UFO Symposium 1968: McDonald Case Studies

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During 1968 there were congressional hearing on the UFO subject. These are the prepared statements of James E. McDonald's used during his talk before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics.


Contents

Important passages, names, locations, dates, and other details

  1. Memorable Quote: "We have managed to so let our preconceptions block serious consideration of the possibility that some form of alien technology is operating within our midst that we have succeeded in simply ignoring the facts."[1]
  2. Resources / Names: "In my interviewing in 1947 sightings, done as a cross check on case material used in a very valuable recent publication by Bloecher (Ref. 8), I came to realize clearly for the first time that this reluctance was not something instilled by post-1947 scoffing at UFOs, but is part of a broadly disseminated attitude to discount the anomalous and the inexplicable, to be unwilling even to report what one has seen with his own eyes if it is well outside normal experience as currently accepted."[2]

    The publication being referenced here is Report on The UFO Wave of 1947.
  3. Terminology: "Hynek has a very happy phrase for this very typical pattern of witness-response: he terms it "escalation of explanation" , to denote the often rapid succession of increasingly more involved attempts to account for and to assimilate what is passing before the witness' eyes, almost invariably starting with an everyday interpretation, _not_ with a spaceship hypothesis."[3]
  4. Important passage: "I repeat: such instances are really quite rare; most of the general population has soaked up a degree of scientific conventionalism that reflects the net result of decades, if not centuries, of scientific shaping of our views." [3]

    Personal Note:I don't think I could have put it better myself. Science has without a doubt affected people and since physics dictates nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light it becomes impossible, even theoretically, for extraterrestrial creatures to travel to Earth in a reasonable time-frame. Thus UFOs being explained as extraterrestrial is by our current understanding laughable. The issue here is that science looks at what's currently known, testable, and proven to be fact. I wish we'd take a page from history and realize that like Newtonian physics we may find our current foundation isn't as universal as once thought. Or that there are economical ways to tap in to bending space / traveling through different universes of smaller size to traverse larger distances in our current reality.
  5. Interesting Detail / Names: "Occasionally one encounters witnesses for whom the chance of prior knowledge is so low as to be almost amusing. An Anglican missionary in New Guinea, Rev. N. E. G. Cruttwell (Ref. 9), who has done much interviewing of UFO witnesses in his area, has described testimony of natives who come down into the mission area from their highland home territory only when they are wallaby-hunting, natives who could not read UFO reports in any language of the world, yet who come around, in their descriptions of what they have seen, to the communications-shortcut of picking up a bowl or dish from a nearby table to suggest the shape they are seeking to describe in native tongue. Little chance of bias gained from reading magazines in a barber-chair in such instances."[4]
  6. Terminology: "("DLs" as they are called by the NICAP staff, on the basis that the profusion of reports of "damnable lights" meandering or hovering or racing across the night sky in unexplainable manner are one of the most common, yet one of the least useful and significant categories of UFO reports.)"[4]
  7. Thought Provoking: "There are many questions that one encounters again and again from persons who have done no personal casechecking and who maintain a healthy skepticism about UFOs. Why don't pilots report these things if they are buzzing around in our skies? Why aren't they tracked on radar? Why don't our satellite and astronomical tracking systems get photos of UFOs? Why are they always seen in out-of-the-way rural areas but never over large cities? Why don't large groups of people ever simultaneously see UFOs, instead of lone individuals? Why don't astronomers see them? Shouldn't UFOs occasionally crash and leave clear-cut physical evidence of their reality? Or shouldn't they at least leave some residual physical evidence in those alleged instances where the objects have landed? Shouldn't they affect radios and produce other electromagnetic effects at times? If UFOs are a product of some high civilization, wouldn't one expect something of the nature of inquisitive behavior, since innate curiosity must be a common denominator of anything we would call "intelligence"? Why haven't they contacted us if they're from somewhere else in the universe and have been here for at least two decades? Is there any evidence of hostility or hazard? Are UFOs seen only in this country? Why didn't we see them before 1947, if they come from remote sources? And so on."[5]

    Personal Note: There is footage from NASA. Not to mention there's ex-FAA Chief of Accidents and Investigation John Callahan's diatribe on the 1986 JAL-1628 case and how the CIA confiscated most of the hard-data. Astronaut Gordon Cooper had a similar story. Bottom line though the NASA footage, even though bizarre, doesn't definitively suggest UFOs and doesn't even come close to suggesting ETH. Although it does definitively indicate UAPs! Still classifying it as a UAP means we don't get the kind of urgency that would come with proof that there's intelligence guiding these objects. The point in saying all this is that if we're looking for anything it's this kind of data: satellite telemetry / photography or more to the point NASA footage showing off intelligent "structural details such as 'ports' and 'legs'"[4] that we're led to believe are there by witnesses who have seen UFOs. For more details see 'Addressing the UFO Problem'.
  8. Resource / Names: "One of the outstanding UFO references (though little-known in scientific circles) is _The UFO Evidence_, edited by R. H. Hall and published by NICAP ... ."[6]
  9. Resource: "A sequel volume, now in editorial preparation at NICAP, will cover the 1964-68 period."[6]. I guess this is in reference to The UFO Evidence - Volume 2?
  10. Names: "This case was quite thoroughly checked by Mr. Raymond E. Fowler, one of NICAP's most able investigators, who has studied numerous other UFO incidents in the New England area."[7]

Notes

  1. ↑ McDonald, Symposium '68: pp. 3
  2. ↑ McDonald, Symposium '68: pp. 5
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 McDonald, Symposium '68: pp. 6
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 McDonald, Symposium '68: pp. 7
  5. ↑ McDonald, Symposium '68: pp. 8
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 McDonald, Symposium '68: pp. 9
  7. ↑ McDonald, Symposium '68: pp. 27


References

NOTE: Annotations stored locally in \\...\F\Media\Books\UFO Debate\MacDonaldSubmissionUFOSymposium.pdf

Books / Further Reading mentioned during the Symposium

Facts about UFO Symposium 1968: McDonald Case StudiesRDF feed
ActorJames E. McDonald  +, Ted Bloecher  +, Josef Allen Hynek  +, Norman E. G. Cruttwell  +, Richard H. Hall  +, and Raymond E. Fowler  +
Actor-indirectJohn Callahan  +, and Gordon Cooper  +
AuthorJames E. McDonald  +
Date1968  +
Date-indirect1986  +
OrganizationHouse Committee on Science and Astronautics  +, NASA  +, FAA  +, CIA  +, and NICAP  +
Subject1968 there were congressional hearing on the UFO subject. These are the prepared statements of James E. McDonald's used during his speech to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics.
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