J. Allen Hynek: the Man behind UFO "Project Blue Book"
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For nearly forty years after “flying saucers” began making the news, one man dominated the search for an explanation: J. Allen Hynek, astronomer and scientific consultant to the US Air Force UFO Research group. Hynek began his career as a debunker, but gradually changed his mind on UFOs, becoming the foremost advocate for their scientific study. More than anyone else, he helped convince both scientists and laymen that there was a genuine mystery in the UFO data, and he showed the world how to solve it with the tools of modern science.
Air Force Consultant
Hynek became fascinated with astronomy as a young child in Chicago, and got his Bachelor of Science in astronomy from the University of Chicago in 1932. After this, he worked at Yerkes and Perkins Observatories before becoming associate professor at Ohio State University in 1935. He helped develop the proximity fuze during the Second World War, and was named associate professor and director of Ohio State’s McMillin Observatory in 1946. In the 1950s, he helped develop the first U.S. satellite-tracking program, wrote a popular astronomy column in the Columbus Dispatch, and became chair of the astronomy department at Northwestern University.
When “flying saucers” began making the news in the summer of 1947, Hynek assumed, like many Americans, that it was merely a case of cold war hysteria. But sightings persisted, and in 1948, the Air Force established a UFO investigation group called Project Sign, and enlisted Hynek as scientific consultant. Hynek generally agreed with Sign’s conclusions, but admitted that there were several cases he could not explain. When a Sign report suggested that UFOs were likely alien spacecraft in the fall of 1948, the project was replaced with the decidedly anti-UFO Project Grudge, and Hynek was not called back to consult.
After a massive UFO “flap” in 1952 put new pressure on the government to produce an explanation, the Air Force replaced Grudge with Project Blue Book, and once again enlisted Hynek as consultant. In his work with Blue Book, Hynek was presented with many more baffling cases, like the sightings over Washington D.C. that summer. In June 1952, he polled several astronomers for Blue Book and found that many were actively interested in UFOs, but would not admit to it for fear of ridicule. These findings did a great deal to ease Hynek’s doubt in the UFO data.
In 1953, Hynek served on the CIA’s Robertson Panel, a group of scientists tasked with reviewing the conduct of Project Blue Book, and assessing the value of the UFO data. After a week of presentations covering just 23 of the 4400 cases in the Blue Book files, the panel concluded that UFOs did not pose a threat to the United States, and that all cases could likely be explained by mundane causes. Hynek later spoke out on the panel’s slanted agenda and superficial review of the data, but the Air Force reacted by slashing Blue Book’s investigative capacities and redesigning it as a public relations front.
Though he often disagreed with his employers’ conclusions, Hynek was complicit in the Air Force’s debunking agenda for fear of being replaced by a less curious scientist, and losing access to the Blue Book files. Both the Air Force and the public grew to distrust Hynek: the Air Force because he occasionally disagreed with their simplistic explanations, and the public because he occasionally agreed with them.
Break with the Air Force
In the early 1960s, Hynek met Jacques Vallée, an astronomer and PhD student in Computer Science who shared an interest in ufology. The two began holding informal meetings with a few associates where they discussed the various ways of subjecting UFOs to scientific study, and considered alternatives to the extraterrestrial hypothesis. The group called themselves the “invisible college” after the secret network of natural philosophers in 17th-century London.
The support from his colleagues in the invisible college encouraged Hynek to be more vocal in his support for scientific ufology, as did a number of cases he investigated, such as the Lonnie Zamora case of 1964, and the Betty and Barney Hill abduction of 1961. Hynek had a hard time believing all the colourful details of the witnesses’ experiences, especially those involving alleged “alien” beings, but he could also not believe that they were lying, or delusional.
In 1966, a rash of sightings broke out across the state of Michigan, and Blue Book reluctantly sent Hynek to investigate. Hynek interviewed a few witnesses who’d seen moving lights over marshland. After only two days of investigation, Blue Book’s director called a press conference, forcing Hynek to offer an explanation for the sightings. He stated that some of the sightings may have been due to escaped pockets of swamp gas igniting in the air. The nuance of Hynek’s statements disappeared in the media, and Hynek was pilloried for apparently suggesting that swamp gas could explain all the Michigan sightings. To some in the public, this solidified his reputation as a clueless debunker and government shill, much to Hynek’s dismay.
In response to the public outrage that followed the Michigan press conference, the Air Force commissioned a large-scale, civilian review of the UFO data, directed by Edward U. Condon of the University of Colorado Boulder. For having publicly sided in favour of further research, Hynek was not hired on the project. The Condon Report was delivered in November 1968 to acclaim from the mainstream scientific community, and strong criticism from ufologists. Though many of the cases reviewed in the report remained unexplained, Condon concluded that UFOs posed no threat to national security, and that science stood to gain nothing from further investing in UFO research. The Air Force used Condon’s conclusions as grounds for closing Project Blue Book, and terminating all public research into UFOs. Hynek was highly critical of the report, which he claimed “settled nothing,” but the Air Force never again sought his help.
After Blue Book
Hynek lost his job with the Air Force, but he continued to advocate for a UFO science and to investigate a number of high-profile sightings, like those in Papua New Guinea in 1959, and in Pascagoula, Mississippi in 1973. In 1972, he published his first book on the subject, The UFO Experience. Here he discussed the Air Force’s work on UFOs, provided the reader with an overview of the data, and presented scientists with a few basic ways of categorizing sightings. In 1973, Hynek appeared on the Dick Cavett show with astronomer and UFO debunker, Carl Sagan, where he pleaded for a more serious investigation of the UFO data. He also announced the launch of his own UFO research group, the Center for UFO Studies, or CUFOS, where he focused much of his efforts for the next 13 years. CUFOS remains a leading UFO research group today.
With a resurgence of interest in the mid 1970s, Hynek became the public face of ufology, and a fixture of the talk show circuit. He published a discussion on UFOs and alternate realities with Jacques Vallée in 1975, and debated Carl Sagan the same year. In 1977, he published the classic Hynek UFO Report, in which he discussed a number of unexplained cases from the Blue Book files. The same year, he advised Steven Spielberg on the production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and appeared in a brief cameo. The film’s massive success launched Hynek to a new level of stardom, and sent a flood of reports to CUFOS.
For the rest of his life, Hynek maintained a very public profile advocating for UFO research. He presented a statement before the United Nations general assembly calling for the creation of a UN authority on UFOs. He retired from teaching in 1978, and in 1984, he moved his family to Arizona, where he began work on a universal database for UFO reports. Hynek succumbed to cancer of the brain and prostate in 1986. The last publication to bear his name was a book on the Hudson Valley sightings of the early 1980s, which he helped investigate.
Legacy
For his work with the Air Force, Hynek is most remembered for his debunking. His infamous swamp gas explanation for the Michigan lights is frequently cited as a particularly desperate attempt by the Air Force to “explain away” the UFO data. Still, Hynek denied intentionally trying to debunk UFOs, and believes that the Air Force “cover up” was only to conceal their own ignorance.
For his work outside of Blue Book, Hynek is remembered for his seminal contributions to ufological methodology and for his work in educating the public on UFOs. In The UFO Experience, Hynek introduced the close encounters system for classifying sightings of objects estimated to be closer than 150m from the witness. Close encounters of the second kind involved physical effects, and the those of the third kind involved encounters with unknown entities. In the same book, Hynek also introduced the “strangeness spectrum,” or the degree to which the details of a case challenge the conceptual framework of the physical sciences. Even today, many ufologists and other anomalists speak of “high strangeness” in cases too bizarre to be considered literally true.
Hynek was able to demonstrate, on the basis of the largest-available database of UFO reports, that UFO witnesses represent a perfect cross-section of society, and that sightings shared certain characteristics, even across different times and cultures, that pointed to a common physical cause. At the same time, he was ambivalent about the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and pointed to the high prevalence of seemingly “paranormal” elements in UFO case reports that suggested they involved psychic or extra-dimensional factors, rather than strictly physical extraterrestrial ones. Hynek refused to commit to a hypothesis, suggesting the true explanation for UFOs was likely to be incomprehensible to the science of his time.
J. Allen Hynek occupied the contested space between true believer and skeptical debunker, and encouraged both these groups to revisit the data from a fresh perspective. For this, he is considered a controversial figure in the history of ufology, not fully embraced by either believers or debunkers. But precisely because he straddled both camps, and made a public about-face on the importance of UFO research, Hynek served as a model for open-minded, scientific thinking on UFOs. In his own change of opinion, he helped the world change their minds on UFOs, and build confidence in the ability of science to explain the unknown.
Sources:
Mark O'Connell. "The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs." New York: Harper Collins, 2017.
Edward Ruppelt. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. New York: Doubleday, 1956.
Richard Dolan. UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Cover-up, 1941-1973. Charlottesville: Hampton Roads, 2002. 1938): 247-260.
David Jacobs. The UFO Controversy in America. Don Mills, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1975.
Support new videos on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=3375417
Think Anomalous is created by Jason Charbonneau. Illustration by Colin Campbell. Music by Josh Chamberland. Animation by Brendan Barr. Sound design by Will Mountain and Josh Chamberland.
UFO Case Review contains sound design with elements downloaded from Freesound.org. Typewriter_2rows.wav, Uploaded by Fatson under the Attribution License.
For nearly forty years after “flying saucers” began making the news, one man dominated the search for an explanation: J. Allen Hynek, astronomer and scientific consultant to the US Air Force UFO Research group. Hynek began his career as a debunker, but gradually changed his mind on UFOs, becoming the foremost advocate for their scientific study. More than anyone else, he helped convince both scientists and laymen that there was a genuine mystery in the UFO data, and he showed the world how to solve it with the tools of modern science.
Air Force Consultant
Hynek became fascinated with astronomy as a young child in Chicago, and got his Bachelor of Science in astronomy from the University of Chicago in 1932. After this, he worked at Yerkes and Perkins Observatories before becoming associate professor at Ohio State University in 1935. He helped develop the proximity fuze during the Second World War, and was named associate professor and director of Ohio State’s McMillin Observatory in 1946. In the 1950s, he helped develop the first U.S. satellite-tracking program, wrote a popular astronomy column in the Columbus Dispatch, and became chair of the astronomy department at Northwestern University.
When “flying saucers” began making the news in the summer of 1947, Hynek assumed, like many Americans, that it was merely a case of cold war hysteria. But sightings persisted, and in 1948, the Air Force established a UFO investigation group called Project Sign, and enlisted Hynek as scientific consultant. Hynek generally agreed with Sign’s conclusions, but admitted that there were several cases he could not explain. When a Sign report suggested that UFOs were likely alien spacecraft in the fall of 1948, the project was replaced with the decidedly anti-UFO Project Grudge, and Hynek was not called back to consult.
After a massive UFO “flap” in 1952 put new pressure on the government to produce an explanation, the Air Force replaced Grudge with Project Blue Book, and once again enlisted Hynek as consultant. In his work with Blue Book, Hynek was presented with many more baffling cases, like the sightings over Washington D.C. that summer. In June 1952, he polled several astronomers for Blue Book and found that many were actively interested in UFOs, but would not admit to it for fear of ridicule. These findings did a great deal to ease Hynek’s doubt in the UFO data.
In 1953, Hynek served on the CIA’s Robertson Panel, a group of scientists tasked with reviewing the conduct of Project Blue Book, and assessing the value of the UFO data. After a week of presentations covering just 23 of the 4400 cases in the Blue Book files, the panel concluded that UFOs did not pose a threat to the United States, and that all cases could likely be explained by mundane causes. Hynek later spoke out on the panel’s slanted agenda and superficial review of the data, but the Air Force reacted by slashing Blue Book’s investigative capacities and redesigning it as a public relations front.
Though he often disagreed with his employers’ conclusions, Hynek was complicit in the Air Force’s debunking agenda for fear of being replaced by a less curious scientist, and losing access to the Blue Book files. Both the Air Force and the public grew to distrust Hynek: the Air Force because he occasionally disagreed with their simplistic explanations, and the public because he occasionally agreed with them.
Break with the Air Force
In the early 1960s, Hynek met Jacques Vallée, an astronomer and PhD student in Computer Science who shared an interest in ufology. The two began holding informal meetings with a few associates where they discussed the various ways of subjecting UFOs to scientific study, and considered alternatives to the extraterrestrial hypothesis. The group called themselves the “invisible college” after the secret network of natural philosophers in 17th-century London.
The support from his colleagues in the invisible college encouraged Hynek to be more vocal in his support for scientific ufology, as did a number of cases he investigated, such as the Lonnie Zamora case of 1964, and the Betty and Barney Hill abduction of 1961. Hynek had a hard time believing all the colourful details of the witnesses’ experiences, especially those involving alleged “alien” beings, but he could also not believe that they were lying, or delusional.
In 1966, a rash of sightings broke out across the state of Michigan, and Blue Book reluctantly sent Hynek to investigate. Hynek interviewed a few witnesses who’d seen moving lights over marshland. After only two days of investigation, Blue Book’s director called a press conference, forcing Hynek to offer an explanation for the sightings. He stated that some of the sightings may have been due to escaped pockets of swamp gas igniting in the air. The nuance of Hynek’s statements disappeared in the media, and Hynek was pilloried for apparently suggesting that swamp gas could explain all the Michigan sightings. To some in the public, this solidified his reputation as a clueless debunker and government shill, much to Hynek’s dismay.
In response to the public outrage that followed the Michigan press conference, the Air Force commissioned a large-scale, civilian review of the UFO data, directed by Edward U. Condon of the University of Colorado Boulder. For having publicly sided in favour of further research, Hynek was not hired on the project. The Condon Report was delivered in November 1968 to acclaim from the mainstream scientific community, and strong criticism from ufologists. Though many of the cases reviewed in the report remained unexplained, Condon concluded that UFOs posed no threat to national security, and that science stood to gain nothing from further investing in UFO research. The Air Force used Condon’s conclusions as grounds for closing Project Blue Book, and terminating all public research into UFOs. Hynek was highly critical of the report, which he claimed “settled nothing,” but the Air Force never again sought his help.
After Blue Book
Hynek lost his job with the Air Force, but he continued to advocate for a UFO science and to investigate a number of high-profile sightings, like those in Papua New Guinea in 1959, and in Pascagoula, Mississippi in 1973. In 1972, he published his first book on the subject, The UFO Experience. Here he discussed the Air Force’s work on UFOs, provided the reader with an overview of the data, and presented scientists with a few basic ways of categorizing sightings. In 1973, Hynek appeared on the Dick Cavett show with astronomer and UFO debunker, Carl Sagan, where he pleaded for a more serious investigation of the UFO data. He also announced the launch of his own UFO research group, the Center for UFO Studies, or CUFOS, where he focused much of his efforts for the next 13 years. CUFOS remains a leading UFO research group today.
With a resurgence of interest in the mid 1970s, Hynek became the public face of ufology, and a fixture of the talk show circuit. He published a discussion on UFOs and alternate realities with Jacques Vallée in 1975, and debated Carl Sagan the same year. In 1977, he published the classic Hynek UFO Report, in which he discussed a number of unexplained cases from the Blue Book files. The same year, he advised Steven Spielberg on the production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and appeared in a brief cameo. The film’s massive success launched Hynek to a new level of stardom, and sent a flood of reports to CUFOS.
For the rest of his life, Hynek maintained a very public profile advocating for UFO research. He presented a statement before the United Nations general assembly calling for the creation of a UN authority on UFOs. He retired from teaching in 1978, and in 1984, he moved his family to Arizona, where he began work on a universal database for UFO reports. Hynek succumbed to cancer of the brain and prostate in 1986. The last publication to bear his name was a book on the Hudson Valley sightings of the early 1980s, which he helped investigate.
Legacy
For his work with the Air Force, Hynek is most remembered for his debunking. His infamous swamp gas explanation for the Michigan lights is frequently cited as a particularly desperate attempt by the Air Force to “explain away” the UFO data. Still, Hynek denied intentionally trying to debunk UFOs, and believes that the Air Force “cover up” was only to conceal their own ignorance.
For his work outside of Blue Book, Hynek is remembered for his seminal contributions to ufological methodology and for his work in educating the public on UFOs. In The UFO Experience, Hynek introduced the close encounters system for classifying sightings of objects estimated to be closer than 150m from the witness. Close encounters of the second kind involved physical effects, and the those of the third kind involved encounters with unknown entities. In the same book, Hynek also introduced the “strangeness spectrum,” or the degree to which the details of a case challenge the conceptual framework of the physical sciences. Even today, many ufologists and other anomalists speak of “high strangeness” in cases too bizarre to be considered literally true.
Hynek was able to demonstrate, on the basis of the largest-available database of UFO reports, that UFO witnesses represent a perfect cross-section of society, and that sightings shared certain characteristics, even across different times and cultures, that pointed to a common physical cause. At the same time, he was ambivalent about the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and pointed to the high prevalence of seemingly “paranormal” elements in UFO case reports that suggested they involved psychic or extra-dimensional factors, rather than strictly physical extraterrestrial ones. Hynek refused to commit to a hypothesis, suggesting the true explanation for UFOs was likely to be incomprehensible to the science of his time.
J. Allen Hynek occupied the contested space between true believer and skeptical debunker, and encouraged both these groups to revisit the data from a fresh perspective. For this, he is considered a controversial figure in the history of ufology, not fully embraced by either believers or debunkers. But precisely because he straddled both camps, and made a public about-face on the importance of UFO research, Hynek served as a model for open-minded, scientific thinking on UFOs. In his own change of opinion, he helped the world change their minds on UFOs, and build confidence in the ability of science to explain the unknown.
Sources:
Mark O'Connell. "The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs." New York: Harper Collins, 2017.
Edward Ruppelt. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. New York: Doubleday, 1956.
Richard Dolan. UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Cover-up, 1941-1973. Charlottesville: Hampton Roads, 2002. 1938): 247-260.
David Jacobs. The UFO Controversy in America. Don Mills, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1975.
Support new videos on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=3375417
Think Anomalous is created by Jason Charbonneau. Illustration by Colin Campbell. Music by Josh Chamberland. Animation by Brendan Barr. Sound design by Will Mountain and Josh Chamberland.
UFO Case Review contains sound design with elements downloaded from Freesound.org. Typewriter_2rows.wav, Uploaded by Fatson under the Attribution License.
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