Dr. James McDonald worked as a senior physicist at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics and a Professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Arizona. In 1967 McDonald committed suicide in strange circumstances not long after he had tried to get NASA to take on the responsibility of UFO reports. In the report he said: "Curiously, I have said this both in NASA and fairly widely reported public discussion before scientific colleagues, yet the response from NASA has been nil… Even attempting to get a small group within NASA to undertake a study group approach to the available published effort seems to have generated no response. I realize, of course, that there may be semi-political considerations that make it awkward for NASA to fish in these waters at present, but if this is what is holding up serious scientific attention to the UFO problem at NASA this is all the more reason Congress had better take a good hard look at the problem and reshuffle the deck. I have learned from a number of sources that the Air Force has long wished to get rid of the burden of the troublesome UFO problem and has twice tried to 'peddle' it to NASA - without success"