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STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT L. HALL, HEAD, DEPARTMENT OF
SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, CHICAGO, ILL.
Dr. HALL. Thank you, Mr. Roush.
First I should like to state a few of the rather well-established facts
as they would be seen by a social psychologist. I find that when I do
so, there is a great deal of redundancy. You have heard most of these
facts before, so I will make my presentation brief.
Fundamentally what we know that everyone can agree upon is that
a great many people all over the world keep reporting some quite
puzzling flying objects. In these reports there are certain recurring
features, and the people so reporting often have all the characteristics
of reliable witnesses.
Second, the next main thing we know is that there are several
strongly, often bitterly competing systems of belief about how to ex-
plain these observations, and some rational men seem to fall into line
supporting each of these positions.
This in itself is of course of great interest to a social psychologist.
Inevitably he is interested in how systems of belief grow and are
maintained.
The third major factual thing that can be quite well agreed upon
is that to a very large extent these alternative explanations, these
systems of belief, have become rooted in organizations of people who
have become committed to defending their respective positions. This
greatly complicates the problem of arriving at a generally accepted
explanation. In that sense,in addition to any other problems that have
been defined here, clearly we have a social psychological problem also.
These are very briefly the main outlines of the facts as I see them.
Now,how are these explained?
There are certain things that everyone seems to agree upon, or
nearly everyone, I believe. First that a great many of these observa-
tions can be quite clearly identified as mistakes on the part of the
observer, misidentifications of familiar objects, hoaxes, and a mis-
cellaneous collection of similar things.
Beyond that point, there comes to be a good deal of divergence in
explanations, to say the least. Perhaps the major views now can be
classified simply as follows: First, that these are technological devices
or vehicles of some sort entering our atmosphere from the outside.
Second, that this is some new, as yet ill-understood natural phe-
nomena, something like a form of plasma, that we do not understand,
and so on.
The third major hypothesis to explain the hard-core cases that are
not otherwise agreed upon,is that they too are simply a result of mass
hysteria,and its resulting misidentifications.
This hypothesis I will address myself to particularly very soon,
because obviously a social psychologist has a special interest in this
possibility.
The three major topics that I believe I should address myself to
are, first, what has brought about this complicated situation of
strongly opposed beliefs that seem to resist the factual evidence, and
are not responsive to each other?