The House Armed Services Committee hears the Air Force after the Michigan sightings; an outside study is recommended

On 5 April 1966 the House Committee on Armed Services, chaired by L. Mendel Rivers, heard Secretary of the Air Force Harold Brown, Dr J. Allen Hynek of Project Blue Book and Maj. Hector Quintanilla, Jr. on unidentified flying objects, following sightings in Michigan. Brown read a letter stating that the Air Force had identified 9,501 of 10,147 reports from 1947 through 1965 and had found no threat to national security and no evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles. The record included an Air Force statement on the Dexter and Hillsdale sightings and a letter from Gerald R. Ford urging a committee investigation. Hynek told the committee that the Exeter case was listed as unidentified.

3 documents·5 points

Brown stated that the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board had concluded that the UFO phenomena presented no threat to United States security and that its recommendations were under study (p. 5992).
Of 10,147 reported sightings from 1947 through 1965, the Air Force said it had identified 9,501, leaving 646 (p. 5992).
The Air Force statement on Dexter and Hillsdale, Mich., said young men had played pranks with flares at Hillsdale and that a released photograph showed the crescent moon and Venus (p. 5993).
In a letter of March 28, 1966, Gerald R. Ford proposed hearings and wrote that he did not agree that all the Michigan reports could be so easily explained away (p. 6046).
Hynek told the committee he had seen no evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence but that the possibility should be kept open as a hypothesis (p. 6046).

Documents

Hearing transcript Unidentified flying objects: hearing before the Committee on Armed Forces of the House of Representatives, Eighty-ninth Congress, second session, April 5, 1966 ... U.S. House Committee on Armed Services· 1966-04-05· 88 pp.
Hearing transcript House Armed Services Committee hearing on UFOs, April 5, 1966 Internet Archive· 1966-04-05· 37 pp.
Document Ford Press Releases, UFO, 1966 Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library· 15 pp.