Taken from
Carl Sagan and Thornton Page:
UFOs - A Scientific Debate
Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, 134th meeting of the
American Association of Science (AAAS), 26./27. December 1969
(Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London 1972)
p.190-210
-------------------------------------------------------


  Robert M.L. Baker:

  Motion Pictures of UFO's


  The data that I have reviewed and analyzed since 1954 lead me
to believe that there is substantial evidence to support the
claim that an unexplained phenomenon - or phenomena - is present
in the environs of the earth, but that it may not be ''flying,''
may not always be ''unidentified,'' and may not even take the
form of substantive ''objects.'' I would, therefore, prefer the
label ''Anomalistic Observational Phenomena'' rather than
''UFO.'' In this report, I will concentrate on the anomalistic
observational phenomena as depicted in motion pictures, and will
not attempt to support any particular hypothesis as to the
source of the phenomena. I will show and analyze four film
clips, and discuss two others in a brief fashion. Two of these
films - the Montana 1950 and the Utah 1952 films - have been
dealt with rather thoroughly in the past. The third was taken by
Policeman William Fisher on March 9, 1967, in Moline, Illinois,
and has not, to my knowledge, been as thoroughly analyzed as the
first two clips. The fourth film was taken by Clifford C. DeLacy
at Kaimuki, Honolulu, Hawaii, on January 3, 1958, and I do not
know of any thorough analysis.

  I believe that these film clips are rather typical of the
anomalistic or UFO motion pictures. Although I am convinccd that
many of the films indeed demonstrated anomalistic phenomena,
they all have the characteristic of rather ill-defined blobs of
light, and one can actually gain from them little insight into
the real character of the phenomena. For example, linear
distance, speed, and acceleration cannot be determined
precisely, nor can size and mass. This situation is not
particularly surprising, since, without a special-purpose sensor
system expressly designed to obtain information pertinent to
anomalistic observational phenomena, or a general-purpose sensor
system operated so as not to disregard such data, the chance for
obtaining high-quality hard data is quite small.

  The films are rather ungratifying subjects for research,
because of their low information content (they simply show
little dots of light) and because their analysis must often
rely, in part, on the soft data of eye-witness reports. Only two
generalizations can be made: the photographic images usually
occur in pairs and usually exhibit a slightly elliptical form.


  Montana 1950 Film

  Two anomalistic unidentifi@d flying objects were sighted and
a few moments later photographed at about 11:30 A.M. MST in
August 1950 (exact date is uncertain, but shadows on the film
confirm the time of day given by the witnesses) by Nicholas
Mariana at Great Falls, Montana. Mr. Mariana owned and operated
a radio station in Missoula, Montana, and was owner of the Great
Falls baseball team. He habitually kept a movie camera, used in
the UFO photography, in the trunk of his car. All of the soft
data (eyewitness reports of Mr. Mariana and hi secretary)
indicated the objects were silvery in appearance with a notch or
band at one point on their peripheries and could be seen to
rotate in unison, hover, and then ''with a swishing sound,
floated away to the left [South].'' The film itself is
disappointing and only shows two inarticulate bright white dots,
which passed behind a water tower.

  Figure 8-1 is adapted from a land survey of the area made by
Henen Engineering Company, and indicates the location of the
Anaconda smokestack. Mariana and his secretary were looking
toward this smokestack while standing ten to fifteen feet in
front of the turnstile on the right of the figure when they
first viewed the objects moving from the north toward the water
tower. (He had been looking at the smokestack in order to
determine the wind direction.) The movie-camera directions of
the first frame and the last frame are shown in Figure 8-1, as
determined by iconolog (a film viewer with movable cross-hairs
and a digitalized output) measurements.

  The path of the objects as they passed behind the water tower
is shown in Figures 8-2 and 8-8. The angular data were obtained
as noted by utilizing the reference points marked 3, 5, and 6.

  Figure 8-3 shows the manner in which the diameter of the
bright objects decreased with time. These measurements made by
the author are the least accurate of the data because of the
smallness of the dimensions and the fuzziness of the images. The
image of any light source as seen by either the eye or a camera
can appear much larger than the source itself. This fact had
obvious bearing on the analysis of the film, so I undertook a
photographic experiment during December 1955. The experiment was
designed to obtain empirical information on the effects of
distance, lens focal length, iris stop, frame speed, and other
factors on the photographic images of various bright sources of
sunlight. Some 118 combinations of these variables were
examined.

  Figure 8-4 shows the variety of diffuse and specularly
reflecting objects chosen. The experimental results, using a
camera similar to Mariana's, appeared to indicate that if the
first few frames of the film show sun reflections from, say,
airplanes which were optimally oriented with respect to the sun,
then the planes would have been one to three miles distant from
the camera. If, however, these first few frames represent images
of the reflections of airplanes not quite optimally oriented,
then the planes could have been closer. In either event, their
structure would have been visible.

  Figure 8-5 compares an enlargement of one of the frames of the
Montana film (a copy of a copy, at reduced contrast) with a
frame taken during the photographic experiment showing jet
planes, optimally oriented with respect to the sun. The light
reflection images are comparable to those found on the Montana
film, but the structure of the aircraft is clearly visible.

 The Montana film contains six independent quantities that vary
with time through about 225 frames (frames 65 to 290). These
quantities describe the UFO images: the two degrees of freedom
of each dot measured from the film after the foreground appears,
on frame 65, and the two apparent diameters of the developed
image as measured on all 290 frames. In the analysis it was
convenient to treat the two UFO's as a system. The four degrees
of freedom chosen for this system were azimuth and altitude of
the midpoint on the line of centers between the UFO images,
their angular separation, and their inclination to the horizon.
The inclination angle was found to be very small, the objects
appearing to move almost in a plane parallel to the ground.
There is a slight decrease in the angle of inclination as the
objects regress, but its small value is almost masked by random
errors inherent in the measurements.

  Figure 8-6 is a time-plot of the angular altitude, h, and the
azimuth, A, of the midpoint of the line of centers after frame
65, and Figure 8-7 shows the separation-distance ratio To/T as
a function of time, where To is the initial angular separation
on frame 1 and T is the angular separation at any given time.
Some frames were not measured, due to the obscuration of the
images behind the water tower. There were two frames missing
between frame numbers 177 and 180 on the 35 mm print that was
measured for separation distance, but these were accounted for
in the time scale, using the 16 mm original as a basis. About
225 frames after the foreground (ventilator duct) appears on the
film, the objects can no longer be clearly identified, and
measurements become very uncertain.

  In Figures 8-6 and 8-7 the dotted lines represent what would
be the locus of data points if the objects remained the same
linear distance apart and moved linearly in a horizontal plane
on headings, D, of 169 Degrees to 177 Degrees. All of the data
seem to be consistent with the foregoing assumptions and a
heading of 171 Degrees. Of course, one cannot absolutely rule
out some other curvilinear motion of the objects. However, any
such motion would necessitate the coincidence of azimuth,
altitude, separation, all varying proportionally in some very
peculiar fashion tolerance of one per cent.

  Figure 8-8 is a map of Great Falls, Montana, showing the
motion of the UFO's at various hypothetical distances. (No
absolute determination of distance can be made on the basis of
the angular data.) It also shows where Mariana and his secretary
first viewed the ''hovering and rotating'' near an Anaconda
smokestack.

  W.K. Hartmann also analyzed the film clip and investigated the
ellipticity of the images (which I had originally attributed to
blurring caused by irregular panning). He computed the apparent
inclination, i, of the disk-shaped images, where i =
1/(sin(b/a)) with a and b being the major and minor axes of the
elliptical image. Hartmann found (see Table 3, p. 414, of the
Condon Report) clear evidence of camera motion in frame 2, but
that otherwise there was a constant ellipticity or flattening of
the fuzzy images, with a = 1.15*b, or i = 60 Degrees. Such
ellipticity would be consistent with an oblate form such as a
disk, or with a consistently flared reflection. The data are not
really precise enough to make a firm hypothesis.

  After more than a decade of speculation and hypothesis checks,
all natural phenomena (birds, balloons, insects, meteors,
mirages, and so forth) have been ruled out. (Since the date of
the photograph is uncertain, weather bureau reports are not
pertinent, but the uniform motion does not seem to be consistent
with balloons ) The main possibility is that of airplane
reflections or, perhaps, some airplane-related phenomenon such
as luminous shock waves. The airplane hypothesis may seem
attractive, but it does not really jibe with my analysis or with
Hartmann's. In short, planes at the largest distances compatible
with their speeds and the angular rate of the images would have
been identifiable on the film.


  Utah 1952 Film

  Several anomalistic objects were sighted and photographed at
about 11:10 A.M. MST on July 2, 1952, by Delbert C. Newhouse at
a point on State Highway 30, seven miles north of Tremonton,
Utah (see p. 13). Newhouse, a Chief Warrant Officer in the U.S.
Navy, was driving from Washington, D.C., to Portland, Oregon
with his wife, and their two children. Shortly after passing
through the city of Tremonton, his wife noticed a group of
strange shining objects off toward the eastern horizon. She
called them to her husband's attention and prevailed upon him to
stop the car. When he got out he observed twelve to fourteen of
the objects and was sufficiently impressed by their peculiar
appearance to run to the trunk, get out his camera, and begin
filming. There was no reference point above the horizon, so he
was unable to estimate size, speed, or distance. He reports that
one of the objects reversed its course and proceeded away from
the rest of the group; he held the camera still and allowed this
single object to pass across the field of view of the camera,
picking it up later in its course. He repeated this for three
passes.

  The images on the color film are small and relatively sharp,
as confirmed by Hartmann's analysis (p. 422 of the Condon
Report), but with no background, they are difficult to identify.
Figure 8-9 shows two of relative motions, each utilizing one of
the objects as a reference point. There is a general tendency
for the objects to move in pairs - although not nearly as
uniformly as the Montana objects. Figure 8-10 is a blowup of one
of the frames of the Utah film and exhibits the configuration.

  The tendency for a camera man to pan with the objects would
yield an underestimate of their angular rate. Our measurements
show that if the objects were at, say, 2,000 feet they would be
moving about 9 miles per hour and pulling about 0.25 g
acceleration relative to one another.

  The single object moving across the field of view would be
traveling about 54 miles per hour at this distance. Although the
images are sharply in focus, it is difficult to estimate any
consistent flattening or ellipticity.

  A rather appealing explanation is that these objects were
birds. On the other hand, this motion is not what one would
expect from a flock of soaring birds; there are erratic
brightness fluctuations, but there is no indication of periodic
decreases in brightness due to turning with the wind or
flapping. No cumulus clouds are shown on the film that might
betray the presence of a thermal updraft. In addition, there is
the soft-data question of why a person would be so struck by a
flock of birds milling about that he would go to the trouble of
photographing them. Hartmann says that he has witnessed flights
of white gulls at Tremonton in motions that might have
duplicated those on the Utah film, but that he had no camera to
verify this. I have never seen bird formations so striking that
I would not recognize them as birds, or so unusual that I would
film them. The motion pictures I have taken of birds at various
distances have no similarity to the Utah film. Thus, to my mind,
the bird hypothesis is not very satisfying and I classify the
objects as anomalistic observational phenomena.


  Illinois 1967 Film

  The Illinois film was taken by William Fisher, a patrolman
with the Moline Police Department, at about 1:30 P.M. on March
9, 1967, near the intersection of 14th Street and 16th Avenue,
Moline, Illinois. In a telephone interview, Mr. Fisher told me
that when he first observed the object just above and to the
north of some trees, moving west, he thought that it was an
airplane coming toward him. He then noticed that it was just
hovering, had a ''football'' shape, and exhibitcd a ''gold-
like'' reflection, and a ''machined or tooled'' surface with a
definite shadow underneath. The sun was near the zenith. Fisher
dismounted from his motorcycle (leaving the motor idling) in a
state of disbelief. He remembered that he had his camera
available, a Holiday 8 mm with a Mansfield turret (which leaves
uncertain which lens was employed), and began filming. As he
continued filming, he said that the object ''drifted'' away to
the northwest and finally became ''infinitely small'' and
disappeared from view after a few minutes (and after Fisher had
run out of film). Fisher then said he viewed a second object
about one or two minutes later. It followed about the same path
as the first, and he attempted to film it, but his film was
exhausted.

  Fisher said that a number of other people had observed both of
the anomalous images. He asked them what they thought they had
seen in order not to ''prejudice their testimony.'' A Mrs. Leo
Schmitz indicated to Fisher after the first object had passed
that she had seen an oval-shaped object moving in the sky and
had heard a sound ''like air escaping from a tire.'' (Fisher
heard nothing except the idling noise of his motorcycle, leaving
as the most plausible explanation that there was indeed air
escaping from a tire.) A Mrs. Frank Daebellihn, several nuns,
and a number of children indicated that they had seen two
strange objects.

  I discussed the sighting with Mrs. Schmitz, who confirmed that
she had seen the object but said that she noticed no metallic or
textured surface. It appeared to her to be white, and did not
shine as if by reflection or self-illumination. (Fisher agreed
that ''On my initial viewing the object did appear to be
off-white or dull silver and did not reflect as intensely as it
did during later viewings.'') Mrs. Schmitz said that it appeared
to be more elliptical than a football, ''at least twice as wide
as it was high.'' She was sure that it hovered and then moved
off. She stated that she could see it ''very clearly, more
clearly than the movie ... showed it.'' She was not positive
that it was not a bird or an airplane, but she could not concede
that it could have been a balloon or a blimp. The sighting
''absolutcly amazed'' her. She stopped her car near Fisher and
felt compelled to watch the object, then left after the first
object passed and was not present to confirm the presence of the
second. She wrote to Allen K. Utke of Wisconsin State University
about the sighting, and Utke also received a letter from Mrs.
Frank Daebellihn who wrote that the object was ''oblong'' and
''real shiny,'' but she also admitted to ''not too good eye
sight.''

  The UFO film clip is, typically, very disappointing and only
shows a small oval ''blob'' of light decreasing in size against
a plain blue-sky background. There are little hard data present
on the film. Microscopic examinations show a definite
ellipticity on the first few frames, but it is masked by poor
atmospheric seeing. Figure 8-11 is a copy of a frame supplied by
Professor Utke. The elliptical inclination, i, varies between
about 18 Degrees and 45 Degrees on the initial frames. Fisher
could only estimate it at about 45 Degrees. He was adamant that
the objects were not balloons because they appeared to be
heading into a 30- to 40-mile-per-hour wind, and he seemed
equally certain that they were not birds or airplanes.

  Professor Utke and William Powers of Northwestern University
had studied this sighting, and I discussed it with them. Utke
was very familiar with the area and found that there had been a
number of related visual sightings there at about the same time.
(Several of these were documented by R.B. Dyke, Director of a
UFO Research Committee, which he formed.) Utke had contacted the
Midwest Central Weather Bureau and the Moline Airport; there was
no weather balloon launching nera the time of the filming, and
the winds were 15 knots SSW at the surface, 30 to 35 knots at
3,000 feet, and 25 to 30 knots at 5,000 feet WSE. The object's
reported motion was cast to west, more than 90 Degrees off the
wind direction. Utke suspected that the anomalistic phenomena
''had something to do with the Rock Island Arsenal,'' primarily
because of the arsenal's proximity.

  Powers had viewed the film several times, without detailed
study, and he was convinced that the object was not Venus and
not an airplane. He had learned at the Moline Airport that there
were C-131 aircraft and heliocopters [?] there, but that none
was airborne at or near the time of the sightings.

  About all that can be concluded from the Illinois film is that
an elliptical image was photographed, that its angular size
gradually decreased, and that there was no periodic or sudden
change in its luminosity. Because of the length of the filmed
sequence and the uniformly changing ''brightness'' of the
object, the airplane and bird hypotheses are difficult to
support. Balloons cannot really be ruled out on the basis of the
elliptical image, although the witness reports them unlikely.


  Hawaii 1958 Film

  The Hawaii film was taken by Clifford DeLacy, at that time a
student majoring in nuclear physics at Vallejo Junior College.
He related that the film was taken at about 4 P.M. on January 3,
1958, in his mother-in-law's back yard near Harding Avenue and
6th Street, Kimuki, Honolulu, Hawaii, where he was on vacation.
He was relaxing in the the back yard when he was startled at the
appearance of some nine objects ''flashing across the sky in a
northwesterly direction grouped in pairs.'' They were estimated
to be about 40 Degrees above the horizon. He called to his wife
and then went into the house to fetch his camera equipment, a
tripod and an 8 mm Revere movie camera with a 11/2 '' telephoto
lens. Exicitedly he began filming without the tripod. After a
few seconds he calmed down, set the camera on the tripod, and
completed the filming. At the beginning, DeLacy was successful
in shooting the tops of trees in order to establish a reference
point for the angular rate and, after a survey, the angular
altitude and azimuth.

  DeLacy had made a hobby of studying UFO's and stated that ''in
my opinion, a good 90 per cent of all the reports concerning
'flying saucers' are mere hallucinations - or worse.'' His color
film involves two very brief sequences showing anomalous images
sandwiched in between conventional amateur travel film
sequences. It starts with a typical Hawaiian sunset scene and
closeups of flowers. The dull and degraded nature of the color
and the lack of contrast indicates typical poor quality of a
copy of amateur movie color film. After the flowers, there is a
blue sky with traces of cumulo-nimbus cloud formations and some
tree tops (DeLacy estimates that he was about 15 to 30 feet from
the trees and that they were about 15 feet high). After about 10
seconds, two very fuzzy moving objects can be barely identified
moving from right to left. Apparently, DeLacy then placed his
camera on the tripod, and one can see a wiggly line on the right
for just a few frames. There is no evidence on the film that an
object made a sharp turn; it might have, but it is more
reasonable to suppose unsteady handling of the camera.

  At this point all foreground disappears, and one very bright
image can be seen moving across the sky and a glimpse of a
second object. The camera is still a bit jittery, but
microscopic examination tends to show that the elliptical image
is not entirely due to irregular panning. The whole UFO sequence
lasts but 25 or 30 seconds, although DeLacy says that the entire
visual sighting lasted about 5 minutes. It is followed by other
home-movie scenes. As is usual, the film is not a dramatic and
exciting portrayal ot anomalistic phenomena by any means.
Actually the information content is a bit better than one would
expect, primarily because of the foreground. The angular
velocities appear rather high, partly because of the 1,5 ''
telephoto lens (3'' lenses were used for the Montana and Utah
films).

  By running the film backward and taking great care to identify
the very fuzzy initial images, one can establish an angular
velocity with respect to the trees that is between 0.03 and 0.12
radians per second, (larger than the Utah film's 0.01 to 0.07
radians per second, relative, and the Montana film's 0.02
radians per second, absolute). A more careful study could
establish the angular rate rather precisely (each frame covers
about 0.125 radians in breadth, and the images appear to move in
some frames at one frame-width per 16 frames with respect to the
foreground features). More analysis is needed of the images
assumed constant frame speed (16 frames per second), and a
survey of the tree locations would have to be made in order to
substantiate this tentative conclusion. If the high angular rate
is correct, then the UFO's would have been moving transversely
at about 900 miles per hour at a distance of 2 miles. At this
distance aircraft would have been identifiable as I discussed in
the Montana film clip analysis. The clarity of the tree tops
probably indicates a good focus. At 2,000-feet range, birds
would have to have been moving at about 170 miles per hour
transversely.

  DeLacy reported that the objects were solid, dull to bright.
The only other witnesses were his wife Jacqueline and his
mother-in-law Mrs. Abel M. Rodrigucz. The marine airfield tower
operator reportedly told DeLacy that no jets were in the area.
DeLacy feels strongly that he was not photographing birds. He
estimated that some of the anomalous objects moved three to five
times faster than a jet might move at a distance of a mile or
two.


  Other Films

  About two-thirds of the UFO films (or films that purport to
show anomalistic observational phenomena) that I have viewed
have been hoaxes or obviously conventional phenomena, or after
anlaysis, an unusual film of a natural phenomenon. I have chosen
in the foregoing discussion some examples of films that I
interpret as involving anomalous observational phenomena. There
exists other photography I would like to mention next but,
unfortunately, very limited analysis of this photography has
been accomplished to date.


  Florida 1955 Film

  During the course of the analysis of the Utah and Montana film
at Douglas Aircraft Company, I had the opportunity to view
gun-can photographs taken over Florida. Unfortunately, we could
not retain this film, and did not have time to do an analysis,
and determine the exact circumstances of the filming, e.g.,
exactly when and where it was taken and the details of the gun
camera and the pilot's reactions.

  The Florida film was disappointing; it showed only a pair of
white-dot images. However, since a foreground was present, an
accurate study could have been carried out. The director of the
Douglas Aircraft research office, Dr. W.B. Klemperer, agreed
with me on a preliminary conclusion - not supported by detailed
analysis - that no ordinary natural phenomenon was a likely
source for the images.


  Venezuela 1963 Film

  In June of 1963 I reccived a movie film clip from Richard Hall
of NICAP that had purportedly been taken from a DC-3 aircraft
near Angel Falls, Venezuela, at about 12:15 P.M. This clip was
8 mm color film, exposed at 16 frames per second, and showed a
very bright yellow, slightly pear-shaped object that disappeared
in a cloud bank after 60 or 70 frames. At the time I was head of
the Lockeed [?] Aircraft Company Astrodynamics Research Center,
where two photogrammetricists, P.M. Merifield and James
Rammelkamp, were able to undertake a study of the film. They
found little of interest, and after their preliminary
examination I expended considerable effort in further analysis.
Again, I was only able to conclude that the yellow object was no
known natural phenomenon; but before we could make accurate
measurements of angular rates and acceleration, the film was
lost. We had one microphotograph of the object on one frame
shown in Figure 8-12.


  Oregon 1950 Pictures

  This filming took place on a farm just south of U.S. Highway
99W and southwest of McMinnville, Oregon, on May 11, 1950.
(Since Hartmann's comprehensive analyses for the Condon report,
there have been some questions raised with respect to the tiome
of the phtography.) One witness, who reportedly saw a metallic-
looking, disk-shaped UFO, called another from the farmhouse and
after excitedly searching for their camera the second witness
took two still shots (Figure 8-13), both of which concluded
overhead wires, although these are not visible in the
reproduction. Hartmann carried out a thorough analysis (see pp.
396-407 of the Condon Report). His conclusions are as follows:

  This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors
  investigated, geometric. psychological, and physical appear to
  be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying
  object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in
  diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of the
  two witnesses. It cannot be said that the evidence positively
  rules out a fabrication, although there are some physical
  factors such as the accuracy of certain photometric measures
  of the original negatives which argue against a fabrication.


  England 1971 Film

  At about noon on December 15, 1971, six members of an ATV film
unit observed an object, which according to the cameraman, Noel
Smart, was ''bright silver ... changed to a bright fluorescent
or luminous type of orange ... hovering ... and then flying of
with a ... vapor trail ...'' They recorded the object on 16 mm
color film near Redford Bridge, Enstone, Oxfordshire, England.
Typically, the film is difficult to analyze. One brief filmed
sequence exhibits a broad trail, which I have never witnessed
before. The object could be an aircraft dumping fuel or a
conventional aircraft accompanicd by a vapor trail.

  Bause of the color and motion of the filmed object much more
analysis would be required in order to be more certain of these
natural phenomenon explanations.


  Conclusions

  As already mentioned, ''UFO'' films are ungratifying for
research - at least those I have seen to date. Amateur
photographic equipment is usually brought into action after the
most remarkable aspect of the phenomenon has passed, the
photographer is usually excited, his camera is not at hand, and
he is ill prepared to do an adequate photographic job.
Furthermore, films taken with amateur or even protessional
photographic equipment cannot be expected to be adequate for
photogrammetric analysis as would, for example, cinetheodolite
films. Thus, we find ourselves viewing images of little blobs or
dots of light. About the only correlation among them is that the
images are usually elliptical and usually come in pairs. The
characteristics of these blobs and dots may rule out most
natural interpretations, but they cannot define what really is
being portrayed on the film. It is frustrating to analyze these
films. One often wishes to grasp at some candidate natural
phenomenon, only to find this first theory shaken and, in all
honesty, to discover that the natural-phenomena hypothesis is
faulty and should not be further maintained.

  If the only alternatives to birds, airplane reflections,
mirages, ballons, Venus, and so forth were little green men from
another solar system scooting around in flying saucers, then one
would be forced to say that such creatures and machines are so
unlikely that _any_ alternative, no matter how hard it is to
justify, is ''better.'' I do not hold to this concept of _one_
alternative hypothesis. I believe that photos _are_ hard
observational data (albeit extremely vague in meaning due to low
information content), data that result from some poorly
understood phenomenon or phenomena. It may be that these
photographed phenomena are related to ball lightning, or the
rocket effect in small comets entering our atmosphere, or
ephemeral natural meteoritic satellites of the earth, or a
thousand other things. Whatever they are, we are obliged to find
out more about them. It is my conclusion that there are only so
many quantitative data that can be squeezed out of the vast
amounts collected to date, including the ''bit buckets'' of
surveillance-radar uncorrelated targets (UCT's).

  I believe that we will frustrate ourselves by endless
arguments over past, incomplete data-scenarios; what we necd is
more sophisticated analysis of fresh observational anomalistic
data. We must come up with more than just a rehash of old data
such as the fuzzy white dots in Figures 8-SA and 8-10.

  It seems very unlikely that existing optical and radar
monitoring systems would collect the type of quantitative data
required to identify the phenomena. Moreover, we currently have
no satisfactory basis upon which to evaluate the credibility of
the myriads of eyewitness reports. Thus, continuing to
''massage'' past reports of anomalistic events would seem to be
a waste of our scientific resources.

  In balance, then, I conclude that we are not now, nor have we
been in the past, able to achieve even partially complete
surveillance of space in the vicinity of the earth sufficient to
provide statistical information on anomalistic phenomenon. Hard
data on anomalistic observational phenomena do exist, but they
are of poor quality because of the equipment employed in
obtaining them. Soft data on anomalistic phenomena also exist,
most of them of doubtful credibility. Experiments be devised,
and study programs should be initiated, expressly to define
anomalistic data better. In order to justify such experiments
and associated studies, it is not necessary to presuppose the
existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life operating in the
environs of the earth, or to speculate about ''their'' advanced
engineering capabilities or psychological motivations.