McDonald James. Science in default - twenty two years of inadiquate UFO investigations

Boston: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1969. — 36 p.The lecture given by James McDonald, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences in University of Arizona, on December 27, 1969, at the 134th Meeting General Symposium of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, dedicated to the subject of Unidentified Flying Objects.No scientifically adequate investigation of the UFO problem has been carried out during the entire 22 years that have now passed since the first extensive wave of sightings of unidentified aerial objects in the summer of 1947.
Despite continued public interest, and despite frequent expressions of public concern, only quite superficial examinations of the steadily growing body of unexplained UFO reports from credible witnesses have been conducted in this country or abroad. The latter point is highly relevant, since all evidence now points to the fact that UFO sightings exhibit similar characteristics throughout the world.
Close examination of the level of investigation and the level of scientific analysis involved in Project Sign (1948–9), Project Grudge (1949–52), and Project Bluebook (1953 to date), reveals that these were, viewed scientifically, almost meaningless investigations.
The Condon Report, released in January, 1968, after about two years of Air Force-supported study is, in author opinion, quite inadequate. The sheer bulk of the Report, and the inclusion of much that can only be viewed as “scientific padding,” cannot conceal from anyone who studies it closely the salient point that it represents an examination of only a tiny fraction of the most puzzling UFO reports of the past two decades, and that its level of scientific argumentation is wholly unsatisfactory. Furthermore, of the roughly 90 cases that it specifically confronts, over 30 are conceded to be unexplained. With so large a fraction of unexplained cases (out of a sample that is by no means limited only to the truly puzzling cases, but includes an objectionably large number of obviously trivial
cases), it is far from clear how Dr. Condon felt justified in concluding that the study indicated “that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”
The Condon Report and its Academy endorsement have exerted a highly negative influence on clarification of the long-standing UFO problem; so much, in fact, that it seems almost pointless to now call for new and more extensive UFO investigations. Yet the latter are precisely what are needed to bring out into full light of scientific inquiry a phenomenon that could well constitute one of the greatest scientific problems of our times.Introduction
Illustrative cases
RB-47 case, Gulf Coast area, Sept. 19, 1957
Lakenheath RAF Station, England, August 13–14, 1956
Haneda AFB, Japan, August 5–6, 1952
Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, Nov. 4, 1957