Loren Coleman has noted that today is the 26th anniversary of the death of Dr James E. McDonald, one of the foremost scientists to support investigation of the UFO phenomenon. On June 13, 1971, the noted atmospheric physicist was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head, an apparent suicide (his second attempt). Loren writes:
McDonald spoke before the United States Congress for a UFO hearing in 1968. In part, he stated his opinion that “UFOs are entirely real and we do not know what they are, because we have laughed them out of court. The possibility that these are extraterrestrial devices, that we are dealing with surveillance from some advanced technology, is a possibility I take very seriously.” (Clark, 368)
In 1969, McDonald was a speaker at an American Association for the Advancement of Science UFO symposium. There he delivered a lecture, “Science in Default“, which Jerome Clark calls “one of the most powerful scientific defenses of UFO reality ever mounted.” (Clark, 370) McDonald discussed in detail a handful of well documented UFO cases which seemed, he thought, to defy interpretation by conventional science. (Source: Jerome Clark; The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial; Visible Ink, 1998)
While most of popular ufology is taken up with investigating over-hyped cases, it’s important that we look back for the important contributions to the field. McDonald’s life and work should be far better known than is currently the case. For anyone interested, you can check out his biography by Ann Druffel, Firestorm (Amazon US and UK ). Thanks Loren.
