James MacDonald

“We've been listening to American physicist Professor James E. MacDonald of the University of Arizona.”

“American physicist Professor James E. MacDonald of the University of Arizona”

“Officially, he was working for the U.S. Navy, but in his spare time, he's checking many Australian reports of UFOs and comparing them with American reports.”

“His aim is to see if the reports tally, in short, whether UFOs constitute a global phenomenon.”

“I've been down here in Australia interviewing witnesses to find out for myself, in direct, face-to-face, or in some cases, phone interviewing, exactly what happened in individual cases and what the credibility of the witness is”

“I've spent about 12-13 months in the States in interviewing witnesses in key cases, attempting to unravel this very puzzling and very intriguing mystery.”

“I've investigated about 50 or 60 cases since I came down to New Zealand and Australia.”

“I have about 10,000 feet of tape, I noticed, when I wound this thing up.”

“And I've interviewed about 70 Australians or New Zealanders.”

“I think it might have been a Professor James MacDonald. James MacDonald, that's the one.”

“In Melbourne, he's talking with Brian King.”

“Talkback 638151. Professor James MacDonald, the University of Arizona, talking about unidentified flying objects. Let's hear from you on 638151.”

“I've been down to Hobart, Tasmania, some extremely interesting cases in Tasmania.”

“The picture in Australia, with respect to UFO sightings, observations of unconventional objects maneuvering, sometimes quite close to ground, sometimes within tens to hundreds of feet of very credible, reliable observers, is just not appreciably different in Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania from what it is in the States.”

“lots of persons in the US and Australia and elsewhere are making reports just like that of lights that move across, hover, exhibit maneuvers that do not at all match meteors.”

“There are lots of cases where animals are present, dogs, horses, cows, and so on.”

“Persons of really quite high credibility reporting unconventional objects, discs, cigar-shaped objects”

“frequently at very low elevation”

“hovering over sometimes urban areas”

“sometimes over cars, following cars.”

“There's just a little bit of evidence that indicates to me there may even be a few more sightings per square mile or per capita here than in the States. But I wouldn't stand firmly on that feeling that I've gotten.”

“We were down in Mowi, in the Gippsland area, talking to a farmer named Brew,”

“I was on the spot a few days ago looking at it.”

“who was milking 0700 on February of 1963. All of a sudden, coming out of the overcast was a large disc-like object which hovered over a tree 100 yards away.”

“The cattle, he was most impressed by the way in which the cattle jumped and stampeded, the dogs started barking, horses broke loose and so on.”

“This is not at all unrepresentative of the kind of panic reaction that animals show.”

“That date is interestingly close to the date of a sighting in New Zealand that I checked when I was over in Auckland, an airline pilot.”

“they seem to be semi-circular. You know, they were just... You couldn't really make out a shape. They just seemed to be spinning at such a terrific speed.”

“James E. MacDonald: Did you have the impression they were many miles away or quite close? Speaker 9: not terribly far, you know, because I could see them quite clearly.”

“James E. MacDonald: was this moving in in a very rapid speed...? Speaker 5: well fairly rapid i didn't have time i just had time to go and get the binoculars and then pick it up and it disappeared from view”

“James E. MacDonald: when you looked at the binoculars did it exhibit actual shape and structure Speaker 5: yes it was like made out of a metal an iridescent blue color”

“that's uh moderately interesting it might be well to talk with you a little bit further if we could”

“James E. MacDonald: Did you hear any sound...? Speaker 8: I was in the field of steam boars, which put out a terrific roar, and I don't know whether you've been to Wairakei in New Zealand, but to make anyone else hear you, you have to almost shout in their ear.”

“James E. MacDonald: You never reported that to the RAF or the New Zealand Air Force? Speaker 8: No, not at all.”

“Yes, that rules out plasmoids of the ball lightning type.”

“let's just take the stationary aspect. The possibility that it's a meteoric fireball is ruled out...”

“well no more than two reported it in any way”

“experienced investigators such as those that have been working in Sydney and Melbourne and Tasmania and in other parts of the world, these are private investigating groups, not the official groups. The official groups ... come out with such outrageously absurd explanations”

“The main difficulty is Jung was not at all addressing himself to what is the real UFO problem. He is talking about psychotic types who have some kind of psychic needs to believe.”

“Jung says these are psychic projections of archetypal images, you know. Well, it poses the puzzling question, you see, Barry, that we have to make the assumption that canine, equine, feline, bovine archetypal images are identical with ours. ... If you think this is not a real phenomenon, then why does it stampede cattle?”

“When you look at these various hypotheses, psychological, advanced technology, hoax, fabrication, fraud, poorly understood geophysical phenomena, you run through all of those. This is certainly what I've done in the past year of checking.”

“You find yourself ending up with the seemingly absurd, seemingly improbable hypothesis These things may be coming from somewhere else.”

“looking at Australian, American and other sightings, examining the credibility of the observers looking at the content of these observations, I'm afraid that it boils down to to craft of some kind machine-like objects”

“The official position is that it's a lot of nonsense, burdensome duty that the Air Force is unable to get away with.”

“There is expertise at the disposal of the American Air Force, but when you go digging, as I have, you find it just isn't being used and hasn't been used for 15 years.”

“the American Air Force investigation Project Blue Book which has been in operation for about 14 years”

“Project Blue Book consists of three people at present. The American Air Force Investigatory Program is a major, a sergeant, and a secretary.”

“the kind of press releases that are put out about the great expertise that's used, the thorough investigations, and the indication that there are only two or three percent of unknowns, and probably those would be explained, the Air Force insists, if they add a little more data.”

“regarded quite highly in other parts of the world and that's completely unjustified ... it's been done superficially and by persons of extremely low scientific competence. It has to be regarded as essentially zero. It is not a scientific investigation.”

“On the 7th of June, I was at the United Nations speaking to the Outer Space Affairs Group about the UFO problem, submitted some formal statements to them, urging UN action on the UFO problem.”

“I had a date to see U Thant, but the Mideast crisis interfered.”

“I'm going to try again to see him.”

“Subsequently, however, in some kind of an exchange with Drew Pearson, U Thant made a statement now about four or five days ago, I guess six days ago, that the UFO problem is probably the most important international problem, with the present exception of the Vietnam War.”

“I cabled U Thant a reply, endorsing the statement, but disagreeing to the extent of saying that, in my opinion, the UFO problem is probably even greater in international importance than the Vietnamese situation.”