James E. McDonald
University of Arizona atmospheric physicist (1920–1971) who was the most prominent scientist of the 1960s to argue that UFOs deserved serious study.
1966 CE · 32.23, -110.95 · status: account
The account
A respected cloud-physics and weather-modification researcher, McDonald began lecturing on UFOs in 1966, briefed the UN's Outer Space Affairs Group in 1967, testified to the House Science and Astronautics Committee in 1968 that UFOs were 'entirely real and we do not know what they are', and attacked the Condon Report. He was a consultant to APRO. When he testified against the supersonic transport in 1970, a congressman tried to discredit him by mocking his UFO work. He died in 1971.
The sceptical view
Sceptics such as Klass and Menzel argued the cases he championed had conventional explanations, and the Condon Committee concluded the subject offered little to science.
Connections in the atlas
- James McDonald briefs the United Nations
- James E. McDonald
- Science in Default
- ? Can ball lightning explain UFO reports?
- Coral and Jim Lorenzen (APRO)
- House Science and Astronautics UFO symposium
- Philip J. Klass
- Donald Keyhoe
- Condon Report