Well on occasion I have brought up Hynek,  a man  who went  in cynical 
and came out with  a different  viewpoint.  Is  he pulling  everyone's 
leg,maybe,  or  was  Project  Bluebook pulling  everyone's leg.   So I 
thought  I  would  post  this for  anyone who  might be  interested in 
history, with of course full credit to the below.......
                  CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH DR. J. ALLEN HYNEK
                              By Dennis Stacy
                      An Interview With The Dean 1985
                  Re-Edited for CUFON by Dale Goudie 1991
 
For over two decades,  from 1948  to 1969,  Dr. J.  Allen Hynek  was a 
consultant in astronomy to the United States Air Force. The subject of 
his advice, however, was not the fledgling space  program or  even the 
moon and stars above,  but Unidentified  Flying Objects.   In 1973  he 
founded the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and had serves  as Director 
and editor of its  journal, "International  UFO Reporter."
STACY:  Dr.   Hynek,  as  a scientist,  you go  back as  far with  UFO 
phenomenon  as  probably  anyone  alive today.   Exactly how  did that 
relationship begin? 
HYNEK: That's an easy  story to  tell. In  the spring  of 1948,  I was 
teaching astronomy  at Ohio  State University,  in Columbus.   One day 
thee men, and they weren't dressed in black, came over to see  me from 
Wright Patterson Air Force Base in nearby Dayton.  They started out by 
talking about the weather, as I remember, and this and that, and  then 
finally one of them asked me what I  thought about  flying saucers.  I 
told them I thought  they were  a lot  of junk  and nonsense  and that 
seemed to please them, so they got down  to business.  They said  they 
needed some astronomical consultation because it was their job to find 
out  what  these  flying  saucer  stories  were all  about. Some  were 
meteors, they thought, others stars and so on,  so they  could use  an 
astronomer.  What the hell, I said, it sounded like fun and besides, I 
would be getting a top secret security clearance out of  it, too.
    At  that  time,  it  was  called  Project  Sign,  and some  of the 
personnel at least were  taking the  problem quite  seriously. At  the 
same time  a big  split was  occurring in  the Air  Force between  two 
schools of thought.  The serious school prepared an estimation of  the 
situation which they sent to General  Vandenburg, but  the other  side 
eventually won  out and  the serious  ones were  shipped off  to other 
places.  The  negatives  won  the  day,   in  other   words.  My   own 
investigations for Project Sign added to that, too, I think, because I 
was quite negative in most of my evaluations.  I stretched far to give 
something a natural explanation, sometimes when it may not have really 
had it.
    I remember one case from Snake River Canyon, I think it was, where 
a man and his two sons saw a  metallic object  come swirling  down the 
canyon which caused the top of the trees  to sway.   In my  attempt to 
find a natural explanation for it,  I said  that it  was some  sort of 
atmospheric eddy.  Of course, I had never seen an eddy  like that  and 
had no real reason  to believe  that one  even existed.  But I  was so 
anxious to find a natural explanation because I was convinced  that it 
had to have one that, naturally, I did in fact, it wasn't  until quite 
some time had passed that I began to change my mind.
STACY: Was there ever  any direct  pressure applied  by the  Air Force 
itself for you to  come up  with a  conventional explanation  to these 
phenomena? 
HYNEK: There was an implied pressure, yes, very definitely. 
STACY: In other words, you found yourself caught, like most of us,  in 
a situation of trying to please your boss? 
HYNEK: Yes, you might as well put it  that way,  although at  the same 
time I wasn't going against my scientific precepts.  As an  astronomer 
and physicist, I simply felt a priori that  everything had  to have  a 
natural explanation  in this  world. There  were no  ifs, and  or buts 
about  it.  The ones  I couldn't  solve, I  thought if  we just  tried 
harder, had a really proper investigation, that we probably would find 
as answer for. My batting average was about 80 per cent and  I figured 
that anytime you were hitting that high, you  were doing  pretty good. 
That left about 20 per cent unsolved for me, but  only about  three or 
four per cent for the Air Force, because they used statistics in a way 
I would never have allowed for myself.
    For example, cases labeled as insufficient information they  would 
consider solved !  They also had some other little tricks.  If a light 
were seen, they would say, "aircraft have lights,  therefore, probable 
aircraft." Then, at the end of the year, when the statistics were made 
up, they would drop the "possible"  or "probable"  and simply  call it 
aircraft.
STACY: What began to change your own perception of the phenomenon? 
HYNEK:  Two  things,  really.  One  was  the  completely  negative and 
unyielding attitude  of the  Air Force.  They wouldn't  give UFOs  the 
chance of existing, even if they were flying up and down the street in 
broad daylight. Everything had  to have  as explanation.   I began  to 
resent that,  even though  I basically  felt the  same way,  because I 
still thought they weren't going about it in the right way. You  can't 
assume that everything is black no matter what. Secondly, the  caliber 
of  the  witnesses began  to trouble  me.
    Quite  a  few  instances  were  reported  by military  pilots, for 
example, and I knew them to be fairly well-trained, so this is  when I 
first began to think that, well,  maybe there  something to  all this. 
The famous "swamp gas" case which came later on finally pushed me over 
the  edge.  From that  point on,  I began  to look  at reports  from a 
different angle, which was  to say  that some  of them  could be  true 
UFOs.
STACY: As  your own  attitude changed,  did the  Air Force's  attitude 
toward you change, too? 
HYNEK: It certainly did, quite a bit, as a matter of fact.  By way  of 
background, I might add that the late Dr.  James E.  McDonald, a  good 
friend  of  mine  who  was then  an atmospheric  meteorologist at  the 
University of Arizona, and I had some fairly sharp words about it.  He 
used to accuse me very much, saying you're  the scientific  consultant 
to  the  Air  Force,  you should  be pounding  on generals'  doors and 
insisting on getting a better job done. I said, Jim, I was  there, you 
weren't you don't know the mindset.  They were under instruction  from 
the Pentagon, following the Robertson Panel  of 1953,  that the  whole 
subject had to be debunked, period,  no question  about it.   That was 
the prevailing attitude.
    The panel was convened by the CIA, and I sat in on  it, but  I was 
not asked to sign the resolution.  Had I been asked, I would  not have 
signed  it,  because they  took a  completely negative  attitude about 
everything.  So  when Jim  McDonald used  to accuse  me of  a sort  of 
miscarriage of scientific justice, I had to tell him that  had I  done 
what he wanted, the generals would not have listened to me. They  were 
already listening to Dr. Donald Menzel and the other boys over at  the 
Harvard Astronomy Department as it was.
STACY: Did you think  you would  have been  shown the  front door  and 
asked not to come back? 
HYNEK: Inside of two weeks I imagine. You're familiar with the case of 
Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler from the history  of astronomy?  Brahe 
had  the  observations  and  didn't  know  what to  do with  them, and 
Kepler,who was nearsighted and couldn't make the observations, did. So 
essentially, I played Kepler to the  Air Force's  Tycho Brahe.  I knew 
the Air Force was getting the data and  I wanted  a look  at it,  so I 
made very full use of the copying machines at Wright-Patterson. I kept 
practically a duplicate set  of records  because I  knew that  someday 
that data would be worth something.
    Toward  the  end,  however,  I  was  barely  speaking  with  Major 
Quintanilla who was in charge.  We had started as really  good friends 
and then things got very bad  because he  had one  lieutenant who  was 
such a nincompoop, it seemed to me.  Everything had to be "Jupiter  or 
Venus" or this or that.  You have no idea what a closed  mind, what  a 
closed attitude it was. I kept doggedly on, but I can safely  say that 
the whole time I was with  the Air  Force we  never had  anything that 
resembled a really good  scientific dialogue  on the  subject.
STACY: They weren't really  interested in  an actual  investigation of 
the subject then? 
HYNEK: They said they were, of course, but they would turn handsprings 
to keep a good case from getting to the "attention of the  media". Any 
case they solved, they had no trouble talking to the  media about.  It 
was really very sad.... I think  their greatest  mistake in  the early 
days, however, was not  turning it  over to  the universities  or some 
academic group.
    They  regarded  it  as  an  intelligence  matter  and   it  became 
increasingly more and more embarrassing to them.  After  all, we  paid 
good tax dollars to have the Air Force  guard our  skies and  it would 
have been bad public relations for them to say, yes  there's something 
up there, but we're helpless. They just couldn't do that, so they took 
the very human action  of protecting  their own  interests. What  they 
said was that we solved 96 per cent  of the  cases and  that we  could 
have solved the other four per cent if we had just tried harder. 
STACY: Was it the famous Michigan sightings of 1966, explained away as 
"swamp  gas"  that  finally  did  lead  the Air  Force to  bring in  a 
reputable university? 
HYNEK: Yes, that, as you know, became something of a national joke and 
Michigan was soon being known as the "Swamp Gas State." Eventually, it 
resulted  in  a  Congressional  Hearing  called  for  by   then  state 
Congressman,  Gerald  Ford,  who  of course  later went  on to  become 
President.  The  investigation was  turned over  to the  Brian O'Brien 
Committee who  did a  very good  job. Had  their recommendations  been 
carried out, things might have turned out much  better than  they did. 
They recommended that UFOs be taken away from the Air Force and  given 
to a group of universities, to study the thing in a as  wide a  way as 
possible.  Well, they didn't go to a group, they went to a  university 
and a man they were certain would be very hard-nosed about it, namely, 
Dr. Edward Condon at  the University  of Colorado.   That was  how the 
Condon Committee and eventually the Report came to be.
STACY:  Were  you  ever  called on  to testify  before, or  advise the 
Committee? 
HYNEK: In the early days they called on me to talk to  them, to  brief 
them, but that was the extent of it. They certainly didn't take any of 
my advice.
STACY: By 1968, the generally negative Condon Report  was made  public 
and the Air Force used its conclusions to get out of the UFO business. 
Were you still an official advisor or consultant at that time? 
HYNEK: Oh, yes, I was with the Air Force right up until the very  end, 
but it was just on paper. No one had cut the chicken's  head off  yet, 
but the chicken was  dead.  The  last days  at Blue  Book were  just a 
perfunctory shuffling of papers.
STACY: In terms of the UFO phenomenon itself, what was going on  about 
this time? 
HYNEK: Well,  as you  know, the  Condon Report  said that  a group  of 
scientists had looked at UFOs and that the subject was dead. The UFOs, 
of course, didn't bother to read  the report  and during  the Flap  of 
1973, they came back in force. 
=============================================================================
---------------------------
C U F O N
---------------------------
Computer UFO Network
Seattle Washington, USAHappy Trails,
Fred.
 Fred.Austin@sphinx.hughestech.com 
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30
 >  -=> Quoting Jack Sargeant to Fred Austin <=-
 >>  -=> Quoting Jack Sargeant to David Bloomberg <=-
 >     Hi Jack,
 >  JS> Can you cite some examples of people in UFOlogy who make this claim?
 >     Are  you  asking  for  people would  would stake  their lives and
 > reputation on it?  Not sure if  they would  do that,  maybe,maybe some
 > have, I will post some quotes, and yes the word  "alien" is  not used,
 > but the  meaning is  I think  clear enough.   So let  us not begin to
 > debate the use of language at least...... :)
 >> You certainly are pulling an about face.
 >  JS> How so?
 >     Over the past couple of years your stance has been,  because
 > of  a personal experience, you are more pro. Pro as in this is not a
 > natural phenomenon, nor is it something of this Earth.  Now you state that
 >  it is fun to speculate, thereby, you  now are  obviously second
 > guessing yourself.  You now offer up the possibility that perhaps what you
 > saw, is explainable.  And yet I do remember a post a while back, where
 > I do believe you stated that "you know what you saw" and  it certainly
 > was enough  to  convince  you  of  the  legitimacy of this phenomenon.
 > Basically, "Seeing Is Believing".
You are just searching for words that are not there, nor have been
spoken.
 >  JS> At no time have I ever claimed my UFO was an alien craft. As to your
 >  JS> suggesting I am doing an about face, that just isn't so.
 >  Therefore how do you interpret what you saw?  I do  not have your
 > old posts so I will not hold you to it.  Only you know what you saw
 > back in the 50's. If you now can match that up with a known
 > phenomenon, that is no problem. I have no problem with that. If you
 > now say, perhaps it was not a craft etc, perhaps a trick of the eye,
 > or balloon that's fine with me.  I prefer people to be
 > straightforward and honest.
You don't like it when I play devil's advocate, do you?  
Sorry, but if my fun appears to be at your expense, then I guess I have
to step in and say no harm was intended.
 >  JS> I believe in UFOs. I believe some UFOs may be of an alien origin.
 >  JS> I have no evidence to either back up this belief, or dispel it.
 >  JS> I do a lot of speculating, and I use all the proper disclaimers
 >     Disclaimers, now you sound like a marketing firm  Jack.  Well, we
 > all speculate as to purpose, what  is genuine,  what is  hoax, and of
 > course  from  where  etc  etc..   You  and I  both know  that the UFO
 > community has no physical, undeniable proof.  Only circumstantial.
 > But we  certainly  have a  lot of  circumstantial.  Piles  of data.
 > But I understand where you are coming from.
Well then, stop complaining! I have the skeptic community to contend
with whenever I forget to announce my intentions.
 >  JS> when doing so. Although I am very sympathetic to the cause, I am
 >  JS> quick to caution anyone I perceive to be overly influenced by the
 >  JS> subject that there is no proof that UFOs are from an alien world.
 >   Well, we are splitting hairs here. If these sightings are exhibiting
 > physical characteristics of controlled flight, are not Soviet, Chinese,
 > American, Canadian etc, then who do they belong to.
[...]
You should know me well enough by now that I am sympathetic to the cause,
but how much can I assume from a sighting I had years ago? The word
alien is too much of a leap for me to make.
js
--- FMail 1.22
---------------