Josef Allen Hynek
Born	May 1, 1910 Chicago, Illinois
Died	April 27, 1986 Scottsdale, Arizona
Occupation	Astrophysicist Ufologist
Spouse	Mimi

Josef Allen Hynek (May 1, 1910 - April 27, 1986) was a U.S. astronomer, professor, and ufologist. Image File history File links Dr. J. Allen Hynek File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... May 1 is the 121st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (122nd in leap years). ... 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... Nickname: The Windy City, The Second City, Chi Town, City of the Big Shoulders, The 312, The City that Works Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in Chicagoland and Illinois Coordinates: Country United States State Illinois County Cook & DuPage Incorporated March 4, 1837  - Mayor... Official language(s) English Capital Springfield Largest city Chicago Area  Ranked 25th  - Total 57,918 sq mi (149,998 km²)  - Width 210 miles (340 km)  - Length 390 miles (629 km)  - % water 4. ... April 27 is the 117th day of the year (118th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 248 days remaining. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Scottsdale (Oodham S-vaá¹£ai Vaá¹£onÄ­) is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, adjacent to Phoenix. ... Official language(s) English Capital Phoenix Largest city Phoenix Area  Ranked 6th  - Total 113,998 sq mi (295,254 km²)  - Width 310 miles (500 km)  - Length 400 miles (645 km)  - % water 0. ... An astrophysicist is a person whose profession is astrophysics. ... Ufology is the study of Unidentified flying object (UFO) reports, sightings, and other related phenomena. ... May 1 is the 121st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (122nd in leap years). ... 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... April 27 is the 117th day of the year (118th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 248 days remaining. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic  - President George Walker Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from... An astronomer or astrophysicist is a person whose area of interest is astronomy or astrophysics. ... A professor giving a lecture The meaning of the word professor (Latin: one who claims publicly to be an expert) varies. ... Ufology is the study of unidentified flying object (UFO) reports, sightings, alleged physical evidence, and other related phenomena. ...

He is probably best remembered for his UFO research: Hynek acted as scientific advisor to three consecutive UFO studies undertaken by the U.S. Air Force: Project Sign (1947-1949), Project Grudge (1949-1952), and finally, Project Blue Book (1952 to 1969); for decades afterwards, he conducted his own independent UFO research. UFO can mean: Unidentified flying object United Future Organization, a Japanese-Brazilian electronic jazz band UFO, the rock band that previously featured Michael Schenker UFO, the Gerry Anderson TV series United Farmers of Ontario, a political party that formed the government in Ontario from 1919 to 1923 U.F.O... Project Sign was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects undertaken by the United States Air Force in late 1947 and dissolved in late 1948. ... Project Grudge was a short-lived project by the U.S. Air Force to investigate Unidentified flying objects. ... Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) conducted by the United States Air Force. ...

Early life and career

Hynek was born in Chicago to Czechoslovakian parents. In 1931, Dr. Hynek received a B.S. from the University of Chicago. In 1935, he completed his Ph.D. in astrophysics at Yerkes Observatory. He joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio State University in 1936. He specialized in the study of stellar evolution, and in the identification of spectroscopic binaries. Flag Seal Nickname: The Windy City Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location Location in Chicagoland and northern Illinois Coordinates , Government Country State Counties United States Illinois Cook, DuPage Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 606. ... Warning: Value not specified for common_name Motto: Czech: Pravda vítÄ›zí (Truth prevails; 1918-1989) Latin: Veritas Vincit (Truth prevails; 1989-1992) Anthem: Kde domov můj and Nad Tatrou sa blýska Capital Prague Language(s) Czech, Slovak Government Republic President  - 1918-1935 Tomáš Masaryk  - 1989-1992 V... A Bachelor of Science (B.S., B.Sc. ... The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. ... Doctor of Philosophy (from Greek , meaning Teacher of Philosophy), typically abbreviated Ph. ... Spiral Galaxy ESO 269-57 Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties (luminosity, density, temperature, and chemical composition) of celestial objects such as stars, galaxies, and the interstellar medium, as well as their interactions. ... The Yerkes Observatory is an astronomy observatory of the University of Chicago, in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. ... The Ohio State University (OSU) is a coeducational public research university in the state of Ohio. ... In astronomy, stellar evolution is the sequence of changes that a star undergoes during its lifetime; the hundreds of thousands, millions or billions of years during which it emits light and heat. ... A spectroscopic binary star is a binary star which cannot be resolved as a visual binary, even with telescopes of the highest existing resolving power. ...

During World War II, Hynek was a civilian scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Science Laboratory, where he helped to develop the navy's radio proximity fuze. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876, is a private institution of higher learning located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. ... Look up Proximity fuze in Wiktionary, the free dictionary A proximity fuze (also called a VT fuze) is a fuze that is designed to detonate an explosive automatically when close enough to the target to destroy it. ...

After the war, Hynek returned to the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio State, rising to full professor in 1950. A professor giving a lecture The meaning of the word professor (Latin: one who claims publicly to be an expert) varies. ...

In 1956 he left to join Professor Fred Whipple, the Harvard astronomer, at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, which had combined with the Harvard Observatory at Harvard. Hynek had the assignment of directing the tracking of an American space satellite, a project for the International Geophysical Year in 1956 and thereafter. In addition to over 200 teams of amateur scientists around the world which were part of Operation Moonwatch, there were also 12 photographic Baker-Nunn stations. A special camera was devised for the task and a prototype was build and tested and then stripped apart again when, on Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched its first satellite, Sputnik. Fred Lawrence Whipple (November 5, 1906 – August 30, 2004) was an American astronomer. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) , is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Founded in 1636,[1] Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning still operating in the United States. ... The Smithsonian castle, as seen through the garden gate. ... Operation Moonwatch (also known as Project Moonwatch and, more simply, as Moonwatch) was an amateur science program formally initiated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in 1956. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Sputnik 1 The Sputnik program was a series of unmanned space missions launched by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s to demonstrate the viability of artificial satellites. ...

After completing his work on the satellite program, Hynek went back to teaching, taking the position of professor and chairman of the astronomy department at Northwestern University in 1960. A giant Hubble mosaic of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant Astronomy is the science of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, and galaxies) and phenomena that originate outside the Earths atmosphere (such as auroras and cosmic background radiation). ... Northwestern University is a prestigious private, coeducational, non-sectarian research university, located in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois. ...

Early Involvement in UFOs (Project Blue Book)

In response to many "flying saucer" sightings (later Unidentified Flying Objects), the U.S. Air Force established Project Sign in 1948; this later became Project Grudge, which in turn became Project Blue Book in 1952. Hynek was contacted by Project Sign to act as scientific consultant for their investigation of UFO reports. Hynek would study a UFO report and subsequently decide if its description of the UFO suggested a known astronomical object. An unidentified flying object, or UFO, is any real or apparent flying object which cannot be identified by the observer and which remains unidentified after investigation. ... Project Sign was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects undertaken by the United States Air Force in late 1947 and dissolved in late 1948. ... Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) conducted by the United States Air Force. ...

When Project Sign hired Hynek, he was initially skeptical of UFO reports. Hynek suspected that UFO reports were made by unreliable witnesses, or by persons who had misidentified man-made or natural objects. In 1948, Hynek said that the “the whole subject seems utterly ridiculous”, and described it as a fad that would soon pass. (Schneidman and Daniels, 110) An unidentified flying object, or UFO, is any real or apparent flying object which cannot be identified by the observer and which remains unidentified after investigation. ... This article or section contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. ...

For the first few years of his UFO studies, Hynek could safely be described as a debunker. He thought that a great many UFOs could be explained as prosaic phenomena misidentified by an observer. But beyond such fairly obvious cases, Hynek often stretched logic to nearly the breaking point in an attempt to explain away as many UFO reports as possible. In his 1977 book, Hynek admitted that he enjoyed his role as a debunker for the U.S. Air Force. He also noted, accurately, that debunking was what the Air Force expected of him. A debunker is a skeptic who pursues dispelling false and unscientific claims. ...

Change of opinion

Hynek's opinions about UFOs began a slow and gradual shift. After examining hundreds of UFO reports over the decades (including some made by credible witnesses, including astronomers, pilots, police officers, and military personnel) Hynek concluded that some reports represented genuine new empirical observations.

Another shift in Hynek's opinion came after conducting an informal poll of his astronomer colleagues in the early 1950s. Among those he queried was Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the planet Pluto. Of 44 astronomers, five (over 11 per cent) had seen aerial objects that they could not account for with established, mainstream science. Most of these astronomers had not widely shared their accounts for fear of ridicule, or of damage to their reputations or careers (Tombaugh was an exception, having openly discussed his own UFO sightings). Hynek also noted that this 11% figure was, according to most polls, greater than those in the general public who claimed to have seen UFOs. Furthermore, the astronomers were presumably more knowledgeable about observing and evaluating the skies than laymen, so their observations were arguably more impressive. Hynek was also distressed by what he regarded as the dismissive or arrogant attitude of many mainstream scientists towards UFO reports and witnesses. An astronomer or astrophysicist is a person whose area of interest is astronomy or astrophysics. ... An image of Clyde Tombaugh Clyde William Tombaugh (February 4, 1906 – January 17, 1997) was an American astronomer who discovered the dwarf planet Pluto in 1930. ... Part of a scientific laboratory at the University of Cologne. ...

Early evidence of the shift in Hynek's appeared in 1953, when Hynek wrote an article for the April, 1953 issue of The Journal of the Optical Society of America printed Hynek's article, "Unusual Aerial Phenomena", which contained what would become perhaps Hynek's best known statement:

"Ridicule is not part of the scientific method, and people should not be taught that it is. The steady flow of reports, often made in concert by reliable observers, raises questions of scientific obligation and responsibility. Is there ... any residue that is worthy of scientific attention? Or, if there isn't, does not an obligation exist to say so to the public--not in words of open ridicule but seriously, to keep faith with the trust the public places in science and scientists? (quoted in Clark 1998, 305; emphasis in original)"

The essay was very carefully worded: Hynek never states that UFOs are an extraordinary phenomenon. But it is clear that, whatever his own views, Hynek was increasingly distressed by what he saw as the superficial manner most scientists looked at UFOs. Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge. ...

In 1953, Hynek was an associate member of the Robertson Panel, which concluded that there was nothing anomalous about UFOs, and that a public relations campaign should be undertaken to debunk the subject and reduce public interest. Hynek would later come to lament that the Robertson Panel had helped make UFOs a disreputable field of study. The Robertson Panel was a committee commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1952 in response to widespread Unidentified Flying Object reports, especially in the Washington DC area. ... Public relations (PR) is the business, organizational, philanthropic, or social function of managing communication between an organization and its audiences. ... Debunkers are skeptics who attempt to disprove and pursues what they consider to be false, unscientific, bizarre or abnormal claims. ...

When the UFO reports continued at a steady pace, Hynek devoted some time to studying the reports and determined that some were deeply puzzling, even after considerable study. He once said, "As a scientist I must be mindful of the past; all too often it has happened that matters of great value to science were overlooked because the new phenomenon did not fit the accepted scientific outlook of the time." (Schneidman and Daniels, 110) I

In a 1985 interview, when asked what caused his change of opinion, Hynek responded, "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 an 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."

Regardless of his own private views, Hynek was, by and large, still echoing the post-Ruppelt line of Project Blue Book: There are no UFOs, and reports can largely be explained as misidentifications.

Hynek remained with Project Sign after it became Project Grudge (though with far less involvement than with Project Sign). Project Grudge was replaced with Project Blue Book in early 1952. Hynek continued as scientific consultant to Project Blue Book. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt (Blue Book's first director), held Hynek in high regard: "Dr. Hynek was one of the most impressive scientists I met while working on the UFO project, and I met a good many. He didn't do two things that some of them did: give you the answer before he knew the question; or immediately begin to expound on his accomplishments in the field of science."[1] Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) conducted by the United States Air Force. ... Edward J. Ruppelt (1922 - 1960) was a United States Air Force officer probably best-known for his involvement in Project Blue Book, a formal governmental study of unidentified flying objects. ...

Though Hynek thought Ruppelt was a capable director who steered Project Blue Book in the right direction, Ruppelt headed Blue Book for only a few years. Hynek has also stated his opinion that after Ruppelt's departure, Project Blue Book was little more than a public relations exercise, further noting that little or no research was undertaken using the scientific method. Public relations (PR) is the business, organizational, philanthropic, or social function of managing communication between an organization and its audiences. ... Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge, as well as for correcting and integrating previous knowledge. ...

Turnaround

Hynek began occasionally disagreeing publicly with the conclusions of Blue Book. By the early 1960s--after about a decade and a half of study--Clark writes that "Hynek's apparent turnaround on the UFO question was an open secret." (Clark 1998, 305) Only after Blue Book was formally dissolved did Hynek speak more openly about his "turnaround".

By his own admission, Hynek was cautious, conservative, and soft-spoken. He speculated that his personality was a factor in the Air Force's keeping him as consultant for over two decades.

Some other ufologists thought that Hynek was being disingenuous or even duplicitous in his turnaround. Physicist Dr. James E. McDonald, for example, wrote Hynek in 1970, castigating him what McDonald saw as his lapses, and suggesting that, when evaluated by later generations, retired Marine Corps. Major. Donald E. Keyhoe would be regarded as a more objective, honest, and scientific ufologist. (Druffel, 155) Dr. James E. McDonald (May 7, 1920 – June 13, 1971) was an American physicist. ... Donald Edward Keyhoe (June 20, 1897 - November 29, 1988) was an American Marine Corps officer with some flight experience, writer of many aviation articles and stories in a variety of leading publications, and manager of some of the spectacular flights of aviation pioneers, especially of Charles Lindbergh. ...

It was during the late stages of Blue Book in the 1960s that Hynek began speaking openly about his disagreements and disappointments with the Air Force. Among the cases where he openly dissented with the Air Force were the highly publicised Portage County UFO Chase (where several police officers chased a UFO for half an hour), and the encounter of Lonnie Zamora. A police officer, Zamora reported an encounter with a metallic, egg-shaped aircraft near Socorro, New Mexico. Zamora witnessed two humanoid occupants of the craft, and in its apparently hasty departure, the craft left physical evidence of its presence. As of 2007, no entirely adequate explanation has been presented that would contradict Zamora's account -- in fact, in a secret memo for the CIA, Blue Book's director, Major Quintanilla, expressed his own bafflement at the case. Hynek described the case as a potential "Rosetta Stone" that might unlock the UFO mystery. The so-called Portage County UFO Chase was an unidentified flying object encounter that began in Portage County, Ohio on the morning of April 17, 1966, when police officers Dale Spaur and Wilbur Neff observed a metallic, disc shaped object flying in the skies. ... Lonnie Zamora (born? - died?) was a New Mexico police officer who reported a close encounter of the first, second and third kinds on Friday, April 24, 1964, near Socorro, New Mexico. ... Socorro is a city located in Socorro County, New Mexico in the Rio Grande Valley, at an elevation of 4579 feet. ... The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. ...

In late March 1966, two days of mass UFO sightings were reported in Michigan, which received significant publicity. After studying the reports, Hynek offered a provisional hypothesis for some of the sightings: a few of about 100 witnesses had mistaken swamp gas for something more spectacular. At the press conference where he made his announcement, Hynek made repeated, strenuous qualification that swamp gas was a plausible explanation for only a portion of the Michigan UFO reports, and certainly not for UFO reports in general. Much to his chagrin, Hynek's qualifications were largely overlooked, and the words "swamp gas" were repeated ad infinitum in relation to UFO reports, and the explanation was subject to national derision. Biogas-bus in Bern, Switzerland Biogas typically refers to a (biofuel) gas produced by the anaerobic digestion or fermentation of organic matter including manure, sewage sludge, municipal solid waste, biodegradable waste or any other biodegradable feedstock, under anaerobic conditions. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ... Look up Ad infinitum in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Late in his life, Hynek was critical of the popular Extraterrestrial hypothesis, and began expressing his doubts to theories that UFOs were physical spacecraft from other planets. As Hynek himself said in October 1976: "I have come to support less and less the idea that UFOs are 'nuts and bolts' spacecrafts from other worlds. There are just too many things going against this theory. To me, it seems ridiculous that super intelligences would travel great distances to do relatively stupid things like stop cars, collect soil samples, and frighten people. I think we must begin to re-examine the evidence. We must begin to look closer to home." (Vallee, Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception, 290) ^[1] A photograph taken in Passoria, New Jersey, on July 31 1952 The Extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) is the hypothesis that UFOs are best explained as being creatures from other planets occupying physical spacecraft visiting Earth. ...

At the First International UFO Congress in 1977, he himself referred to it in a sense of humor, presenting his "swamp-gas business" as evidence that he had not been a "believer" in UFOs from the beginning, as some people assumed, and he stressed that he, as a scientist, never was or would be a "believer" in the sense of relying on blind faith (C. Fuller, 156).

Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS)

Hynek was the founder and head of the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS). Founded in 1973 and based in Chicago, CUFOS is an organization stressing scientific analysis of UFO cases. CUFOS extensive archives include valuable files from civilian research groups such as NICAP, one of the most popular and credible UFO research groups of the 1950's and 1960's. The Center for UFO Studies is an unidentified flying object research group. ... see National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena ...

Speech before the United Nations

In November 1978, a statement on UFOs was presented by Dr. Allen Hynek, in the name of himself, of Dr Jacques Vallee, and of Dr Claude Poher. This speech was prepared and approved by the three authors, before the United Nations General Assembly. [2] The objective was to initiate a centralized United Nations UFO authority. Dr. Allen Hynek (back), and Dr. Jacques Vallee (far right, front) at U.N. General Assembly, 1978. ... The United Nations General Assembly (GA) is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations. ...

UFO origin hypotheses

In 1973, at the MUFON annual symposium, held in Akron, Ohio, Hynek began to express his doubts regarding the extraterrestrial (formerly "interplanetary" or "intergalactic") hypothesis. His main point led him to the title of his speech: The Embarrassment of the Riches. He was aware that the quantity of UFO sightings was much higher than the Project Blue Book statistics. Just this puzzled him. "A few good sightings a year, over the world, would bolster the extraterrestrial hypothesis – but many thousands every year? From remote regions of space? And to what purpose? To scare us by stopping cars, and disturbing animals, and puzzling us with their seemingly pointless antics?" (Stringfield, Situation Red, 40-42). The Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON for short, is headquartered in Morisson, Colorado. ...

In 1975, in a paper presented to the Joint Symposium of the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics in Los Angeles, he wrote, "If you object, I ask you to explain – quantitatively, not qualitatively – the reported phenomena of materialization and dematerialization, of shape changes, of the noiseless hovering in the earth's gravitational field, accelerations that – for an appreciable mass – require energy sources far beyond present capabilities – even theoretical capabilities, the well-known and often reported E-M (sc. electro-magnetic interference) effect, the psychic effects on percipients, including purported telepathic communications." (Stringfield, 44) The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the scholarly society for the field of aerospace engineering. ...

In 1977, at the First International UFO Congress in Chicago, Hynek presented his thoughts in his speech "What I really believe about UFOs". "I do believe," he said, "that the UFO phenomenon as a whole is real, but I do not mean necessarily that it's just one thing. We must ask whether the diversity of observed UFOs . . . all spring from the same basic source, as do weather phenomena, which all originate in the atmosphere", or whether they differ "as a rain shower differs from a meteor, which in turn differs from a cosmic-ray shower." We must not ask, Hynek said, what hypothesis can explain the most facts, but we must ask, which hypothesis can explain the most puzzling facts. (C. Fuller, 156-157)

"There is sufficient evidence to defend both the ETI and the EDI hypothesis," Hynek continued. As evidence for the ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) he mentioned, as examples, the radar cases as good evidence of something solid, and the physical-trace cases. Then he turned to defending the EDI (extradimensional intelligence) hypothesis. Besides the aspect of materialization and dematerialization he cited the "poltergeist" phenomenon experienced by some people after a close encounter; the photographs of UFOs, some times on only one frame, not seen by the witnesses; the changing form right before the witnesses' eyes; the puzzling question of telepathic communication; or that in close encounters of the third kind the creatures seem to be at home in earth's gravity and atmosphere; the sudden stillness in the presence of the craft; levitation of cars or persons; the development by some of psychic abilities after an encounter. "Do we have two aspects of one phenomenon or two different sets of phenomena?" Hynek asked. (C. Fuller, 157-163)

Finally he introduced a third hypothesis. "I hold it entirely possible," he said, "that a technology exists, which encompasses both the physical and the psychic, the material and the mental. There are stars that are millions of years older than the sun. There maybe a civilization that is millions of years more advanced than man's. We have gone from Kitty Hawk to the moon in some seventy years, but it's possible that a million-year-old civilization may know something that we don't ... I hypothesize an 'M&M' technology encompassing the mental and material realms. The psychic realms, so mysterious to us today, may be an ordinary part of an advanced technology." (C. Fuller, 164-165)

Steven Spielberg movie

Hynek developed the Close encounter scale to better catalogue various UFO reports. Dr. Hynek was also the consultant to Columbia Pictures and Steven Spielberg on the popular 1977 UFO movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and made a brief, non-speaking appearance in the film. Alleged UFO In ufology, a close encounter is an event where a person witnesses an unidentified flying object. ... Steven Allan Spielberg, (born December 18, 1946) is a three-time Academy Award winning American film director and producer. ... This article is about the film; for the classification, see Close encounter. ...

Death

On April 27, 1986, Hynek died of a malignant brain tumor at Memorial Hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was 75 years old, and was survived by his wife Mimi. 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A brain tumor is any intracranial tumor created by abnormal and uncontrolled cell division, normally either found in the brain itself (neurons, glial cells (astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, ependymal cells), lymphatic tissue, blood vessels), in the cranial nerves (myelin-producing Schwann cells), in the brain envelopes (meninges), skull, pituitary and pineal gland... Scottsdale (Oodham S-vaá¹£ai Vaá¹£onÄ­) is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, adjacent to Phoenix. ...

Trivia

Hynek's son Joel Hynek is an Oscar winning movie visual effects supervisor who directed the design of the so-called camouflage effect from the movie Predator. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Books

• ISBN 978-1-56-924782-2 THE UFO EXPERIENCE: A scientific enquiry (1972)
• ISBN 978-0-80-928150-3 THE EDGE OF REALITY: A progress reports on the unidentified flying objects, co-authored with Jacques Vallee (1975)
• THE HYNEK UFO REPORT (1977)
• NIGHT SIEGE - THE HUDSON VALLEY UFO SIGHTINGS, co-authored with Philip Imbrogno and Bob Pratt (1987)

Dr. Allen Hynek (back), and Dr. Jacques Vallee (far right, front) at U.N. General Assembly, 1978. ...

Gallery

Allen Hynek (back left) and Jacques Vallée (front right) at the United Nations hearing on UFO matters, 1978. Image File history File links Jacques Vallee and Alan Hynek, 1978. ... Dr. Allen Hynek (back), and Dr. Jacques Vallee (far right, front) at U.N. General Assembly, 1978. ... The foundation of the U.N. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. ...

Allen Hynek (left) and Jacques Vallee (right) Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Dr. Allen Hynek (back), and Dr. Jacques Vallee (far right, front) at U.N. General Assembly, 1978. ...

References

2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ... March 6 is the 65th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (66th in Leap years). ...

External links

• FBI File on Dr. J. Allen Hynek
• J. Allen Hynek: The Pied Piper of Ufology?
• Interview With J. Allen Hynek
• Close Encounter with Dr. J. Allen Hynek, by Dennis Stacy, 1985
• Dr. J. Allen Hynek at UFOMind
• Dr. J. Allen Hynek 1985 interview
• French biography on Dr. J. Allen Hynek
• Dr. J. Allen Hynek's statement before the committee on science and astronautics, July 1968
• Dr. J. Allen Hynek's biography at Ufopsi