From: Sir Arthur C. B. E. Wholeflaffers A.S.A. <nospam@newsranger.com>
Subject: James McDonald
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James McDonald by Stanton Freidman

For more than 30 years I have been touting the outstanding UFO research of the
late Dr. James E. McDonald (May 7, 1920�June 12, 1971). Jim was a professor of
physics in the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona in
Tucson.

He was an outstanding scientist who looked in depth at every scientific problem
that caught his attention, which covered a great deal of ground indeed.

Between 1960 and his death in 1971, he interviewed more than 5 500 UFO
witnesses, made presentations about UFOs to a host of professional groups from
coast to coast and in Australia, wrote a number of papers, and provided
inspiration to APRO and especially to NICAP.	

His dogged persistence in not only tracking down witnesses, but using the
methods of science to destroy the foolish "explanations" put forth by Dr. Donald
Menzel, Philip Klass, and others, should provide a model for all those seeking
the truth about flying saucers.

Finally there has been a book published that thoroughly explores his UFO
activities. Ann Druffel, herself a long time UFO researcher in the Los Angeles
area, has authored a splendid book, Firestorm: Dr. James E. McDonald's Fight for
UFO Science. The text alone covers 587 pages. With appendices and index, the
total will be about 640 pages.

Ann had full access to Jim's very voluminous and detailed files, and transcribed
loads of notes. He was very well organized. Having had brief access to those
files decades ago, with Richard Greenwell, I can testify to his extraordinary
persistence and objectivity.

Having met Jim several times when he met with our NICAP group in Pittsburgh, I
can't find fault at all with Ann's portrayal of Jim McDonald the person, as well
as Jim the scientist. He gave unstintingly of himself to all who sought
assistance.

It was Jim who was primarily responsible for the Hearings held by the House of
Representatives Committee on Science and Astronautics on July 29,1968. The
246-page Proceedings of that Symposium are one of the five major scientific
sources that I stress in my college lectures "Flying Saucers ARE Real," not
because I contributed in writing, but because there is so much good material,
especially Jim's contribution.

I consider his 71 -page paper the best single paper available on excellent cases
which were very well investigated. There are 41 different cases noted, including
multiple witness cases, radar/visual sightings, sightings over big cities, and
sightings by astronomers, meteorologists, and pilots. His paper is available in
an easier to read format from UFORI, POB 958, Houlton, ME 04730-0958 for $10.00,
including first class postage.

One of the many themes running through Ann's book is the ongoing battle between
Jim and Northwestern University astronomer, (and Project Blue Book Science
Consultant) J. Allen Hynek. Jim had visited Project Blue Book and was astonished
to find how many excellent sightings had been swept under the rug or
misidentified by Blue Book personnel and Hynek.

He was upset that Allen had not alerted the scientific community to how much
good information there was in the files, and how much poor investigation,
intentional or not, had been done.

Dr. Jacques Vallee, who wrote the foreword to Firestorm, was caught in the
middle between the two. He was more or less Hynek's protege, but seemed to
believe that more vigorous action could have been taken by Hynek.

Hynek and McDonald had very different personalities and very different
professional backgrounds. Jim was a very dynamic and thorough individual who
went at all scientific problems quantitatively, using his very extensive
knowledge of atmospheric physics to evaluate so called mirages, temperature
inversions, ball lightning, atmospheric plasmas, etc, to demolish claims about
these phenomena supposedly explaining UFO sightings, as put forth by Klass and
Menzel.

Allen rarely resorted to computations about these phenomena, and never seemed to
want to learn a lot about them. I noticed the same problem when I tried to get
him to look into the literature on interstellar travel. Much of it was by
aerospace engineers.

It is true that astronomers have almost always neglected aerospace engineering
when "investigating" the possibility of space travel in general and interstellar
travel in particular; they have almost always been totally wrong in their
computations because of making absurd assumptions.

Ann discusses in detail Jim's fight against the SuperSonic Transport program in
the 1960s. His focus was on the effect of the engine exhaust on the ozone layer
of the upper atmosphere. The concern was that reducing the ozone layer would
increase the level of ultraviolet radiation at the surface of the earth. and,
therefore, would lead to an increase in skin cancer.

There were, of course, aerospace companies and political jurisdictions that were
very much for the SST program because of the jobs it would create. Jim testified
in depth at congressional hearings, and was ridiculed be cause of his stand
(falsely described by a congressman on the committee) about UFOs. He was right
about the ozone. For economic reasons the UK-France consortium has recently
announced that the Concorde SST will soon stop flying as well.

Jim had also applied quantitative computations to evaluating the impact on
residents of Arizona cities if nuclear weapons were dropped on the missiles to
be emplaced to protect them. He pointed out that with the prevailing winds of
the area, the residents would have been exposed to much higher levels of fallout
than would have occurred if the missiles had been on the other side of the
cities. He thought science and the welfare of the people and the planet should
take precedence over political considerations.

Hynek seemed more concerned with keeping his consultant income for his Blue Book
work than really doing something about UFOs. Part of the problem was he
apparently needed the money to keep his children in university. Jim had 6
children, three of whom were also in college, in the late 1960�s, so this excuse
for inaction carried little weight with him.

Allen also seemed to feel that, by not making waves, he could keep his foot in
the door. McDonald clearly felt that this not only accomplished little, but
delayed the participation of many scientists who would have become involved, if
they had known there were so many good cases needing investigation. Most of the
scientific community apparently thought that with astronomers such as Hynek and
Menzel not claiming there was much going on, there was no point in even dipping
their toes in the ufological waters.

McDonald was understandably distressed when he finally managed to obtain a copy
of the Robertson Panel Report of 1953. He considered it a travesty, and Hynek's
failure to do anything about it while there-or afterwards-incomprehensible.

The unethical treatment of Jim by people like Phil Klass and Donald Menzel
becomes obvious when reviewing how Klass was responsible for the Navy backing
away from Jim's research contract (with the Office of Naval Research) on
atmospheric physics. Jim had done yeoman work and published many papers in
refereed scientific journals. Klass' misrepresentations about Jim and his work
certainly make one wonder who Klass worked for.

Ann talked to many of Jim's professional colleagues at the University of Arizona
and elsewhere, as well as to people who had been at NICAP when Jim had greatly
assisted Director Donald Keyhoe and associates, both in digging into cases and
encouraging contributions from members and others.

It is clear that the halls of academia are hardly a hotbed of courageous
professional people willing to risk status by gathering solid information. They
sure worry about reputations and status, even if they have tenure. Ann notes
that McDonnell-Douglas, a major government R and D and hardware supplier, also
expressed concerns about possible public discussions, such as at the 1968
Congressional Hearings or the 1999 American Association for the Advancement of
Science UFO Symposium by Dr. Robert M. Wood.

I consider myself extremely lucky that Westinghouse Astronuclear, when asked by
me for a policy statement about whether I could or could not lecture about
flying saucers, responded so well. I was told that I could say whatever I
pleased on my time, that I could state that I was a nuclear physicist employed
by Westinghouse, and that I should begin each presentation with a disclaimer
that the views they were about to hear were mine and not those of my employer.

The company was also asked to send me on an expense account to speak to the
American Nuclear Society Chapter at Los Alamos National Laboratory and to the
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers chapter in Wilmington,
Delaware. They did. Management had heard my lecture.

Jim McDonald spoke to dozens of such professional groups and prepared detailed
written presentations as well for many of them. They are extremely well done,
loaded with solid information. He even allowed our group in Pittsburgh to have
1000 copies of his paper "UFOs: Most Challenging Scientific Problem of Our Time"
to be printed and sold for $1 to help raise funds for our answering service,
newsletter, and investigations.

We assembled it on the large conference table in the offices of one of
Pittsburgh's largest accounting firms. Establishing credibility in the community
was helped by people like Jim, who lent respectability so that the media came to
us when the Condon Report was issued in January of 1969.

KDKA, Pittsburgh's most powerful radio station, actually told me they were
getting an advance copy, and would give it to me if I would appear on their big
talk show to discuss it. I agreed, not realizing the book was 963 pages long.
The newspapers asked for our views as well, and treated them with respect.
Speaking out carefully, after having done one's homework can encourage the
community to report sightings, and other scientists to come forth. Jim's
technical group efforts certainly encouraged many to take the subject more
seriously.

An important conflict within the book is the question of whether the
government's totally inept Blue Book investigations after Captain Edward
Ruppelt's reign were just a foul-up by people who didn't care and were not
scientific, or whether there was a cover-up.

Ann indicates that, before his death, McDonald had finally come around to the
position that there indeed was a cover-up, though he hadn't divulged whatever it
was he found that led him to this conclusion. Ann tried, but was unable to
determine what the information was.

It should be noted that Jim did not have the benefit of the Freedom of
Information Act to get at long covered up classified documents which, even
though often very heavily censored with black ink or white-out, establish a
cover-up.

I wonder what he would have thought about USAF General Carroll Bolender's
comment (20 October, 1969-obtained by Bob Todd a decade later) "Reports of UFOs
which could affect national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or
Air Force Manual 55-11 and are not part of the Blue Book System."

Ann deals very well with the real story of Jim's tragic death. I had done a
quiet investigation of my own at that time after several people told me that the
government must have killed Jim, and that I would be next. I spoke with Jim's
wife, his daughter, and a colleague at U of A to get the facts. It was indeed
suicide--an incredible loss to his family, the scientific community, and the
world.

He had been planning a book, which would have certainly done a lot to convince
the press, the public, and the scientific community of the importance of the UFO
problem. It was outlined, apparently, but certainly never written.

The official publication date for Firestorm is given by the publisher, Wild
Flower Press (ISBN 0-926524-58-5) as July 3, 2003. 

Stan Friedman fsphys~rogers.com and website www.vj-enterprises.com/stpage.html