The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena - UFOs: A New Look

CASES ANALYZED BY DR. JAMES E. McDONALD, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
(Selected from presentation to House Science & Astronautics Committee,
UFO Symposium, July 29, 1968)

7. Case 15, Redlands, Calif., February 4, 1968

A still more recent multiple-witness case of great interest was well-documented by three University of Redlands professors shortly after it occurred on the evening of 2/4/68. APRO plans a fairly detailed summary report. Dr. Philip Seff kindly sent me a copy of the witness-testimony he and his colleagues secured in interviewing about twenty out of an estimated hundred-plus witnesses to this low-altitude sighting in a residential area of Redlands. Because I understand that Dr. Harder will be giving a fairly detailed report on this case to your Committee, I shall give only a much abbreviated version. At 7:20 p.m., many persons went outdoors to investigate either (a) the unusual barking of neighborhood dogs, or (b) a disturbing and unusual sound. Soon many persons up and down several streets were observing an object round in planform, estimated at perhaps 50-60 feet in diameter, moving slowly towards the east-northeast at an altitude put by most witnesses as perhaps 300 feet. Glowing ports or panels lay around its upper perimeter and "jet-like" orange-red flames or something resembling flames emanated from a number of sources on the undersurface. A number of odd physiological effects were remarked by various witnesses, and the animal-reactions were a notable feature of this case. The object at one point rose abruptly by some hundreds of feet before continuing its somewhat "jerky" motion to the east. It them hovered a short time and moved off with acceleration to the northwest.

Discussion - the Redlands University trio inquired concerning radar detection, but were informed that the nearest radar was at march AFB, Riverside, and the beam clearing intervening ridges could not detect so low a target over Redlands. An interesting aspect of press coverage of UFOs, a very characteristic aspect, is illustrated here. The local Redlands-area papers carried only short pieces on the event; beyond that no press coverage occurred, as far as I have been able to ascertain.

Evidently even the state wires did not carry it. (I think this fact deserves very strong emphasis. One has to see national clipping-service coverage, drawing upon many small-town papers, to gain even a dim glimpse of the astonishing number of UFO reports that occur steadily, but go unreported on state and national wires so that none but very diligent UFO investigators have any appreciation of the true frequency of UFO sightings. This is no "press clampdown", no censorship; wire editors simply "know" that there's nothing to all this nonsense about I-FO. A local story will be run simply for its local interest, but that interest falls off steeply with radial distance from the observation site.) Thus, we must confront a situation, developed over 20 years, in which over a hundred citizens in a city of about 30,000 population can see an utterly unconventional aerial machine just overhead and, almost by the time the dogs have stopped barking, press and officialdom are uninterested. Dr. Seff told me just last week that he had encountered a Redlands University coed who had seen the object (he hadn't interviewed her previously), and she seemed still terrified by the incident. I believe that your Committee must recognize an unfilled scientific obligation to get to the bottom of such matters.

8. Many other multiple-witness cases could be cited; some from my own interviewing experience, far more from other sources within this country and abroad. An October 28, 1954 sighting in Rome was estimated to have been viewed by thousands of people, one of whom was U.S. Ambassador Clare Booth Luce (Ref. 10) with her embassy staff. Mrs. Luce said it had the shape of a silver dollar and crossed the skies in about 30 seconds. A now famous group of sightings of June 26/27, 1959, near Boianai, New Guinea, was observed by several dozen witnesses, the principal one of whom I interviewed in Melbourne, in 1967, Rev. Wm. B. Gill. Bloecher (Ref. 8) describes a number of mid-1947 incidents where the witness-totals ranged from dozens up to well over a hundred persons. Hall (Ref. 10) cites more recent instances. Many other sources could be cited to show that the intimation that UFOs are never seen except by lone individuals driving along some remote back road (a frequent setting, to be sure!) does not accord with the actual facts. Multiple-witness UFO cases are impressively numerous.

1, Case 16. New York, City, November 22, 1966

A report in a 1967 issue of the NICAP UFO Investigator (Ref. 33) reads as follows:

"A UFO over the United Nations in New York City was reportedly seen on November 22, 1966. Witnesses included at least eight employees of the American. Publishers Association, who watched from their offices on the 17th. floor of 750 Third Avenue at 4:20 p.m. on a bright, sunny day. The UFO was a rectangular, cushion-shaped object...(which) came southward over the East River, then hovered over the UN Building... fluttered an bobbed like a ship on agitated water."

Witnesses mentioned were D. R. McVay, assistant general manager of ANPA and Mr. W. H. Leick, manager of the ANPA's Publications Department. I telephoned the ANPA offices and spoke at some length with Mr. Leick about the sighting. He confirmed that eight or nine persons went out on the 17th floor terrace, watching the object hover over the UN Building (as nearly as they could estimate) for a number of minutes as it rocked and reflected the sun's rays with a golden glint before rising and moving off eastward at high speed. I asked Leick if they reported it to any official channels, and he said that A. A. LaSalle called a New York office of the Air Force and was assured that an officer would be in the next day to interview them. But no one ever came. Leick added that they also phoned a New York newspaper "which shall go unnamed." but "they weren't interested." It got to NICAP almost by accident, and NICAP sent up their standard witness-questionnaires, which Leick said they all filled out.

Discussion - When an incident such as this is cited to the skeptic who asks, "Why no UFOs near cities?", I find that his almost invariable retort is something like- "If that had really happened, why wouldn't hundreds to thousands of persons have reported it?" There are, I believe, two factors that explain the latter situation. First, consider the tiny fraction of persons on any city street whose vision is directed upwards at any given moment. In absence of loud noises aloft, most urbanites don't spend any large amount of time scanning the skies. In addition to infrequency of sky-scanning, another urban obstacle to UFO detection is typically restricted vision of the full dome of the sky; buildings or trees cut down the field of view in a way not so typical of the view afforded the farmer, the forest ranger, or a person driving in open country, Finally, in UFO studies, it is always necessary to draw sharp distinction between a "sighting" and a "report". The first becomes the second only if a witness takes the step of notifying a newspaper, a law-enforcement office, a university, or some official agency. It is abundantly clear, from the experience of UFO investigations in many parts of the world, that psychological factors centering around unwillingness to be ridiculed deter most witnesses from filing any official report on a very unusual event. Again and again one learns of a UFO sighting quite indirectly, from someone who knows someone who once mentioned that he'd seen something rather unusual. On following such leads, one, frequently comes upon extremely significant sightings that were withheld from official reporting channels because of the "ridicule lid", as I like to term it, that imposes a filter screening out a large number of good sightings at their source.