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by George Kocher
27 November 1968
For RAND Use Only
DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE IN EXTERNAL RAND PUBLICATIONS OR CORRESPONDENCE
By Jean van Gemert and Brian Zeiler
from
NICAP Website
The
RAND Corporation published a
paper titled "UFOs: What to Do?, by George Kocher, in
November
1968. RAND states that this paper was originally produced as an
internal document; it was not prepared for or delivered to any
of RAND's clients. RAND decided to make this paper available to
the public if they asked for it, last year.
To
verify this document I ordered same from RAND. I received same
today. What is interesting about this document, is when doing a
search for this paper on RAND's web page, the document or author
are not found, as far as I could see. You might check this out
to see if I missed a search function. I believe this document
can be obtained only if one asks for it, and knows the document
number.
http://www.rand.org
On page 15 and 16 of this document there is reference to a UFO
sighting in Tucson, Arizona in 1947 or 1948. The sighting seen
by Mrs. Olavick seems to describe the same sightings seen over
Arizona, March 13, 1997. You will have to read the document and
form your own opinion.
Please pass this info onto Pat Welsh at
nwu.edu.
To verify this info I can send web page pertaining to the RAND
document. I also have the snail mail and fax number for RAND, if
anyone wishes to order a hard copy of the document DRU-1571.
I hope this information is of some value to you.
Best Regards,
Kim
The RAND Corporation
INTRODUCTION
Common sense is the quintessence of the experiences and prejudices
of its time. It is a most unreliable advisor when one is confronted
with a perfectly new situation.
Gustav Naan
UFOs - unidentified flying objects, or flying saucers as they are
often called - have been on the mind of the public for at least the
last 22 years.
For a number of reasons, we know little more about
them now than we did at the outset. There exists a great amount of
misinformation about the phenomenon not only in the minds of the
public, but among educated groups such as scientists as well.
It is
the purpose of this series of essays to describe various aspects of
the phenomenon, make clear my prejudices and the reasons for them,
and to suggest a means of proceeding on this interesting and
potentially very significant problem.
But first, a few words about the term UFO. J. A. Hynek, an
astronomer having continuous involvement with UFO study for over 20
years, defines UFOs as,
"any reported aerial or surface visual
sighting or radar return which remains unexplained by conventional
means even after examination by competent persons. This definition
... specifies neither flying nor objects."
(1)
I would agree, but
would prefer to replace "or radar return" with "or instrumental
observation" and "even after examination by competent persons" to
"even after competent examination by qualified persons."
This, then,
is the definition I have adopted in the five essays that follow.
CONTENTS
PART 1
UFOs - HISTORICAL ASPECTS
Those familiar with the UFO literature are aware that reports of
sightings did not begin with Arnold's sighting in 1947, but that
phenomenology much the same as is reported today can be found in
documents going back to the earliest times.
Vallee
(2) gives a
sampling of this; B.L.P. Trench (3) has made a more thorough study
and reports on the research of others able to study the original
documents.
What was reported? Luminous discs, shields, globes and elongated
objects in the sky, sometimes alone, sometimes in large numbers.
Occasional descriptions of interactions with the observers are also
mentioned, including landings, and seeing and communicating with
occupants. The latter events especially were almost always
interpreted in a religious context. A recent example is the repeated
appearance of a typical UFO phenomenology at Fatima, Portugal on six
successive months in 1917.
The October 13 phenomenon was the best
reported and was witnessed by a crowd of about 70,000 persons,
including a number of scientists, reporters, atheists, and
agnostics, as well as faithful Catholics. One of the scientifically
curious was Dr. A Garrett of the University of Coimbra.
Rain, which
had been falling that day, ceased and the crowd looked up to see the
"sun" now visible through the heavy clouds. Professor Garrett wrote,
"...I turned toward this (sun) which was attracting all eyes and I
could see it like a disk with a clear cut edge, with a vivid rim,
luminous and shining, but without hurting one. The comparison I have
heard at Fatima with a disk of dull silver, does
not seem to me exact. It was a clearer, more vivid, richer color and
with shifting tints like the luster of a pearl. It was not at all
like the moon on a clear transparent night, for one saw and felt it
like a living star.
Nor was it spherical like the moon, nor did it
have the same quality of lighter and less light. It looked like a
burnished wheel cut out of mother-of-pearl. Nor could it be confused
with the sun seen through a fog - there was no fog... This disc
spun dizzily round. It was not the twinkling of a star: it whirled
round upon itself with mad rapidity... The sun, preserving the
celerity of its rotation, detached itself from the firmament and
advanced, blood-red, towards the earth, threatening to crush us with
the weight of its vast and fiery mass.
These moments made a
terrifying impression." (4)
The relationship of the old
phenomenology to religion are discussed by Thomas.
(5)
An example of earlier celestial displays of interest is illustrated
in Figs 1 and 2. These are broadsheets from Nuremberg (1561) and
Basel (1566), respectively. The psychologist, C. G. Jung provides
an analysis of the contents of the woodcuts in his interesting book.
(6) Reference 7 has a very interesting reproductin of a fourteenth
century fresco in a Yugoslavian church.
The modern period of the phenomenon began with a widely publicized
sighting made by Kenneth Arnold in Washington state in 1947. A study
by Bloecher of north american reports over the four week period
bracketing the Arnold sighting lists 853 events, including 38
sightings made before Arnold's heavily publicized Sighting.
(8)
Because the early reports seemed to suggest airborne craft of
unusual appearance and kinematics, the problem came to rest with the
newly organized U.S. Air Force. Initial fears were that the country
was being overflown by advanced foreign aircraft, possibly on
intelligence missions. The latter was suggested by the large number
of sightings from the White Sands, New Mexico area and from the
vicinity of the Hanford, Washington atomic plant.
Serious inquiry proceeded for a few years without any positive
results. A number of supposedly knowledgeable people spoke out
pointing out the sporadic nature of the sightings, and that since
the reported
Both Broadsheets from the Wickiana Collection, Zurich Central
Library kinematics were inconsistent with current physical theory,
the UFOs were not likely to be from a foreign power.
Further, they
argued, no other planets in our solar system were believed to
support life - certainly not intelligent life - and since even the
nearest star was over four light years away, the hypothesis of
extraterrestrial origin was simply unacceptable from a scientific
point of view. (9)
The Air Force investigative effort worked as follows:
(10) Whenever
a sighting was made, a report was to be made out and turned in to
the Air Force at base level. The report was forwarded to
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio for study. If the report was interesting
enough, followup inquiry was made.
By 1952 the number of reports
coming in was so large that the CIA was concerned that an actual
attack on the country might not be immediately recognized. A panel
of scientists was then convened in January 1953 to study the
available evidence and see what conclusion could be reached about
UFOs.
After seven days of hearing evidence and
discussing the matter it was concluded that there was only
circumstantial evidence of the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
The
panel recommended a broadened study effort with full disclosure of
investigations. In order to unplug the military intelligence
channels, however, the CIA recommended that, since the UFOs
apparently posed no threat, the Air Force should debunk UFO reports
and try generally to discourage public interest in them, in the hope
that they would go away. (11)
It was the CIA's recommendation, apparently, that was made policy,
for the investigative procedures used since 1953 have been vestigal
and the handling of the subject by the authorities tended to make
witnesses look ridiculous. In spite of the unfavorable publicity
accorded witnesses, reports persisted, and no doubt in response to
official behavior several civilian study groups were formed to
receive reports and investigate sightings.
The most successful of
these groups is the National Investigation Committee on Aerial
Phenomena (NICAP).
NICAP's membership is well dispersed
geographically and acts to learn as much as possible from sightings.
The large number of scientific and technical personnel in the NICAP
membership aids the quality of their evaluations. A summary of
characteristics of the UFO phenomenology published by NICAP
in 1964 (12) contains 575 reports that were extensively checked by NICAP for accuracy.
A series of sightings in 1965 and 1966 received considerable public
attention arid after the poor public reception given the official
explanations, the Air Force felt compelled to contract for a 15
month (later stretched to l8 months) scientific study to be
performed at the University of Colorado under the leadership of E.
U. Condon, a highly respected physicist.
The Condon Committee is due
to complete investigations at the end of June 1968; its report will
be reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences (presumably to
validate that the study was indeed the objective pearl of the
scientific method that was desired), and is expected to be made
public in October 1968. Unfortunately, the dismissal of two members
of the Committee in February 1968 resulted in publicity suggesting
that the study was not, in fact, objective. It remains, therefore,
to see the final report to determine the worth of the study.
In the meantime, the respectability accorded UFOs by the $500,000
study contract permitted a considerable amount of scientific
interest to surface. Astronomer Hynek has made a number of public
statements on the basis of his long involvement as a consultant to
the Air Force; atmospheric physicist James F. McDonald has turned
his attention full time to the subject, and a number of scientific
and technical journals have printed some dialogue - notably Science,
the AIAA Journal, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Journal
of the Astronautical Sciences. It is also noteworthy that the
University of Toronto has recently formed a UFO study group.
Even the Soviets, who previously refused even to discuss the subject
now admit to having a study group with good qualifications. The USSR
Academy of Sciences still holds to the orthodox scientific view that
UFOs are a nonproblem, however, using the same arguments we heard so
long. These arguments are just as invalid in the USSR as in the USA.
It therefore appears that the subject is slowly and finally being
regarded as a fit subject of scientific inquiry. It is hoped that
enough scientists will acquaint themselves with the subject so that
progress can finally be made.
(Reference (13) is a good account of how the UFO phenomenon was
treated in the U.S. and is recommended to those wondering how
science came to consciously ignore the subject.)
Back to Contents
PART 2: UFOs
ASTRONOMICAL ASPECTS
The astonishing thing would be if they did not exist.
Jean Cocteau
We saw in Part 1 that the historical aspects suggest an
extraterrestrial explanation to UFOs.
While it has not been
established that the contemporary phenomena are extensions of the
historical, there does seem to be a continuity in the descriptions
of the phenomena described. We shall therefore look at contemporary
astronomical knowledge and theories and ascertain the likelihood of
the existence of other highly developed life forms.
To begin with, the observable universe - that is, the distance to
which we can observe luminous objects - is several billion lightyears in radius (a light year is the distance light travels in
a year at a rate of 186,300 miles per second. The sun is 8 light
minutes from the earth. The next-nearest star is 4.2 light years
away). Within this vast volume we find hundreds of millions of
galaxies.
Our own (Milky Way) galaxy is similar to many of those we
see at great distances. It is a lens-shaped assemblage of some 100
billion stars having a diameter of about 100,000 light years. The
sun is but one of its component stars and lies about 30,000 light
years from the center, close to the plane of symmetry.
Now let us just consider the stars in our own galaxy - specifically
excluding those in neighboring or distant galaxies. We would like to
estimate the number of stars having planets roughly similar to the
Earth. From the statistics of stars within 15 light years of the sun
we find that only about one-third are single, the rest binary or
multiple.
Since planetary orbits are often unstable in multiple
systems (depending on the details of the configuration) we will say
that only 30 billion stars in our galaxy now have a dynamical
environment that permits planets to exist around them. Will these
stars have planets? We cannot state with assurance that they will;
however, current knowledge supports the theory that planetary
formation is a natural adjunct to formation of the star itself from
the interstellar gas cloud.
We would therefore expect about 30 billion stars to have one or more
planets.
Now, we can reject certain classes of stars as candidates
or habitable planets, because their lifetimes are too short (these
are stars of high mass). Others can be rejected because of
variability in light output, a characteristic that would make
evolutionary development of life much more difficult. In fact if we
select only those stars similar to the sun (whose peak of radiation
energy coincides with a region of terrestrial atmospheric
transparency) we have only a few percent of the total - about one
in 30.
Therefore, we would expect about 1000 million suitable solar
type stars exist. Of these, it is estimated by various astronomers
that 200-600 million have planets at about the right distance and
have been around long enough that life forms as developed as our own
could exist.
Implicit in further discussion are the assumptions
that:
1. Planets and/or life
evolves to a mutual compatibility
2. The life force,
whether spontaneous or otherwise, is such that whenever the
environment is favorable, life will exist
3. Our own history of past evolution and development is neither slow
nor fast, but average and typical for life forms
(Ours is the only
example available and no one has yet demonstrated that the "average"
galactic life form should be any different.)
Now let us turn momentarily to time scales.
The sun and earth are on
the order of 5 billion years old. We might define modern man as
being about 5000 years old (Stonehenge is 4000 years old) - just
one millionth of the earth's age. The age of science is certainly
not more than 500 years, so our scientific and technical development
has thus far occupied only one ten-millionth of the earth's life
span.
We expect the sun will burn another 5 billion years before
significant changes in its brightness occur. Now the age of the
galaxy is between 5 and 10 billion years; therefore among the
200-600 million stars we would expect to have acceptable planets,
some would be older than the sun, some younger (for star formation
is still continuing, even though at a lesser rate than in the
galaxy's early history) and some the same age.
It should be clear
from assumption (3) and the example of our own
development, that among the populated planets those younger than the
sun would be peopled by beings very much behind us technologically,
while those on older planets would be extraordinarily advanced
(remember our progress of 500 years and note that some planets could
be as much as a few billion years older).
Indeed, we would be
surprised to find someone else at just our stage of technological
development. For the purposes of this paper, we can ignore both the
multitude younger than ourselves and those at our point of
development. Even so, we are left with the possibility of
100,000,000 planets in the galaxy having life forms very much
advanced from us.
(This number would be reduced significantly if
life forms destroyed themselves soon after reaching our age of
development. This is a philosophical point on which I am optimistic
- I believe the majority of races will learn to survive.)
If these
stars are uniformly distributed in the galactic disk, the average
separation will be about 10 light years.
The usual scientist's reaction at this point is, well, even if the
assumptions are correct and this number of advanced civilizations
does exist, contact is still impossible because of the speed of
light limitation of the theory of relativity. An excellent example
of this kind of reasoning can be found in Ref. 14. My reply is that
such a statement would appear to be shortsighted. For the moment,
let us ignore the possibilities of overcoming the long time of
travel by suspended animation and the like.
Recall that our own
physical theory has been developed in only 500 years. What can we
expect in the next 500? Or 1000 or million or even billion years? I
suggest that 'if' a way to circumvent the speed of light restriction
is possible, it has already been found by someone in our galaxy.
(I
haven't the faintest idea how this might be done and I fully agree
that our own experimental data appear to accurately confirm the
existence of this limitation.)
If it has been discovered by one, we
certainly would expect it to be used; if no other planet's
inhabitants independently discovered the means, it makes little
difference for such a thing could be taught by the discoverer. Thus
we may conclude that it is very likely that at least one, and
probably many of the 100 million advanced planetary populations is
capable of interstellar travel.
The next question is, of course, have any of them been here? That
question cannot yet be answered definitively.
Without knowing what
kind of phenomenology extraterrestrial visitors might exhibit, I
will fall back on my scientific, mechanistic attitudes and say it
makes sense to look for some kind of vehicle or spaceship. It
appears that the class of phenomenology called UFO reports may
contain, as a subset, actual observations of such craft. We shall
now turn to the reports to see when and where things are seen and by
whom and what phenomenology, if any) is revealed by the reports.
(Further information about the astronomical and biological
possibilities are in Ref. 15, whose principal defects are
(1) the
authors uninformed rejection of UFO phenomenology as being relevant
to the subject under discussion
(2) their meek acceptance of
the speed-of-light restriction as a universal truth
References
(16)
and (17) provide more detailed and more technical discussions of some
aspects of the problem.)
Back to Contents
PART 3: UFOs
THE CHARACTER OF REPORTS
Any collection of reports of unknown aerial sightings by the public
will include a large percent of noise - sightings of something
explainable.
The reports are made because the appearance falls
outside the range of the observer's experience, and the observer
believes it is sufficiently anomalous to warrant the attention of
authorities.
Thus, any large collection of reports will include
descriptions of aircraft, balloons) spacecraft, astronomical
objects, atmospheric effects and the like. Often the practiced and
perceptive analyst can recognize the stimulus, particularly if he
has access to records of aircraft, balloon, and satellite movements,
meteorological data and astronomical phenomenology.
Recognition of
stimulus is aided by a high quality report which is as quantitative
as possible and which shows the observer to be able to differentiate
between observation and interpretation. Of course a number of
reports will be so lacking in details that no conclusion can be
reached about what was seen.
These are of little use; they may,
however, serve as corroborating evidence to another, higher quality,
report and should not, therefore be rejected. The really interesting
class of reports is that reporting phenomenology which is clearly
extraordinary.
The observer's qualifications may be such that the
report is not only highly credible but is articulate and
quantitative as well. It is this subclass of reports, variously
estimated at 5 to 20 percent of the total, that offer hope of our
learning what is going on.
Hynek considers two parameters of reports) credibility and
strangeness, and suggests that the investigator really needs only to
be concerned with reports having high strangeness and high
credibility. The physical scientist is in a position to evaluate
strangeness, the social scientist should be able to provide some
measure of credibility. Hynek also comments on a number of beliefs
about UFOs and reports stating, (18) among other things, that most
reports are made by people who previously never gave much thought to
UFOs; that reports are not always vague; and that well educated,
well trained, reliable, stable people also contribute reports.
These conclusions have been reached by most people who have taken
the trouble to collect and investigate reports first hand.
To illustrate the character of reports, I will quote several
narratives from the literature. (Narratives, of course, are just the
beginning of any report. Quantitative information, usually not given
in the narrative must be obtained by careful interview of the
witness.) The first is taken from a collection of 160 reports by
Olsen. (19)
It was originally made to NICAP.
Date: 24 April 1962
Place: Springfield (Delaware County), Pennsylvania
First witness, J. A. Gasslein, Jr. (Lt. Colonel, USAR Ret.) reports:
"Time: Approximately 1945 hours, weather: clear, cloudless, medium
blue sky, visibility good.
"My wife was driving her mother home following the latter's visit to
our home. They had driven around the block to higher ground when my
wife's mother looked out the car window and saw a large object. It
was moving slowly and silently in an east-to-west direction at not
over 50 ft. above street level. (Determined by the proximity to and
relationship to the size of the Cape-Cod-type bungalows over which
the object was passing.) My wife then plainly saw the object
herself.
"Anxious to have me see the object, my wife quickly drove the car
back to our house and attracted my attention. I had been working in
the basement. I ran out of the house and up the street for a view.
by the time I saw it, the object appeared to be about a quarter to a
half-mile away, moving in a westerly direction. I saw it as an
object smaller at the top than at the base, seemingly suspended in
the air at an angle of about 45 degrees from my position, and giving
off colored lights. I know that the object was not any kind of
conventional aircraft of balloon.
"Having had the advantage of a closer viewing than I, my wife
describes the object as follows..
" 'The UFO appeared to be about the size of one of the Cape Cod
houses over which it passed, which would make it approximately 30
ft. in diameter and about the same dimension in height. It was
circular, surmounted by a dome giving off flashes of green light.
The center section rotated a series of square shaped "windows", each
giving off a brilliant white light. The base section was somewhat
saucer-shaped,
curved upward. Shafts of white light were directed downward from the
base.' Unfortunately, my wife cannot recall if the exterior was
metallic in appearance. In any event, the object had a well-defined
outline. Again, it moved silently. There was no evidence of
occupants of the UFO.
"Approximately 20 to 25 minutes following the first sighting
described above, the following~sighting occurred: "Returning from
taking her mother home, my wife drove the car into our driveway
alongside the house, headed westward. In the rear of our home was a
wooded park area. My wife walked down the driveway to enter the
house. Coming up the driveway was a neighbor friend, a young lady 20
years of age. In a tone of astonishment, she called my wife's
attention to the park area, from which was emerging an object of the
same description as outlined above moving easterly at low level - not over 50 ft. above ground level, as judged by the trees in the
area - the UFO proceeded relatively slowly and without sound. It was
approaching the rear of our home and adjacent properties.
"Again, my wife called me from the basement. By the time I got
outside, the object had made a 90 degree turn northward and was
proceeding parallel to the backs of the houses in the same line as
ours. It was perhaps 150 - 200 yards distant. My observation of the
characteristics of the UFO tallied with my wife's and the young
lady's. Each of them independently made a pencil sketch within a few
minutes after the sighting, and the sketches were substantially
alike.
"All told, there were at least 15 persons in the vicinity who
acknowledged seeing the object at about the same time as the
sightings made by my wife and myself."
Another witness, P. T. Scattergood, reports:
"Around 8 (p.m.) I
stepped out the front door, facing south and saw a brilliantly
lighted object low in the southern sky. At first I took it to be a
jet taking off from Philadelphia Airport, which is in that general
direction. But I could hear no engine noise and it was traveling too
slowly to be a plane. Also it did not have the usual blinking
lights.
"It appeared to have a row of yellowish lights (which I took for the
windows of the "jet") with a clear green light at the top. As I
watched, the row of lights appeared to be obscured as though a large
paddle-wheel were revolving and blotting them out, beginning with
the rear lights and proceeding forward. Since the object was moving
west, I saw the right hand side of it. The periodic appearance and
disappearance of the lights was perfectly regular. The top green
light was constantly visible. I stood on the pavement and watched
the object sail leisurely to the west until it disappeared behind
some trees.
The observation probably lasted from 5 to 10 minutes."
This report has the desirable features of the UFO being seen by a
number of people (about 15) of which two actually made reports.
(Hynek
estimates the number of sightings to be about 10 times the number of
reports turned in).
Other desirable aspects of this sighting are
that it was made during daylight; that it was near enough that some
details of its configuration were observable; and, it was visible
long enough to allow the observers to consider "explanations" as
they watched it.
The second example is reported by James F. McDonald in T. Bloecher's
book on an intense period of UFO activity in 1947.
The report was
made 20 years after the sighting to Prof. McDonald for the reasons
given at the end of the quotation.
"Mrs. Olavick was in her kitchen at 2101 East Hawthorne Street,
Tucson, while Mrs. Down was out in the back-year patio.
Suddenly
Mrs. Down called her out excitedly, and both proceeded to observe
what had caught Mrs. Down's eye. The time was just after the noon
hour; Tucson's skies were completely cloudless. Somewhat north of
their zenith lay an unusual, isolated, "steamy-fleecy" cloud at an
altitude which Mrs. Olavick found difficult to estimate, though she
recalled that it seemed lower than average for that time of year
(thus, perhaps at or below 10,000 feet, say.).
No other cloud was to
be seen in the sky. In and out of the cloud moved a number of
dull-white disc-like objects that rose and fell in an erratic
manner, occasionally disappearing into or above the unnatural cloud.
She said that these objects were round in plan-form but were not
spherical, for they frequently tipped a bit, exposing a
flattened-sphere form. She estimates that they watched these objects
cavorting near the cloud for perhaps five or six minutes before the
entire group suddenly disappeared within the cloud or perhaps above
it.
"After a minute or so, as she now recalls it, a new object, perhaps
three of four times as large as the little objects, came out of the
cloud on its east side. After it emerged, the small objects began to
emerge also, taking up a V-formation pattern behind it. The V
comprised a line of four-abreast just to the rear of the large
object, then a line of three-abreast behind that, and finally
two-abreast in the rear.
Thus the point of the V was to the rear (in
the sense of the emergent and subsequent motion). This formation
permitted the first accurate count of the small objects, nine in
all. No sooner had the last pair emerged than all ten objects shot
off to the northeast, climbing out of sight in a time that she
thought was probably two to three seconds. She does not recall what
happened to the cloud after the ten objects departed.
"I (McDonald) have spoken with Mrs. Olavick several additional
times, following her first call. Her account was presented in an
unembellished manner, and her descriptions were carefully framed,
specifying just which parts had become less distinct in her memory.
But the basic vividness of her memory of this observation she
stressed repeatedly. I had to explain that it was by no means clear
that the objects she saw were identical with those reported by
Kenneth Arnold two months later.
When I queried her as to why she
had not reported them, she pointed out that she and Mrs. Down were
entirely convinced that they had been fortunate enough to witness
some new American military vehicles about which the general public
had not yet been informed. Later she heard of the "flying saucers,"
and she and Mrs. Down, when they rejoined their husbands in
mid-summer in Iowa, told them about their own observation.
The
husbands, she recalled, made such a joke of it that they ceased
mentioning it.
Again we have a daytime sighting of several minutes duration, with
two witnesses.
As is often the case when the phenomenon appears
mechanical, it was interpreted as some secret government
development. Ridicule of the sighting by family members and friends
(if not by authorities) is frequently mentioned as a reason for
delayed reporting of sightings.
A third report is taken from a paper Prof. McDonald presented at the
12 March 1968 Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute Astronautics
Symposium, Montreal.
"At about 5:15 am., PDT, on the morning of July 4, 1967, at least
five witnesses (and reportealy others not yet locatable) saw an
object of unconventional nature moving over Highway 5 on the edge of
Corning, California. Hearing of the event from NICAP, I began
searching for the witnesses and eventually telephone-interviewed
four. Press accounts from the Corning Daily Observer and Oakland
Tribune afforded further corroboration.
"Jay Munger, operator of an all-night bowling alley, was drinking
coffee with two police officers, James Overton of the Corning force
and Frank Rakes of the Orland force, when Munger suddenly spotted
the object out the front windows of his bowling alley. In a moment
all three were outside observing what they each described as a dark
gray oval or disc-shaped object with a bright light shining upwards
on its top and a dimmer light shining downward from the underside.
A
dark gray or black band encircled the mid-section of the object.
When first sighted, it lay almost due west, at a distance that they
estimated at a quarter of a mile (later substantiated by independent
witnesses viewing it at right angles to the line of sight of the
trio at the bowling alley). It was barely moving, and seemed to be
only a few hundred feet above terrain. The dawn light illuminated
the object, but not so brightly as to obscure the two lights on top
and bottom, they stated.
"Munger, thinking to get an independent observation from a different
part of Corning, returned almost immediately to telephone his wife;
but she never saw it for reasons of tree-obscuration. At my request,
Munger re-enacted the telephoning process to form a rough estimate
of elapsed time. He obtained a time of 1-1.5 minutes. This time is
of interest because, when he completed the call and rejoined Overton
and Rakes, the object had still moved only a short distance south on
Highway 5 (about a quarter of a mile: perhaps), but then quickly
accelerated and passed off to the south, going out of their sight in
only about 10 seconds, far to their south.
Paul Heideman, of Fremont, California, was driving south on Highway
5 at the time of the above sighting, along with a friend, Robert
King. I located Heideman and obtained from him an account of his
observation made from a point on the highway north of Corning. He
saw the light from the object, and had veered east (a turn not seen
from the more restricted viewing point of the bowingalley parking
lot). Heideman said that, when first seen, it lay almost straight
down Highway 5, serving to check the estimate of the other observers
that the object lay only a few city blocks to their west.
The weather was clear, no haze, no wind, according to the witnesses.
Munger's concise comment was "I've never seen anything like it
before." He estimated its "diameter" at perhaps 50-100 ft, and its
vertical thickness as perhaps 15-20 ft, with some kind of edge
(band) perhaps 5-10 ft thick. No sound was ever heard.
Overton
stated to me that he had no idea what it was, but that "there was no
doubt it was a craft of some sort."
The next example is from a report I personally investigated. It
occurred in the area where I was reared; the observers are known to
my family; I am familiar with the natural phenomenology of the area.
Date: 10 October 1966
Place: Near Newton, Illinois
First Event
Mrs. A (she prefers not to be publicly identified
because of the reaction of friends and neighbors). Time: 5:20 p.m.
"Mrs. A was in her kitchen preparing supper; five of her children
were playing outdoors. The children shouted to her to "come out and
see the silent plane".
She writes "I glanced out the south window
and there it was coming into sight just south of our 72 foot silo
moving very slowly from east to west. It was about 35 feet high. My
first thought was that it was a plane making an emergency landing,
but when I saw it in full view, I knew it was no plane, not like
anything I have ever seen. I hurried outside to join the children in
the yard. It
continued to move in a straight line to the west.
We could see it
clearly as it drifted over a 50 by 100 foot machine shed being built
at the time [the workers were, however, in the fields this day]. It
appeared to be larger than our car, and was more oval. There was a
bluish glow around the ends, top, and bottom of it. It (the glow)
wasn't bright, since it was daylight yet, but more like a low cloud,
haze, or fog; or a mixture of bluish-grey tiny bubbles floating
along around it. The object was seen clearly. It was blue in color
and appeared to be made of metal. You could see [longitudinal] seam
lines. There was one black window.
I thought they (assuming someone
was in it) could see out but we could not see them. I kept looking
for someone to peep out and wave, but don't recall seeing or feeling
anything at the time. There was a brownish-gold design on the lower
back half. A raised part was on the top near the back which was
noticed by all the children. It moved very quietly, making no sound
at all except for a whirling or vibrating sound for 1 or 2 seconds
as it drifted on toward the west...
We followed it down the yard and
lane, continuing to watch it as it was 300 feet, then 200 feet from
the north and south gravel road and the REA electric line which is
on the west side of the road. We were talking together, all very
excited about what it was, where it came from, if there were people
in it, and if it would rise to clear the electric line. It did; it
rose so quickly and was out of sight in just a few seconds.
Our eyes
could not follow it fast enough.
This was certainly a fantastic
thing."
The questionnaire, a lengthy correspondence, an interview in June
1967 and other checking produced the following details:
Meteorology: Clear, warm, dry weather, cloudless.
Astronomical: Moonset 3:51 p.m. EST
UFO: Prolate spheroidial shape.
The surface appeared to be non-specular, like dull aluminum
or metal, and blue, the color probably deriving from the
self-luminous halo.
Longitudinal seams were apparent, but no rivets or such were
seen. The black rectangle was assumed to be a window and appeared to
be recessed. It was not shiny, but "like the dark of night." The
surrounding glow was partly opaque, yet self luminous. It was darker
than the sky and extended about 1/4 the object's length in all
directions.
The halo was particularly opaque at the ends: of the
object, obscuring the underlying parts. The design at the lower rear
looked like a pattern of crosses and dots.
Mrs. A says the glow obscured the design and in any case her
attention was fixed on the "window". The only sound heard occurred
when the UFO was nearest the unfinished shed, being constructed of a
wooden framework covered with ferrous sheets. It is possible that
some sheets were caused to vibrate. No electromagnetic effects were
noted (TV was off) and no electrostatic or other effects were noted
by Mrs. A or her children. As the UFO disappeared, Mrs. A was just
looking along the road for a car; two of the children said the UFO
pitched nose-up and as it went up a light or flame of orange color
was seen at the rear.
Enough angular data was provided from building and landmark
placement and sizes that it is possible to estimate the size of the
metallic portion of the UFO at 16 to 20 feet in length, seen at a
distance of 150 to 300 feet. Its linear speed was about 4 to 8 miles
per hour, based on the above distances and timings obtained by
re-enactment.
It was visible for 4 minutes. Angular size was 2 3/4"
at arms length. In an effort to quantify the colors somewhat, a
Nickerson color fan was used by the witnesses to select the colors
most nearly like those on the UFO.
The color selections were made
independently in direct sunlight with the color fan held in front of
a white field. The colors given were
Second event
Same day, 6:30 p.m., sky is now dark. Location is in
town of Newton, Illinois, about seven miles north west of first
event.
Mrs. B was walking down the steps of a friend's house toward her
car. "As I started down the steps my eyes were drawn by something in
the south eastern sky. I stopped a moment and saw very clearly a
luinous bluish object moving quite rapidly from east to west. It
seemed to be rather low in the sky, but at night it is difficult to
judge distance either as to how high it was or how far away it was.
It did appear larger than a full moon, but instead of being round it
had a definite oval shape. I would say an elongated oval. There was
no sound that I could detect, and while it appeared to be blue and
purple, there was also a whitish glow in it. The outline of the
object was very distinct. I watched it until it disappeared behind
some trees and a house a little less than a block from me.
Further correspondence and discussion brought forth the following
information: The major axis of the oval was horizontal; its path was
not perfectly horizontal) but somewhat ondulatory. Its color was
brightest and whitest at the center, becoming more blue and darker
toward the edges. Mrs. B. estimated the colors as shown below (Since
the interview was conducted in the evening) the color fan was
illuminated by an incandescent lamp).
In itself, this last report, which describes a sighting of 15 to 20
seconds duration, contains insufficient information to come to any
conclusion. However, when put alongside the earlier report there is
the possibility of a relationship - could these be reports of the
same thing seen under differing conditions of illumination? We'll
never know positively but the suggestion is quite strong.
As far as Mrs. A's sighting is concerned, we have obtained enough
data from follow-up inquiry and on-site investigation to rule out
known airborne craft, meteorological, and astronomical phenomenon.
Yet the observations are sufficiently detailed to give us adequate
confidence that some sort of machine was present, behaving in a very
extraordinary way.
Some parts of the object are similar to other
reports (the effervescent glow, the orange color on acceleration,
the very black "window" (which sounds like a block-body absorber)).
Other parts are unusual - the UFO's prolate spheroidal shape and
the pattern (although seeing the pattern would require the observer
to be quite close).
The original correspondence and data sheets on
Mrs. A's sighting run to over 40 pages. In correspondence and
interviews over a period of 8 months no substantial inconsistencies
could be found. The geometric data, particularly, are so intricately
related that it is most unlikely that the witness could have
fabricated a story so well. In addition, acquaintances made it clear
that Mrs. A. is not prone to story telling and that "she is too busy
to dream up such a tale".
Mr. A, who returned from the fields that
evening found the household still considerably agitated four hours
after the event.
He said he had no idea what it was his wife and
children saw, but he obviously treated the sighting seriously for he
went to considerable trouble to comply with a request to measure the
sizes and locations of each building and tree on the farm.
It is this kind of sighting - the kind which is clearly inexplicable
in contemporary terms, which causes me (and other interested
persons) to take the whole subject so seriously.
Hynek suggests that
it is just this kind of sighting that often goes unreported, because
the witness - especially if his education or training are
appropriate - knows that what he saw was unambiguously
extraordinary.
And machine-like. A number of such reports were
belatedly made after the University of
Colorado study effort got underway. Apparently the witnesses waited
for the respectability the UOC study brought to the subject. It is
hoped that the scientific and intellectual climate will change to
the point where witnesses, particularly those having the best
qualifications, can feel free to report sightings and know that they
are being taken seriously.
Not all reports are visual reports only. An example of a
photographic observation studied in detail is given in reference 20.
Here, a 16mn movie of two objects sighted in the daytime provided
the analyst enough information to conclude that no known phenomena
could have caused the images.
This report is, hopefully, the first
in a series of instrumented sightings carefully and adequately
studied.
Back to Contents
PART 4: UFO'S
PHENOMENONOLOGICAL ASPECTS
Since I have made a first hand study of only a dozen sightings, the
phenomenology described in this section will necessarily be based on
descriptions of reports collected by others, particularly NICAP,
APRO, UFOIRC, and Vallee.
There is, unfortunately, no central file
of reports accessible to the interested scientist, although large
numbers of reports are in the hands of the organizations mentioned
above.
(The extensive Air Force files are of very limited use, from
what I can tell, because of the extremely inconsistent quality of
investigation.)
In an unfortunate number of cases the report
consists of little more than a narrative. My experience with the
Newton sightings suggests that quantitative information is available
if the investigator takes the trouble to personally make an on-site
study. True, it may not be the quality of an instrumented sighting,
but enough quantitative data are available to permit meaningful
study of sighting reports.
NICAP's document "The UFO Evidence" contains a summary of patterns
in appearance and behavior as determined from cases they had studied
through 1963. Regarding appearance, the most common type is a disc
shape, followed by spherical, oval/elliptical, cylindrical, and
triangular.
The breakdown of NICAP's 575 cases goes as follows
Disc 26 % 149 cases
Round 17 % 96 cases
Oval/elliptical 13 % 77 cases
Cylindrical 8.3 % 48 cases
Triangular 2 % 11 cases
Other 33.7 % 194
cases
(Radar, light source,
not stated)
Obviously, there may be some mis-classification within the first
three groups because of projective effects.
Discs may be coin-shaped
or lens shaped (double convex). The domed disk is plano-convex,
(sometimes double convex) with a smaller radius bulge atop the
convex side. The Saturn disk is a sphere or oblate spheroid with a
thin ring projecting from the equator. Similar objects are
seen without the equatorial ring also.
Another subset are the
hemispheric variety, sometimes with a small protrusion at the apex
and usually seen with the flat side down. All the above mentioned
objects are generically oblate with the axis of symmetry usually
seen oriented vertically. Another group are prolate, having the
major axis horizontal, usually. This includes the elliptical
(football) variety, the triangular or tear drop variety, and the
cylindrical or cigar shaped species.
Reported colors depend strongly on the luminous environment.
NICAP
finds that of the 253 cases of daytime observations where color is
stated, the results are
Silver or metallic 34.8 % 88 cases
White 32.0 % 81 cases
Specular 13.4 % 34 cases
Gray 7.5 % 19 cases
Black 12.3 % 31 cases
It should be noted that a few reports exist suggesting that the
brightness of the object first thought by the observer to be
reflected sunlight, was in fact self luminosity, as ascertained by
the geometry, presence of clouds and the like.
In the dark-sky observations, the outline or shape of the UFO is
often not seen. What is seen is a light or series of lights,
sometimes extremely bright. Luminous rays are also reported, going
up sometimes (particularly from domed discs) downward (from
hemispheric types principally, also from discs) and from one UFO to
another (spherical types).
The luminous column is usually not
divergent. Excluding these interesting rays, the reported colors of
UFOs seen at night are, for 162 cases
Red 38.3 % 62 cases
Orange 15.4 % 25 cases
Yellow 17.3 % 28 cases
Green 13.0 % 21 cases
Blue 16.0 % 26 cases
Purple 0 0
Brightness and color changes are also noted, and while the sample is
small (82 cases) NICAP found the following: Of the 25 cases showing
a change in brightness, 23 of the changes occurred at the moment of
a velocity change (a change of either magnitude or direction).
Concerning the change of color, 23 cases showed a color change
related to acceleration. While the supporting data are not
conclusive, it appears that the spectral shift is to the red upon
acceleration.
It should also be noted that UFOs reported at night have only a
star-like appearance unless very close. Distant UFO's sometimes turn
off and on. When closer to the observer, reports often indicate a
number of lights, located at the top and around the rim usually.
Sometimes the lights flash on and off or change color rhythmically.
Several cases have been reported of the UFO flashing its lights in
response to the witness flashing hand or vehicular lights. In other
cases the lights winked off with the approach of another car or an
aircraft, only to turn on again when the vehicle had passed.
While practically any luminous behavior could be produced by someone
with sufficient time and money, kinematic behavior at odds with
experience or, preferably, at odds with Newtonian behavior are
suggestive of non-terrestrial origin.
A common kind of motion is called oscillation by NICAP and is
subdivided into "wobble on axis" (frequently described also as
fluttering, flipping, and tipping); pendulum motion on slow ascent,
hovering and decent (also called "falling leaf motion"); and
occasionally a side-to-side oscillation observed as the UFO proceeds
horizontally. These motions are most often performed by discs,
although examples of similar behavior by other forms also exist.
The last class, that of violent and erratic maneuvers, most clearly
lacks an explanation from current physical theory. Using terms like
bobbing, erratic, jerky, zig-zag, dark, and shot away, witnesses
describe motions involving high angular accelerations and
velocities. A number of radar observations appear to substantiate
this anomalous behavior.
Among the 40 cases showing such
characteristics, NICAP finds that 28 percent were reported by
scientific or other appropriately experienced personnel.
Variation of Sightings with Time
It appears that the UFO phenomenology has been with us from the
earliest times. In the last twenty-five years, however, there seems
to be a drastic increase in the number of sightings. It is
practically impossible to estimate the number of world-wide
sightings because of the lack of suitable data collection means.
In
the U.S., the principal depositories are currently the Air Force, NICAP and APRO. It is estimated that currently these sources
together receive about 2000 reports per year. Since only about one
sighting in 10 is reported, the number of sightings is about 20,000.
But of these, 80 to 95% are not interesting, leaving us with "only"
1000 to 4000 worthwhile sightings per year for North America.
In addition to the background of reports more or less constantly
flowing in, occasional periods of intense activity are also noted.
One such period was October 1954 over most of France. NICAP lists a
number of these "flaps". Sometimes they are very localized, covering
only a small portion of a state for a period of a few weeks.
APRO concludes, on the basis of the reports available to them, that
the patterns of appearance follow phases - atomic test areas and
installations in the late 1940s and early 50s, rivers, reservoirs
and bodies of water in the late 50s and early 60s and now electrical
distribution systems. Convincing evidence to support this hypothesis
has not been published; however, if the hypothesis were true it
would certainly raise a lot of question.
McDonald and others suggest that reports of the last few years show
more sightings of objects at low altitude (or landed) and more
sightings made from urban areas (in the 40s and 50s sightings were
generally inversely correlated with population densities).
Interactions with the Environment
Interactions of UFOs with the environment produce a kind of
believability that pure visual observations will never do.
Some
examples of interaction are cases showing electromagnetic
disturbances in practically every kind of device - radio, TV, auto
ignition, aircraft electronics, compass, magnetometer, magnetic
automobile speedometer, etc. NICAP lists 106 examples. NICAP also
lists 81 cases of radar
tracking of UFOs, most of which were simultaneous with visual
sightings, and a number of which involved use of interceptors.
Among
the physiological effects noted are burns, temporary paralysis,
prickling sensation, and eyes irritated as by ultraviolet light. A
number of witnesses claim to have observed landings; depressions in
the ground and damaged vegetation usually result. At a landing site
in France, only weeds grow in a nine foot circular area where a disc
was seen to land two years ago, despite efforts to replant.
(21)
At
another landing site, French railway officials calculated that a
weight of 30 tons would be required to make the depressions found in
some railroad ties where a UFO was reported to have landed.
While most UFO's are silent, some have made sounds described as
hissing, rushing, swishing, humming, whirring, whining, droning,
like thunder, like shotgun, and a series of staccato explosions. In
the past the absence of sonic booms from supersonic UFO's bothered
many scientists; it appears now that that problem might be overcome
by surrounding the craft by a corona discharge (which incidentally
would be a luminous blue glow around the object).
(23)
I will purposely not comment much on occupants, except to say that
there are a few (very few) reasonably reliable and carefully
investigated reports of UFO occupants. For the time being, I would
prefer to concentrate on reports of the objects, however, as the
frequency of reliable occupant reports is so low.
I have no bias one
way or the other along these lines. If UFOs are of extraterrestrial
origin, they may or may not be "manned". If manned, one should
expect an occasional appearance. Readers more interested in this
aspect of UFOs are referred to reference
(24).
In summary, we see a wide, almost exasperating range of reported
phenomenology. By careful interviews with witnesses and analysis of
a large number of reports the significant patterns in
phenomenology should appear. If the UFOs are a new manifestation
of nature, they should exhibit some patterns of appearance or
behavior which would aid in identifying and predicting them.
If of
extraterrestrial origin and intelligently guided it may be possible
to anticipate appearances. This will be discussed in the next and
final essay.
Back to Contents
PART 5: UFOs
HOW TO PROCEED AND WHY
We are so far from knowing all the forces of Nature and the various
modes of their action that it is not worthy of a philosopher to deny
phenomena only because they are inexplicable in the present state of
our knowledge.
The harder it is to acknowledge the existence of
phenomena, the more we are bound to investigate them with increasing
care.
Laplace
Laplace's remarks are certainly as true and significant for us today
as for his contemporaries.
In the preceeding essays I have suggested
that there exists a class of phenomena rather widely occuring today
(and perhaps since earliest times) that is elusive, puzzling and
often at variance with known scientific and technical experience.
What are we going to do about it? What should we, what can we do
about it?
J. E. MacDonald suggests that the UFO phenomena lie somewhere in the
following categories of explanation:
1. Hoaxes, fabrications, and frauds. Report files contain examples
of these; investigators believe about 5 percent of all reports made
are in this category. Detailed study, however, usually uncovers such
reports.
2. Hallucinations, mass hysteria, and rumor phenomena. Present
understanding of psychology does not admit many of the significant
reports to be explained in this way.
3. Misinterpretations of well known physical phenomena (meteorolo-
gical, astronomical, optical, etc.). By far the largest percentage
of reports fall in this category. Study by an experienced
investigator can usually identify these.
4. Poorly understood physical phenomena (rare electrical or moteorological effects, plasmas). Certainly a distinct possibility
in a number of cases, it is a category worthy of careful study. Some
of the most interesting cases, however have sufficient observational
datail to eliminate this possibility (I am referring to reports of
unambiguously machine-like objects).
5. Advanced technologies (test vehicles, satellites, reentry
effects). Again, some reports can be attributed to this cause, but
most cannot.
6. Poorly understood psychic phenomena (psychic projections,
archetypal images, parapsychological phenomena, etc). It is
difficult to comment on this possibility because the current lack of
knowledge of parapsychology. While a (small) number of UFO reports
do exhibit aspects of parapsychological phenomenology (25) general
relationships have yet to be convincingly demonstrated. Reference 6
deals with this explanation.
7. Extraterrestrial probes. A possibility commonly held by the
public and commonly rejected by scientists. Prof. McDonald believes
a number of sightings are best explained by this hypothesis.
8.
Messengers of salvation and occult truth. This explanation is
listed because of the nature of certain reports (particularly
"contact" reports - reports involving communication of UFO
occupants and the witnesses) and because of the historical aspects
of the phenomenology. See reference 5 for elaboration.
Perhaps, to play it safe, an additional category should be listed:
9. Other
Clearly, the explanation of UFOs will interest someone.
Psychologists have an interest in 1, 2, 3 and 6; theologians in
category 8, scientists in 4 and 7. Therefore, whatever the
explanation, it is a problem of at least average interest.
If, by
chance, the explanation is 7, or even 8 (and possibly 6) the value
to society would be profound and significant. In this sense, an
identification of the phenomenon would be a task of highest
potential urgency.
How might it be done?
Because of the transient nature of UFO's we cannot expect to have
the interested scientist rush to the spot to make his own
observations. Reports so far accumulated, however, show that UFO's
sometimes appear frequently in certain areas for a short period of
time (a so-called "flap").
One characteristic of the flap is a
larger percentage of sightings of objects at low levels than one
normally obtains. If the reporting and analysis system were
responsive enough, men and instruments
could be dispatched when a flap was recognized with a reasonable
hope of making first hand observations.
I would therefore suggest
the following:
1. Organization of a central report receiving agency, staffed by a
permanent group of experienced UFO investigators and having on call
specialists in astronomy, physics, optics, atmospheric physics,
psychology and the like for application when needed.
2.
This agency should be readily and instantly accessible to the
public for the purpose of reporting. (Witnesses should be able to
turn to someone other than the press to make reports.) Report forms
could be made available in Post Offices, for example. More urgent
reports could be made by toll-free telephone lines. (Radio amateurs
have recently begun cooperating with NICAP to provide an alerting
system.)
Because many sightings are made at night when most services
are closed, the local police office should be prepared to receive
reports of sightings. Experience indicates that witnesses usually
turn first to the police, particularly if the UFO was close or if
the witness was frightened. Such a local "data center" would be very
useful for identifying flaps and could possibly serve to dispatch
personnel to an area of interest. Care must be taken to properly
inform the officers involved about the aims of the project and
requests for assistance should be made in such a way as to minimize
additional police work.
An awareness of the problem by a dispatcher
or desk sergeant might be sufficient to draw attention to a
developing situation. An interested local scientist could then be
notified, perhaps in time to make an observation. Hynek also
suggests that the police carry cameras in their cars should they
become involved as observers. This advice obviously applies to all
interested persons.
3. A loose organization of interested scientists should be available
to investigate reports in their local areas. A good start toward
this has been made by NICAP. It is important that investigations be
made rapidly and by properly qualified people.
4. The press should be encouraged to report sightings accurately and
in a non-sensational manner. Suitable reporting would encourage
other witnesses to come forth.
5. Existing sensor records could be examined for anomalies,
particularly if visual reports are made nearby. Since we don't know
what to expect, it is difficult to say what is needed; however
records of electric, magnetic and gravitational fields,
radioactivity, optical and radio frequency anomalies would be a
logical place to start. Radars could also contribute, if they are
designed for general purpose use. As it is, most current radar
detection and tracking devices are designed to ignore anomalous
objects.
After a few years' operation in this mode, it should be possible to
study the resulting report statistics to draw generalities about
appearance and behavior (such as was done in Part IV) and most
importantly to anticipate times and locations of appearances.
Only
when this is done will it be possible to instrument sightings and
therefore obtain the objective data so badly needed If the
explanation is #4, some environmental correlations are bound to
occur. For #7 it is possible that appearances could be anticipated,
if we are clever enough; for #6 and #8 we will likely not be able to
anticipate appearances.
Certainly the conclusions drawn by NICAP from reports in their file
are startling and, if valid worthy of considerable scientific
effort. It would be much more convincing if data could be collected
worldwide and if the most interesting reports could be intensively
and completely investigated.
I believe current reports justify the
expanded data collection and analysis effort.
Pages 33 to 40 consist of the basic report form used by the
University of Colorado UFO project which have not been included
here.
A copy of this reporting form is reproduced in "The Final
Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects,"
Bantam Books, 1968, published in association with Colorado
Associated University Press.
Back to Contents
Additional Information on the Rand Report
Greetings List Members,
I guess ufology has no institution memory. About every six months
someone "discovers" "THE RAND DOCUMENT"!!!!
George Kocher worked at RAND. He was interested in the UFOs. He
wrote up a short paper for circulation within RAND. It was personal.
It was not an official RAND document. Kocher got little or no
response to his privately circulated document. One copy of it did
make its way to Wright-Patterson. LTC Quintanilla wrote RAND a
blazing letter. Once again, Quinanilla's letter was not an official
ATIC response, but from Quintanilla's address and his personal
opinion.
Kocher's supervisor turned Quintanilla's letter over to Kocher. RAND
never responded to Quintanilla. Kocher did not follow up on his
paper. The matter went no further. Kocher confirmed all this in a
letter to Dr. Hynek which is now at CUFOS with a copy of
Quintanilla's letter. CUFOS made copies of Kocher's document
available years ago. You can, I believe, still purchase copies from
them.
Ruppelt, I believe in his papers, mentioned that the chief of RAND
in the early 1950s was hostile towards UFOs. Prior to that RAND had
done a "Spaceship" study that COL McCoy requested in 1948. Parts of
the study were used in the Project Grudge report.
There were several RAND scientists who, like Kocher, had at one time
or another a personal interest in UFOs. NICAP was in contact with
one or two. However, over the years contact was lost with these
people.
There was one request from a scientist at RAND in 1965 to the Air
Force for UFO material. The Air Force forwarded the request to Hynek.
Nothing seems to have come of it. Again, it may have just been a
personal interest item.
The Kocher's document will probably now fade from sight, and in six
months we can again go through another cycle of the great discovery
of THE RAND DOCUMENT!
Regards,
Jan Aldrich
Project 1947
http://www.iufog.org/project1947/
Back to Contents
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Christian Science Monitor, May 23, 1967
2. Anatomy of a Phenomenon, J. Vallee, Ace Books, Inc H-17
3. The Sky People, B. LePoer Trenth, London, Neville Spearman, 1960.
4. The Meaning of Fatima, C. C. Martindale, S. J., P. J. Kenedy &
Sons, New York 1950, p. 77.
5. Flying Saucers Through the Ages, Paul Thomas, Neville Spearman,
London, 1966.
6. Flying Saucers - A Modern Myth, C. C. Jung, Harcourt, Brace &
World New York, 1959
7. Sputnik, January 1967 issue, p. 174
8. Report on the UFO Wave of 1947, Ted Bloecher, 1967; Available
from NICAP, 1536 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington DC 20036
9. Bloecher, pp. 1-9, 10, 12
10. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, E. J. Ruppelt, Ace
Books, Inc. G-537
11. UFO's: Greatest Scientific Problem of Our Times? J. E. McDonald
UFORI, Suite 311, 508 Grant Street, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15219
12. The UFO Evidence, NICAP, 6536 Connecticut Avenue, NW.,
Washington D.C., 20036, 1964
13. Flying Saucers: Hoax or Reality? L. Jerome Stanton, Belmont
Books B50-761
14. "The Physics and Metaphysics of Unidentified Flying Objects",
William Markowitz, Science, 15 Sept. 1967
15. Intelligent Life in the Universe, J. S. Shklovskii and Carl
Sagan, Holden-Day, Inc. 1966 (San Francisco)
16. Habitable Planets for Man, S. H. Dole, Blaisdell Publishing Co.,
New York, 1964
17. Interstellar Communication, Edited by A. C. W. Cameron,
Benjamin, New York, 1963
18. Science, 21 October 1966, letter by J. A. Hynek, p. 329
19. The Reference for Outstanding UFO Sighting Reports, T. M. Olsen,
UFO Information Retrieval Center, Inc., Box 57, Riderwood, Md. 21139
20. Observations of an Anomalistic Phenomenon, R. M. L. Baker,
Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, January/February, 1968
21. Flying Saucer Review, 14, 1, January/February, 1968, cover and
pp. 6-12.
22. Vallee, p. 109
23. Aviation Week and Space Technology, 22 January, 1968, p. 21
24. The Humanoids, special issue of Flying Saucer Review, 49a Kings
Grove, Peckham, London, S.E. 15, England (1967)
25. An interesting example appears in the July, 1968 issue of
Science & Mechanics, starting on page 30
26. A highly recommended collection of recent views on this subject
are contained in the Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects,
Hearings Before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics,
July 29, 1968.
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