Documents / Hearing transcript
This is the printed transcript of an April 5, 1966 hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services on unidentified flying objects. Air Force Secretary Harold Brown testified that 9,501 of 10,147 sightings from 1947 through 1965 had been identified and that no threat or extraterrestrial evidence had been found. The record includes the Scientific Advisory Board ad hoc committee report recommending university studies and the Air Force's marsh gas explanation for the Dexter and Hillsdale, Michigan sightings. Members also questioned J. Allen Hynek and Maj. Hector Quintanilla about the Exeter, New Hampshire case.
“Exeter”18 pages
6073 The CHAIRMAN. We will get an Air Force report on that, too. Mr. SCHWEIKER. Do I understand that you said none of the unex- plained objects have been sighted on radar? Major Q17INTANILLA. No, sir; I said 1.5 percent. Mr. SCHWEIKER. No, the first question he asked you was, have any of the unexplained objects been sighted on radar. I thought you said "No" to that just a couple of minutes ago. Major QUINTANILLA. That is correct. We have no radar cases which are unexplained. Mr. SCHWEIKER. All right. Let's go back to the story Mr. Bates was talking about, Exeter, N.H., the one Mr. Fuller has written about in several magazines. I understand this is an unexplained sighting on your part, is that correct? Major QUINTANILLA. That is correct, sir. Mr. SCHWEIKER. He specifically says in his story—and I quote his words now— Confidential comments made to me by the Coast Guardsmen and military in the area support the laymen's testimony and confirm the reports of radar sight- ings and scrambling by jet fighters from Pease Air Force Base. Major QUINTANILLA. No, sir; that is not correct. We have no radar information on that sighting. No jet fighters were scrambled. Mr. SCHWEIKER. Let me ask you this: In the Pease Air Force Base, you had an investigation by Major Griffin, and a Lieutenant Brant, is that correct? Major QUINTANILLA. Sir? Mr. SCHWEIKER. In the situation at Exeter, N.H., did you have a report filed to you folks by Major Griffin and Lieutenant Brant? Major QUINTANILLA. Yes, sir; we did. Mr. SCHWEIKER. Could we have copies of their raw report? Major QUINTANILLA. Yes, sir; you may. Mr. SCHWEIKER. What were their conclusions? Major QUINTANILLA. They couldn't explain it. Secretary BROWN. They sent them over to us. Mr. SCHWEIKER. They made no mention of planes scrambling from Pease Air Force Base? Major QUINTANILLA. There were aircraft in the area on regularly scheduled missions, but they were not scrambled for the purpose ofobserving the reported UFO's. Secretary BROWN. Two of my staff have pointed out to me, Mr. Schweiker, that Pease AFB has no fighters; it is a SAC bomber base, and is not a fighter base. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions, Mr. Schweiker ? Mr. SCHWEIKER. Yes, sir. I would like to ask the doctor: You said to have some bona fide sightings we need a lot of people and a point-to-point situation and some other things. Doesn't the Exeter, N.H. sighting, at least as reported—I want to point out that in this sighting there were several policemen, including the chief of police and several news people who all reported the same phenomena, 60 people. Doesn't that meet your criteria; a lot of people saw it, it was a point-to-point situation, at least this observer says there were
Hearing transcript, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 88 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.