William H Hartman
William K. Hartmann is an American astronomer, planetary scientist, and artist known within UFO research for his 1967 analysis of the McMinnville UFO Photographs for the Condon Committee, the government-funded UFO research project based at the University of Colorado Boulder. His analysis remains the most rigorous scientific examination of the photographs and concluded they were consistent with a genuine, distant, large unidentified craft — one of the few cases in the Condon Report treated as potentially authentic.
| Role | Astronomer; Condon Committee investigator |
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McMinnville Analysis
Hartmann received the original negatives of the two photographs taken by Paul Trent and Evelyn Trent on May 11, 1950, near McMinnville, Oregon, and performed both photometric and geometric analysis. He applied atmospheric extinction analysis to the brightness of the object's underside, comparing it to the underside of an oil tank also visible in the images. Finding that the object was brighter than the nearby tank — the effect caused by intervening atmosphere washing out distant objects — Hartmann concluded the object was at a genuine distance from the camera, not a small model hung nearby as hoax proponents claimed.
His formal conclusion, submitted to the Condon Committee, stated:
"This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and physical appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disc-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses."
Scientific Career
Hartmann is better known in mainstream science for his contributions to planetary science, including research on the formation of the Moon and the early solar system. He is also a co-originator of the giant impact hypothesis for lunar formation. His involvement with the Condon Committee represents a notable intersection of his scientific career with the UFO research landscape of the late 1960s.