Introduction à l'édition NCAS en ligne des archives du symposium

Home > Symposium sur les ovnis

Chambre des Représentants

Comité sur la Science et l'Astronautique

29 Juillet 1968

Contexte

Il y a environ 2 ans, le NCAS placa le rapport de 1968 du projet UFO de l'Université du Colorado, Etude scientifique des objets volants non identifiés, sur le web. Ce rapport représentait, et représente toujours, le consensus du courant scientifique principal sur la question des ovnis, à l'effet qu'aucun objectif scientifique ne serait servi par une étude plus poussée des ovnis. Cette vision, cependant, ce fut pas unanime. Une petite minorité de critiques scientifiques du travail de Colorado firent avec énergie objection à ses conclusions même alors qu'elles étaient en cours de développement. Ces critiques, en plus de leurs niveaux scientifiques respectables, avaient des liens avec des figures influentes de la politique et des médias, et ces liens finirent par amener à convenir d'une audition ("le Symposium") devant le Comité sur la Science et l'Astronautique de la Chambre des Représentants U.S..

Le Symposium s'étant tenu plusieurs mois avant la publication du rapport Colorado, l'équipe du projet eut l'opportunité d'étudier l'enregistrement ; le Dr. Edward Condon, directeur scientifique du projet, écrivit une évaluation de synthèse qui concluait de ces mots :

We studied the transcript of this symposium with great care to see whether we would be led thereby to any new material related to this study. We did not find any new data.

Several of the contributors to that symposium have become trenchant advocates in the past several years of a continuing major government investment in an UFO program. Several have long urged a greater degree of congressional interest in this subject. The symposium of 29 July afforded them an occasion on which with the utmost seriousness they could put before the Congress and the public the best possible data and the most favorable arguments for larger government activity in this field.

Hence it is fair to assume that the statements presented in that symposium represent the maximum case that this group feels could be made. We welcome the fact that this symposium is available to the public and expect that its data and arguments will be compared with those in this report of this study by those whose duty it is to make responsible decisions in this area.

We have studied this symposium record with great care and find nothing in it which requires that we alter the conclusions and recommendations that we have presented in Section I, nor that we modify any presentation of the specific data contained in other sections of this report.

Because of their timing, the circumstances surrounding their production, and the strongly divergent views represented in each document, the Symposium record and the Colorado report stand in historic opposition. The Symposium's participants strongly recommended that substantial scientific efforts be undertaken in the investigation of the UFO issue; the Colorado investigators just as strongly recommended the contrary. In this controversy there was no compromise; the scientific community came down firmly in opposition to the recommendations of the participants in the Symposium.

It is this historic opposition that makes the Symposium record of interest to students of the UFO issue. NCAS has chosen to place its full text on-line with confidence that, along with the Colorado report, the Symposium record will prove useful in the rational evaluation of many aspects of the this still-contentious issue.

Remerciements

Beth Wolszon de la bibliothèque de l'Université du Minnesota localisa une copie de l'archive du Symposium et fournit une photocopie à scanner.

Jim Giglio fit le scanning optique et le codage HTML de l'archive, et coordonna une équipe de volontaires du NCAS qui proofread the on-screen result.

The proofreaders who performed this crucial, tedious, and often under-appreciated task, were Lynn Francis, Mary Pastel, Neil Inglis, Tim Scanlon, Barry Blyveis, and Zoe Ann Lapinski.

Paul Jaffe
Président
National Capital Area Skeptics
2000-2001

Home > Symposium sur les ovnis