65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_002

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• I CON~I~ ENJ]l~La
CoJ:l
·as~ing them to describe what they saw, before tel'i: 1ng them my story, Y
in 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 siz 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
CONFID 2I~TI~A~L