• I CON~I~ ENJ]l~La CoJ:l
· as~ing them to describe what they saw , before tel'i: 1ng them my story , Yin order to avoid suggestion or inrerence of a leading nature . They
saw the object (from the grou1id) while I was on my second search .
'l'hey believed the time to have been 14;00 hours . The object peri'ormed
in the same erratic manner , they said , as I observed .
The above is the extent of the story , and information concerning
myself is now in order .
I have approximately 2800 hours of flying time in equipment
ranging from primary trainers to B-29s . Of course , that does not in
crease my powers of observation except as to those practiced daily by
an airman . It does not make my eyesight any shurper except again a s
to the incidental demands upon the eyes of a pilot .
At the time of the experience related above , I had flown four
teen and one - half hours on an assignment to find a disc and if possible ,
to photograph it . In all frankness , I was tired . I may have been
suffering , although slightly , from want of oxygen .
Prior to sighting the object , I had concluded there was no point
in pressine the search, that I probably v1ould never see the disc - like
objects referred to by Arnold ~na by Captain Smith of United Air Lines .
At all times during the search, both on that day and the t~o
preceeding days (particularly when I was with .Arnold) I had literally
talked to myself to keep beating into my head that I vo uld not fall
victim to the power of suggestion or self- hypnosis arising from a
naturally very intent desire to find a disc and bring success to the
assignment given me .
I therefore do not believe that I was the victim of suggestion
or hypnosis . I am familiar v.d. th the optical illusion of a fixed object
beginning to move after it is watched a sufficient length of time . I
know what tricks the eyes will play as to moving bodies , and have l3 arned_
of this particularly during night formation flying .
I saw the object appear suddenly . If it had moved in a jerky
fashion (as it did at first) for the full length of time I observed it ,
I would not be so strong in saying that I saw something not an aircraft ,
not a ballo'on , and not a corpuscle moving across the retina of either
eye . The maneuver described by the object when its edge was presented
t~ me convinces me that I saw an object actually i;:erforming in an
erratic flight path .
The question remains , of .course , whether I saw it . The motion
picture fi l IJt , developed and processed by R. w. Stohr in the Eastman
laboratories at 241 Battery Street , San Francisco , showed no trace of
any object . Stohr says that if it was more than a mile distant from me
at the si z e I described , the ob j ect would not have registered suffic
iently on the film to be shown. He said it probably was too far away
to be apparent even through great enlargement of' the -negative , and
enlargement i n that case is limi ted because of the s i ze of the film
and the fact I did not have any telescopic equi pment on the lens . The
exposure was f . 16 , stop set at infinity , at a speed of 16 frames per
second . •
I have worried over this matter a great deal since seeing it .
I "took myself aside 11 and said , "come now , Johnson , don't be stupid 1
But I cannot bring myself to the point of thinking I did not see
thing . The impression of the moment was too vivid , too realist
I knew in the air when I saw that partial slow roll or barr8l
that I was not a victim of illusion .
I trust this matter will be of help to those investigati
flying disc phenomena which have been reported .
A chart is attached depicting the mov ements
CONFID2 I~TI ~A~L