An experimental program was carried out to compare the laminar, plane stagnation flow kinematics of a highpurity Newtonian mineral oil with a viscoelastic fluid of 5% by weight polyisobutylene solution in the same mineral oil solvent. Selected local axial velocity measurements were made over a 10-fold range of fluid flow rates by means of a Laser-Doppler Anemometer specially designed and constructed for this experiment. It is conservatively estimated that the accuracy of the point velocities measured with this method was better than ±5%.It was found that the normalized axial velocity vs. axial position curves superimposed for both fluids at very low flow rates over the entire flow field. However, upon increasing the flow rate, but still remaining in the laminar regime, the viscoelastic fluid velocity curves started to change appreciably, whereas the Newtonian fluid curves did not change at all. Formation of a "stagnant" zone was observed with the viscoelastic fluid near the stagnation point. This zone appeared to increase in thickness with increasing flow rates.