J. Allen Hynek - The UFO Experience - A Scientific Inquiry (1972)

elementary point that could easily be skipped. Nevertheless the fact must be proved much in the same way that it was finally demonstrated nearly two centuries ago that stones did actually 'fall' from the sky.

The combination of a sophisticated statistical approach and the detailed studies of specific individual multiwitness cases would almost certainly establish whether or not UFOs are indeed new empirical observations heretofore unrecognized by science.

An approach such as this is essential for the resolution of today's confusing situation. Views range from those who con­ sider the entire subject as nonsense (either from a priori con­ sider;;ttions or in the belief that the Condon Report has been definitive) and hence refuse to devote even a moment to the examination of the data, to those who have examined the pres­ ent data and are convinced on that basis that the UFO pheno­ menon represents a new field of science. This severe polarization of the issue can be dissipated only by concentrated study. How can such studies be pursued best?

We can start with the knowledge that the UFO phenomenon is global, that UFO reports persist in this and other countries despite the Condon Report and the closing of Blue Book, and that many small groups of scientifically trained people, es­ pecially young scientists, are expressing interest in the subject and dissatisfaction with the manner in which it has been treated in the past. Some find it increasingly difficult to understand why the National Academy of Science fully endorsed the Condon Report and its methodology.

Long before the release of the Condon Report, the AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) asked two of its technical committees, the Committee on Atmos­ pheric Environment and the Committee on Space and Atmos­ pheric Physics, to establish a subcommittee devoted to the UFO problem. Dr. Joachim P. Kuettner, of the ESSA Re­ search Laboratories in Boulder, Colorado, was asked to chair the committee. In the December, 1968, issue of the Journal of 272