You never know what you’re gonna see out there. One night in the Grand Canyon, after 20-plus miles of hiking, my buddy Dave and I convinced ourselves—for about 10 minutes—that we were being following by a UFO. If only we’d had this dope UFO identification chart. Created in 1968 by Stanford University’s Dr. Roger Shepard for Congressional hearings on UFOs, it remains as useful today as it was then. And that’s saying something.

It’s unclear why this was in the report, but it’s cool.

The 1960s were the UFO Decade (followed immediately by the 1970s and the Bigfoot Decade) and in the midst of the space race with the Red Menace, what really happened at Roswell was a Big Deal. So on July 29, 1968, the House of Representatives Committee on Science and Astronautics held its Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects—they didn’t know much about marketing buzzwords and acronyms back then—and called in experts from around the country, including Dr. Carl Sagan.

Sagan, of course, got it—at the very beginning of the discussion, he humped them for more money. “I just wanted to underline one point that Dr. Baker made. Congressman Roush, in his detailed presentation of the various Air Force systems, I am afraid that the main point won’t come across to a lay audience, and that is that with relatively little expenditure of funds, it would be possible to significantly improve the available information.”

Analysis of scale from Montana sighting.

Sagan understood the power of “billions and billions” and harnessed it to great effect.

What a time that was! They just don’t make scientists like these any more…Dr. Leo Sprinkle! What a name! And what a world view! Dr. Sprinkle wrote, “If these reports by UFO observers are found to be reliable and valid, I believe we shall enter the threshold of a most exciting and challenging period in man’s history.”

Amen, Doc.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the symposium, nor, I’m guessing, were you. Fortunately, the National Capital Area Skeptics have put the entire report to the committee online, complete with a boatload of scientific papers and a pile of charts and photos. See it here.

And keep those eyes up.

Tagged as: space