J Allen Hynek

There's a moment towards the end of the great Steven Spielberg movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" where a guy sporting a righteous goatee and holding a pipe steps up to get a better look at the approaching spaceships at the secret UFO landing base. He doesn't say a word; just stands there looking on in wonder, with "I "knew "it!" written all over his face...

When I first saw the movie when it premiered in 1977, I was tickled to death by this moment, because I knew that Mr. Goatee was legendary UFO expert Dr. J. Allen Hynek. It made sense that Spielberg gave him a moment in the movie, because Dr. Hynek thought up the "Close Encounters" classification system that gave the movie its name.

A Close Encounter of the First Kind is what I have had twice now: visual contact with an unexplained aerial phenomenon. A Close Encounter of the Second Kind is one where the unidentified object leaves behind physical traces, like burnt vegetation, landing pad imprints or gum wrappers. A Close Encounter of the Third Kind involves actual contact with an extraterrestrial being.

I always liked Hynek, for two reasons. First, he was recruited by the Air Force to help them prove that UFO sightings were pure bunkum, which was not a stretch, because, he thought they "were "pure bunkum. But once he started looking into it he realized that there were a significant number of sightings that simply could not be explained away, and he dropped out of the Air Force project. Second, over time he decided that there may not be only one explanation for UFOs and alien encounters, and they might not all be "physical "explanations, and he retained an open mind on the subject until his death in 1986. Third, that is just a splendid goatee.

Hynek also founded the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) not far from here in Chicago, and when I recently contacted the CUFOS offices something interesting happened. A few days after my initial email I got a reply from a CUFOS staffer that seemed just a bit paranoid, asking why I wanted to contact them. I explained that I'm interested in researching the history or UFO research, and the role that Dr. Hynek played in that history. That seemed to smooth things over, and the next thing I knew CUFOS guy was asking to get in touch by phone and mentioning that "no one has ever properly documented Dr. Hynek's contributions to UFO research. "

Enter me. I have a proposition for CUFOS guy...

Credit: dark-shadowy-line.blogspot.com