Dean of the Medical School Daniel C. Tosteson '46 has convened a secret "ad-hoc fact finding" committee to investigate the research of a Harvard professor noted for his study of UFO phenomena and Alien abductions, according to a source requesting anonymity.

And members of the UFO community are calling it a modern-day "witch hunt."

Both the University and Dr. John E. Mack, the professor of psychiatry under scrutiny, would have preferred to keep the matter secret. But instead, news of the committee has been circulating amoung the UFO legal and academic communities as well as the press and the Internet.

Mack, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former chair of the department of psychiatry at the Medical School, became the center of attention and controversy last year upon publication of his bestselling book," "Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens."

The book, which suggests that alien abductions may be real, catapulted Mack--a psychiatrist at Cambridge Hospital--into the national spotlight and onto the talk show circuit.

The University could neither acknowledge nor refute the existence of the committee. The Harvard press office issued the following statement: "It is the policy of Harvard University to neither confirm nor deny information relating to personnel matters, including those regarding members of its faculty."

But The Crimson has learned from a reliablesource requesting anonymity that an investigationis indeed going on.

"By agreement of all parties concerned it wassupposed to be confidential," the source said inan interview last week. "It was leaked by a breachof that confidence. The committee is still goingand no final conclusions have been reached."

News of the Committee was likely leaked byMack's former lawyer Daniel P. Sheehan, who actsas legal counsel for the Christic Institute, aWashington public-interest law firm.

In an attempt to muster support for his formerclient, Sheehan sent letters to prominentindividuals in the UFO community, appealing fortheir support and testimony. In the letter,obtained by The Crimson, Sheehan provides excerptsfrom the committee's "Draft Report" along with hisown commentary regarding its objectives andmotives.

Sheehan quotes the draft report as saying,"There is, of course, a long history of sightingsof unidentifiable object in the sky. But theinterpretation that these are 'spaceships'controlled by extraterrestrial beings iscontroversial. When carefully investigated, suchsightings have been proven to be erroneousfraudulent or due to known natural or man-madephenomena."

Sheehan also quotes the Committee's draftreport as declaring that "Dr. Mack adds no newevidence on the subject" and that he provides"only unsubstantiated reports of UFOs as supportfor the stories of 'abduction.'"

Dr. John G. Miller, an emergency room physicianat the Kaiser Hospital in Anaheim, called thiscontention "absurd."

"Whatever the shortcomings of his methods, hehas approached this problem in a scientificmanner, i.e. he has spoken with the witnesses,sought evidence and tested hypotheses," Millersaid. "Additionally, his work certainly generated'new evidence' in this field in that he hasstimulated others, myself included, to think andpublish ideas and data."

In his letter, Sheehan writes that thecommittee cans any acknowledgement that patientstruly experienced alien encounters as"irresponsible."

He writes, "To communicate, in any waywhatsoever, to a person who has reported a 'closeencounter' with an Extraterrestrial life form thatthis experience might well have been 'real', TheHarvard faculty Committee 'FINDS', isprofessionally irresponsible on the part of anyacademic, scientific professional person."