James E. McDonald

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Paranormal Researcher
Biography
Name: James E. McDonald
Born: May 7, 1920
Duluth, Minnesota
Died: June 13, 1971
Tucson, Arizona
Education: PhD. Iowa State University
Resume
Field: Physicist
Paranormal Area: Ufologist
Affiliates: Institute for Atmospheric Physics,
American Association for the Advancement of Science,
National Academy of Sciences,
American Meteorological Society,
NICAP, APRO


James E. McDonald (May 7, 1920 to June 13, 1971) was an American physicist. He is probably best known for his research regarding UFOs. McDonald was senior physicist at the Institute for Atmospheric Physics and professor in the Department of Meteorology, University of Arizona, Tucson.

McDonald campaigned vigorously in support of expanding UFO studies during the mid and late 1960s, arguing that UFOs represented an intriguing, pressing and unsolved mystery which had not been adequately studied by science. He was one of the more prominent figures of his time who argued in favor of the so-called extraterrestrial hypothesis (or ETH) as a viable explanation for UFOs. It must be stressed that McDonald did not regard ETH as being proved, but rather, he considered it a plausible working hypothesis.

A dedicated and tireless UFO researcher and scholar, McDonald interviewed over 500 UFO witnesses and uncovered many important government UFO documents. He testified before Congress during the UFO hearings of 1968. [1] Some Ufologists consider his presentation there the single best summary of the UFO evidence ever given. Another famous McDonald summary of the UFO evidence, called "Science in Default," was a critique of the 1969 Condon Report UFO study prepared for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It was published posthumously in 1972 in "UFO's, A Scientific Debate," edited by Carl Sagan and Thornton Page.

It might be inaccurate to describe McDonald as a conspiracy theorist, at least in the most common sense of that term. Apparently, he was evidentially never entirely convinced that there was a widespread cover up of UFO evidence. His biographer, Ann Druffel, notes one of McDonald's surviving files was labeled "foul-up vs. cover-up," wherein he collected documents which might support either a bungled mishandling of UFO studies, or an orchestrated suppression campaign. In McDonald's estimation, there was ample evidence for a foul-up, but the case for a cover-up was far from conclusive.

Val Germann writes that "McDonald was a scourge of the complacent ufologists of his day. He blasted the Air Force, Hynek, Menzel, Condon and anyone else doing a second-rate job in the UFO arena. He was a first-rate intellect and a world-famous atmospheric scientist, this last very important since UFOs are mainly reported in the atmosphere, not in outer space. This put the astronomers (Hynek & Menzel) on the spot when they tried to challenge McDonald. He was in his field, they were not. This would often cause Menzel acute embarrassment."[2]

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life and career

McDonald was born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota. He served as a cryptographer in the United States Navy during World War II, and afterwards, married Betsy Hunt; they would have six children.

McDonald studied at the University of Omaha, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and earned his Ph.D. at Iowa State University. He taught at the University of Chicago for a year, then in 1953, he was invited to help establish a meteorology and atmospherics program at the University of Arizona as a professor of meteorology. McDonald eventually became the head of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, but resigned as its administrator after about a year because he preferred to teach and research rather than oversee the department. He taught courses from introductory to graduate levels, received good evaluations, and was fondly regarded by his students. (Druffel, 2003)

His specialty was cloud formation and physics, but his natural curiosity led him to read widely in many other scientific fields. McDonald was a widely recognized authority of atmospheric phenomena: he published many articles in peer reviewed journals, and several of his articles were included in standard meteorology textbooks (Druffel, 2003). He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Meteorological Society.

[edit] UFO studies

In 1954, while driving through the Arizona deserts with two meteorologists, McDonald spotted an unidentified flying object none of the men could identify with established science. This sighting would spur McDonald's interest in UFOs. By the late 1950s he was quietly investigating UFO reports in Arizona, and he had also joined civilian UFO research group NICAP. Given his training in atmospheric physics, McDonald was able to examine UFO reports in greater detail than most other scientists, and was able to offer explanations for some previously unexplained reports. He also uncovered a number of well-documented reports which he judged deeply puzzling even after stringent analysis.

By the mid-1960s, McDonald began speaking about UFOs more openly. McDonald's first detailed, public discussion of UFOs was in a lecture given before an American Meteorological Society assembly in Washington D.C. on October 5, 1966. Entitled "The Problem of UFOs", McDonald's speech was the first of many given to an overflow audience. McDonald declared that scientific scrutiny should be directed towards the small number of "unknowns", which he defined as a UFO reported by a "credible and trained observer as machine like 'craft' which remained unidentified in spite of careful investigation." He noted that the vast majority of UFOs could become Identified Flying Objects, and, in his estimation, only about 1% UFOs were true "unknowns". McDonald also lambasted the U.S. Air Force for what he saw as their inept handling of UFO studies. (Druffel, 157)

Following a widely-publicized series of mass UFO reports from Michigan in 1966, he was one of several scientists who urged various authorities to undertake a formal study of UFOs. This pressure eventually culminated in the Condon Committee, directed by physicist Edward Condon.

Though McDonald shared the initial general enthusiasm towards the Committee, he eventually became one of its sharpest critics. While the Condon Committee was in progress, the Office of Naval Research granted McDonald a small budget in order to conduct his own UFO research, ostensibly to study the idea that some UFOs were misidentified clouds. He was able to peruse the files of Project Blue Book at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and eventually concluded that the Air Force was mishandling UFO evidence. Following the Robertson Panel's recommendations, the Air Force was following a debunking directive, and only discussing UFO cases which were considered solved by a mundane explanation, while unexplained accounts were classified secret; see Robertson Panel for further information

McDonald was particularly disturbed that astronomer J. Allen Hynek, had not alerted the scientific community to the fact that Project Blue Book was withholding some of the most anomalous and compelling UFO reports. (Druffel, 2003) Hynek argued that if he had exposed this, the Air Force would have dumped him as Blue Book's consultant (Druffel, 2003) ; Hynek was the only scientist formally studying UFOs for the government. This was the beginning of a rift between the men that would never be entirely reconciled.

From the mid-1960s, McDonald devoted much of his time to trying to persuade journalists, politicians and his colleagues that UFOs were the most pressing issue facing American science. He gave dozens of lectures, and wrote volumes of letters to newspapers, to his peers (especially at scientific journals) and to politicians. McDonald wrote the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, arguing that they needed to radically shift what he saw as their superficial perspective towards UFOs. In response, the Air Force determined that they needed to "fireproof" themselves against McDonald's statements because of his unquestionable qualifications and credibility. (Druffel, 2003)

McDonald knew that promoting the extraterrestrial hypothesis could damage his credibility, but he was so convinced of its viability that he plowed ahead, regardless of consequences. He managed to secure limited support from a few prominent figures, such as United Nations Secretary General U Thant, who arranged for McDonald to speak to the UN's Outer Space Affairs Group on June 7, 1967. Additionally in 1967, McDonald noted, "There is no sensible alternative to the utterly shocking hypothesis that UFOs are extraterrestrial probes". (Randles, 65)

McDonald often used guarded wording in his discussions of the ETH, such as once describing the ETH as the "least unsatisfactory" explanation for UFOs. He seemed to regard the ETH not as unimpeachable fact, but as a working hypothesis. McDonald's acquaintance George Early (a prominent engineer with the United Aircraft Association and also a NICAP member) said, "I don't think Jim was 100% sold on the UFOs being extraterrestrial spacecraft with beings in them ... His essential thrust was that here is a topic worthy of scientific study which has not been studied scientifically, and we should find out what the answer is. He had a definite commitment to the truth, and if the truth turned out to be something else [other than the ETH], he wouldn't have backed away from it." (Druffel, 251)

McDonald formed alliances with those on the Condon Committee who disagreed with Condon's leadership and who wanted to undertake long-term UFO studies. McDonald inadvertently played a major role in the Condon Committee's controversy when he was given a copy of the so-called "Trick Memo" which outlined how the Committee could reach a forgone conclusion while simultaneously appearing neutral. Edward Condon tried to get McDonald fired from the University of Arizona following the exposure of this memorandum.

When the Condon Committee issued their final report, its conclusion that there was nothing unusual about UFO reports (and that further research was not worthwhile) was generally accepted. McDonald, however, was one of a few prominent figures offering detailed critiques against the report's conclusions and methodology.

As a leading atmospheric phyicist, McDonald was one of many experts who testified before congress in the 1960s against the development of supersonic transport airplanes, for fear that they would damage the ozone layer.

McDonald engaged in an often savagely adversarial relationship with aviation journalist and skeptics Philip J. Klass, who had argued in his first book (UFOs: Identified, 1968) that nearly all UFOs might be explained as a type of previously unknown ball lightning. At first, the duo exchanged cordial letters on the subject. Initially, Klass was rather guarded in his application of the plasma theory, and McDonald agreed that it might explain a small portion of UFO reports. However, Klass quickly expanded his hypothesis arguing that most if not all UFOs (and even cases of alleged alien abduction) could be explained as plasmas. McDonald thought this was absurd, and offered a detailed rebuttal against Klass's thesis. To many observers -- even those skeptical of UFOs -- McDonald's critique of Klass's arguments demonstrated that Klass lacked even a basic understanding of the theories he proposed.

In late 1967, McDonald secured a modest grant from the Office of Naval Research in order to study cloud formations in Australia. while in Australia, McDonald conducted some UFO research on his own time. Klass mounted an extended, concerted campaign against McDonald, arguing that he had squandered government funds. The ONR responded by announcing that they knew of McDonald's UFO interests and had no objections to his personal hobbies. The University of Arizona came to McDonald's defense, announcing that McDonald's UFO research was done on his own time, and had no adverse impact on his regular teaching and research duties at the university.

Klass then demonstrated that McDonald was spending at least small sums of government research funds on UFO research, and the ONR, apparently fearing controversy, decided to no longer fund McDonald's cloud research. Tom McIver writes that afterwards, "Klass accused McDonald of misusing public funds, resulting in a traumatic government investigation and audit (in which he was cleared, though he committed suicide not long afterwards)."[3]

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) McDonald emphasized that he accepted the ETH as a possibility not due to any specific evidence in its favor, but because he judged competing hypotheses as inadequate.

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.

McDonald's tireless UFO efforts were exacting a toll: he was becoming professionally isolated, and his marriage was faltering. Beyond Klass and Condon, McDonald butted heads with many other prominent figures, including Donald Menzel of Harvard University. McDonald's personality may have been a factor in these confrontations; even his friends described him as sometimes forceful and impatient, while others, less charitably, called him blunt and abrasive.

[edit] Late life and death

In March, 1971, McDonald's wife Betsy told him she wanted a divorce. McDonald seems to have began planning his suicide not long afterwards.{Druffel, 2003) He finished a few articles he was writing (UFO-related and otherwise), and made plans for the storage of his notes, papers, and research. In April, 1971, he attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head. He survived, but was blinded. For a short period, McDonald was committed to the psychiatric ward of a Tucson, Arizona hospital. He recovered a degree of peripheral vision, and made plans to return to his teaching position. However, on June 13, 1971, a family, walking along a creek close to the bridge spanning the Canada Del Oro Wash near Tucson, found a body that was later identified as McDonald's. A .38 caliber revolver was found close to him, as well as a note. Clark writes that the "suicide note tersely noted the particular domestic development that led to the decision to end his life." (Clark, 371)

Four of McDonald's peers from the University of Arizona wrote a reminiscence of their colleague, calling him "a man of great integrity and great courage. He was loved and admired by a great many people ... he made a lasting impact on many facets of atmospheric sciences ... and he will be missed much more than we now realize." (Clark, 371)

[edit] Books on James E. McDonald

The 2003 book, Firestorm: Dr. James E. McDonald's Fight for UFO Science, by Ann Druffel is to date the only full length biography of McDonald. Ann Druffel comments

[edit] Sources

  • Jerome Clark; The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial; Visible Ink, 1998; ISBN 1-57859-029-9
  • Ann Druffel; Firestorm: Dr. James E. McDonald's Fight for UFO Science; 2003, Wild Flower Press; ISBN 0-926524-58-5

[edit] External links


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