38:53,000 --> 00:39:01,000
and there is quite possible. You've got all kinds of internal reflections in a camera, or the shutter can stick, or you can get double exposures.

441
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:06,000
And this picture that you, I think, are about to show you, not sure of me.

442
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:10,000
It happens to be, I think, a double exposure, and it's so...

443
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,000
But did you check? Were you out there? Did you speak to James Lutzi?

444
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:14,000
No, I did not.

445
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:15,000
Did you speak to his brother?

446
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:16,000
I did not.

447
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:22,000
His father, his neighbors, the police, his school principal, the newspaper reporters, the newspaper photographers,

448
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:26,000
in the area, did you spend two days out there checking them?

449
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:36,000
Did you check the area? Did you make a circle around the area and talk to over 40 people, asking, did they see the light, and did you get identical...

450
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:37,000
Mr. Fuller.

451
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:38,000
Mr. Fuller.

452
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:39,000
I just want to know, because...

453
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:40,000
I have seen...

454
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:44,000
Documentation is the most important thing in this kind of thing.

455
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:49,000
I don't think you fellows are doing your job. That's what I'm saying. That's all.

456
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:51,000
This is not my job, first of all.

457
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:54,000
Excuse me, just a minute. I think this is a picture we talked about.

458
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:55,000
You don't get a good camera.

459
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:56,000
You can get that.

460
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:57,000
No.

461
00:39:57,000 --> 00:39:58,000
No, there's no point.

462
00:39:58,000 --> 00:39:59,000
Oh, he says yes.

463
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,000
Well, he's getting that picture of nothing to do with, so...

464
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:07,000
No, but I took it as a control point on the exit of the patient and went out there and checked.

465
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:11,000
Spent two full days out there.

466
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:12,000
Now, let's get to this.

467
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:13,000
I can see the whole expense.

468
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:14,000
Well, I cut your gentleman off.

469
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:19,000
There's not only running beneath this discussion, the feeling that the government isn't doing

470
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:23,000
what it should be doing, but not really being candid or something or another.

471
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:28,000
But there is this constant feeling that came up openly here now in this mental, but the

472
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:32,000
astronomers ought to get in there and study this thing more carefully.

473
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:34,000
Is that what it boils down to?

474
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,000
It so happens that...

475
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:40,000
Heineck and I are probably about the only astronomers who have devoted any time to it,

476
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:45,000
and I think probably we've both devoted too much time to it from the astronomical standpoint

477
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:48,000
because I think it has very little to do with astronomy.

478
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:56,000
There's a lot to do with physiological optics, meteorological optics, and probably also psychology.

479
00:40:56,000 --> 00:41:02,000
But you keep talking about this distance of 100 feet.

480
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:09,000
This, to me, does not sound at all well-established.

481
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:11,000
Less than 100 feet.

482
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,000
Or even less than 100 feet.

483
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:19,000
This is only a conclusion of the observer, and at that distance, looking up, I've seen

484
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:25,000
observers, many well-trained observers who are not hysterical to start with, as apparently

485
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:27,000
these two observers were.

486
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:29,000
I think you should...

487
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,000
I don't think he should say that.

488
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:35,000
You're making an absolute, unsubstantiated statement.

489
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,000
You said these two observations...

490
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:41,000
The defense of the two policemen and the three other people who saw that night,

491
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:45,000
I think that's an indefensible statement to make when I say walking to them.

492
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:47,000
I say that... Will you please let me finish?

493
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:48,000
Yeah.

494
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:49,000
I'd like to finish.

495
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:54,000
I'd say that it is impossible for anyone, you, or the most qualified observer, to estimate

496
00:41:54,000 --> 00:42:00,000
distances looking straight up beyond 100 at the order of 100 feet.

497
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:05,000
Now, one observer says that it was 100 feet, and the other said 9,000 feet.

498
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:07,000
Sir, you did not check that.

499
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:08,000
I did.

500
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:09,000
He did not say 9,000 feet.

501
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:10,000
Didn't it hover in front of the trees?

502
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:13,000
It hovered, it came up from behind the trees, then came over the field.

503
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:16,000
It was in front of a background, which would establish its distance.

504
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,000
In the sky, you can't tell.

505
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:21,000
It was behind it first, and then it moved, and he said almost times, the roof...

506
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:25,000
I must support Dr. Monson that because in the reports that were made to the Air Force,

507
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:30,000
at least, one of them, Hunt said 100 feet, or...

508
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:35,000
Another one said 9,000 feet in the reports.

509
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:36,000
I have it right here.

510
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:38,000
Now, you say when you interview them, they...

511
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:42,000
When I interview them, when they walk through this, and I walk minimal through it twice,

512
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:47,000
and I tape record every word they said, and I watch the reactions to tell, to help.

513
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:51,000
I check their character, I check their neighbors, I check...

514
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:55,000
You see, I consider myself a responsible reporter.

515
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:59,000
I'm sticking my neck out to get invited and write about UFOs.

516
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:02,000
I'm sticking my neck out to write a story like this in a big circulation magazine,

517
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:04,000
or the Saturday Review.

518
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:06,000
These are responsible publications.

519
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:11,000
When I got halfway through this research, I came down and asked them to send a look senior editor

520
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:17,000
up to recheck my interviews, to spot check them, because I wanted confirmation

521
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:24,000
by another experience before they sent the Gary-Anne Zimmerman up from Look, who came up,

522
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:29,000
and he went right around in my tracks to double check what I said.

523
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,000
Publications like this and the Saturday Review, like Look and the Saturday Review,

524
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,000
don't do this sort of thing.

525
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:35,000
We don't stick that in.

526
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:37,000
Mr. Menzel, there's a question here of a fact.

527
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:42,000
Well, before you referred to these two men who are key to his story as hysterical,

528
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:43,000
and he had text to that.

529
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:44,000
What do you...

530
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:45,000
What was...

531
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:47,000
Why did he refer to them as hysterical?

532
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:52,000
It was certainly clear from the whole picture that the man was frightened to death,

533
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:53,000
and he became hysterical.

534
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:54,000
Which man?

535
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:55,000
The...

536
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:57,000
Everybody I talked to there, gentlemen.

537
00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:02,000
Gentlemen, there's obviously complete clash in interpreting what these men were like.

538
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:05,000
I refuse to be subject to an inquisition here.

539
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:06,000
Now you...

540
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:12,000
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to speak to this question about hallucination and hysteria.

541
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:15,000
So what it seems to me that...

542
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:22,000
Depending upon one's definition of what these conditions are like,

543
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:28,000
that it is just as unscientific to postulate these conditions without examination,

544
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:36,000
as it is unscientific for me to say because I have seen two phenomena that I couldn't understand,

545
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:38,000
that this right away is something.

546
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:44,000
Twice, in the presence of some other person, I have seen something I couldn't identify.

547
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:51,000
And one was very interesting to me because in the summer of 56, my wife and I, returning from Denver,

548
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:57,000
came over hill, saw what we thought was Venus, bright in the western sky, we were marveled at its brightness,

549
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:00,000
and then suddenly it started to move.

550
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:07,000
And that was unusual in our experience, and so we stopped the car and got out.

551
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:16,000
And we did, we topped the hill overlooking Boulder, Colorado, and either the light had dropped or else

552
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:20,000
as we topped the hill, we could see that the light was between us and the flat iron,

553
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:23,000
so that I assumed it wasn't Venus, although I'm not an astronomer,

554
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:27,000
so I don't know whether Venus can drop down over Boulder, Colorado.

555
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:34,000
And it was light enough when we first saw it that I couldn't distinguish balloon or helicopter,

556
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:41,000
and the hovering and the movement suggested that it wasn't responding to wind,

557
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:43,000
unless wind was very verbal, and so was it.

558
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:51,000
Now there are many possibilities, and I recognize that I'm not qualified in terms of a meteorological or astronomical phenomenon

559
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:56,000
to suggest what it is or what it is not to, but nevertheless it suggests to me that there is a mystery.

560
00:45:56,000 --> 00:46:02,000
Well, on this matter of mystery, which is so great, could I turn to you on this?

561
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:11,000
The implication in so much of this literature is that if people really wanted to find out whether there is anything to this or not,

562
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:15,000
there could be a range, let us say, a team of scientists.

563
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:22,000
So the problem, perhaps, as Mr. Menzel said, is not fundamentally an astronomer's problem, it's another field.

564
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:26,000
Now you spoke of the reproducibility of these situations.

565
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:31,000
If there is a certain reproducibility in it, you see any conceivable way

566
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:37,000
whether this matter could be settled once and for all, if the government or a foundation or somebody or another

567
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:39,000
wanted to set up a situation to do it.

568
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:43,000
Well, this has been the big problem. There hasn't been any reproducibility.

569
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:47,000
You get an account here and then several months later somewhere else, and...

570
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:52,000
But in this particular case, it looked like maybe if we'd have gone up there and sat around and watched,

571
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:59,000
like a few of the people did, we could have done something sensible in the way of all we could get cameras

572
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:03,000
with very large apertures and sensitive film and sit there and wait,

573
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:08,000
try and expose them properly so they're not blurs and see if we get pictures of what's seen and so on.

574
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:09,000
So from the scientific point of view...

575
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:12,000
We would have been a chance to do something of this sort.

576
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,000
And I suppose the chance might arise again.

577
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:15,000
There were still...

578
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,000
The report will still continue when I left.

579
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:21,000
Mr. Menzel, would you agree with that from a scientific point of view when you put...

580
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:26,000
I agree that we certainly could do a lot more toward the scientific investigation

581
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:29,000
of the phenomena of flying saucers than we have.

582
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:36,000
But I would certainly like to come back to this question of the question of hallucinations and cameras

583
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:41,000
because there have been many, many hopes and there have been many unintentional hopes

584
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:45,000
because of internal reflections in cameras.

585
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:52,000
And it's very questionable just to believe what you see on a camera film

586
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:55,000
just because the camera has recorded it.

587
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:58,000
The only good ones have a good story to go with it, I think.

588
00:47:58,000 --> 00:47:59,000
Well, I think that probably...

589
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:01,000
Picture by itself surely has no value.

590
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:05,000
I've got some of my weekdays that I spent all last week faking.

591
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:10,000
Most of the hopes that we have of the right film have been accompanied by photographs.

592
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:11,000
Oh, yes.

593
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:13,000
No, I don't count a photograph at all.

594
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:14,000
But you mentioned that...

595
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:17,000
I spent so much time out there trying to check it out.

596
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:22,000
A moment ago you took Dr. Menzel to task or the astronomers in general

597
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:26,000
for not fulfilling their duty in studying these.

598
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:32,000
And I must side here with Dr. Menzel and saying that science doesn't work this way.

599
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:34,000
Scientists do what they want.

600
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:37,000
If they were really interested, they'd do it.

601
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:41,000
If they were interested, motivated, why they'd be studying it.

602
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:43,000
I think the thing to do is to get them interested.

603
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:46,000
Well, now on this matter of should they take it seriously,

604
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:52,000
and I could bring up this association so that our audience will have the estimate of you gentlemen.

605
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:57,000
There's an association called the Aerial Phenomenon for the Search Organization,

606
00:48:57,000 --> 00:49:03,000
of which Ms. Carol Lorenzen is the director.

607
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:07,000
I read some of the book and I thought he is very worried.

608
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:13,000
He says, it is the author's serious contention that mankind is on the brink of space-born catastrophe.

609
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:21,000
The evidence in hand is of such magnitude and portents that she cannot with conscience ignore or withhold it.

610
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:28,000
What kind of an organization is this? Is this some form of hysteria? Is this what?

611
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:34,000
If it is, I'm part of it because I belong to the organization and I myself have been interested in...

612
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:38,000
The book I'm referring to is The Great Flying Salsa House.

613
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:43,000
From my acquaintance, which is brief of Mr. and Mrs. Lorenzen,

614
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:47,000
I'm very impressed not only with their sincerity but also with their work.

615
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:53,000
And also I might say this, we've been talking about scientific investigation,

616
00:49:53,000 --> 00:50:00,000
and I believe also, Vallez with the book Jacques Valet has suggested various kinds of investigators,

617
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:03,000
might be a part of a team and I think that's very good.

618
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:07,000
But I also believe that it requires a cooperation of many people.

619
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:14,000
And in this sense, I think that the more public is aware of the information

620
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:21,000
and is regarded as part of a cooperative venture, but this is all to the good.

621
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:28,000
I recently completed a study concerning people who are interested in the U.S. whole reports

622
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:36,000
and find that with this particular sample, the average years of education in this group, 14 years,

623
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:43,000
although they score differently on dogmatism than psychologists and guidance workers,

624
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:46,000
they're still within what might be called the average range.

625
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:50,000
They are in the middle, upper middle and lower middle classes.

626
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:56,000
These people, at least insofar as group characteristics are concerned,

627
00:50:56,000 --> 00:51:02,000
represent to me the kind of people that we want in many endeavors.

628
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:10,000
And it seems to me that they ought to be included, these kinds of people ought to be included in any kind of scientific investigation.

629
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:18,000
Mr. Heineck, would you agree with his general estimate of Mr. Sprigwell's general estimate of the aerial phenomenon research organization?

630
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:22,000
I'm not alone from what little I know of it.

631
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:32,000
I suppose any organization has a wide spectrum of people in it, but I would think I would agree.

632
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:38,000
I'm very glad you brought up this whole point of scientists paying more attention to it,

633
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:43,000
because you asked several times why don't astronomers and scientists pay more attention.

634
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:51,000
Well, even though UFO is only a three letter word, it is a dirty word as far as scientists are concerned.

635
00:51:51,000 --> 00:52:01,000
And in general, serious scientists have not been aware or cared to become aware of the UFO phenomenon, which you might call it,

636
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:06,000
because it's always been their subject of ridicule, banter and railery.

637
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:08,000
Always good for a laugh or a snicker.

638
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:17,000
And the reason, of course, there's been the subject of ridicule and banter and so forth is that precisely because scientists have paid no attention to the phenomenon,

639
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:22,000
and find that they paid no attention to the phenomenon because it is an object of ridicule, a vicious circle.

640
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:25,000
Well, because the Air Force had anything to do with it being an object of ridicule.

641
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:26,000
That's what worries me.

642
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:33,000
Don't we ignore it because we think, well, they're taking care of it, and they say that there's nothing to it, so that's sad.

643
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:39,000
I think I can leave that one by saying that as a consultant of the Air Force,

644
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:47,000
I have now strongly recommended to the Air Force directly that a panel of scientists be set up,

645
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:54,000
not only astronomers and physicists and psychologists and various, to study the total UFO phenomenon,

646
00:52:54,000 --> 00:53:00,000
not whether we're being visited or not, but for the first step there is that people have got to do some homework.

647
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:05,000
I've looked at these things for 18 years, over 10,000 reports, and I'm still puzzled.

648
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:11,000
We talked about this in a minute signal where we're about to go off the air.

649
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:17,000
Is this something that you would go along with as a sensible suggestion, Mr. Mandel?

650
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:27,000
There's one point that I'd like to make in conclusion, and this is that there are hundreds and probably thousands of different kinds of flying saucers,

651
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:36,000
and they have natural explanations in terms of natural phenomena, in terms of reflections from material objects.

652
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:40,000
You don't think the scientific group is necessary?

653
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:54,000
Well, I think that it could help in the elucidation of some of the more erudite varieties, many of which I'd better get it myself.

654
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:58,000
I'm sorry, gentlemen, I do have to take this off the air. Thank you very much.

655
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:03,000
Mr. Springfield, Mr. Fuller, Mr. Mandel, Mr. Salisbury, and Mr. Heineck.

656
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,000
Thank you for being with us, ladies and gentlemen, and goodbye for this week.

657
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:15,000
WNBC-TV has presented the Open Mind, moderated by Eric F. Goldman, professor of history at Princeton University.

658
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:21,000
Today's distinguished panel has been discussing our flying saucers only science fiction.

659
00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:28,000
This has been a WNBC-TV public affairs presentation. This program was prerecorded.