Are Flying Saucers Real? By J. Allen Hynek

Here is a very interesting piece from a 1966 cover feature that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and was written by Dr. J. Allen Hynek who served as Associate Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge during the project blue book days. Thanks to Springer for featuring it on the ATS live radio show tonight as I had not known about this. The UFO cases mentioned are fascinating .

www.cohenufo.org...


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I fully believe they exist...there is alot of supporting evidence for this.

I think the question us commoners need to ask is "are they ours or someone/thing elses?"

My personal belief...most saucers are probably ours...however...not all. I tend to buy the back engineered story.

I reserve the right to change my mind on anything I stated

That was an interesting read.

I agree with SaturnFX there is just too much evidence out there for this to be false.
It just seems so egotistical to think that we are alone in the universe.
Especially with the recent find that the universe has waaay more stars than previously thought.

Nice find. He's pretty damning of the prevailing 'scientific' attitude.

If you can get hold of his books you should read them too; the cases in them are very solid since it was part of his methodology to only consider cases that had failed to be explained by conventional explanations (unlike the Condon Report which included a large sample of easily explainable misidentifications, presumably to imply that all cases were such if only enough data were available).

Hynek even went so far as to exclude single witness cases even if the witness was reliable. Even so he still had many cases which were multiple witness, radar-visual which only someone burying their head in the sand could say didn't constitute evidence of a phenomenon that was new to science.

I haven't seen that particular work before, but it will make great reading. Being that this is from 1966, it might be worthwhile to note--to those not already familiar--that Dr. Hynek's research led him in an interesting direction over the years as he came to embrace the Interdimensional Hypothesis or the IDH.

The following excerpts are from a paper that has some great references for further research:

Astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who died in 1986, was considered one
 of the top experts in the world on the subject of UFOs. Hynek was a
former skeptic who dismissed UFO sightings as something made up by
“kooks and crackpots. As he continued to study the issue, his view
 changed.

Hynek also headed the U.S. satellite
optical tracking program for many years. He was the author of many technical textbooks on astrophysics and several books on UFOs.

He studied thousands of reports, and interrogated hundreds of witnesses to
 UFO experiences. Hynek’s conclusions on UFOs were accurately 
summed up this way: “Hynek submitted that perhaps UFOs were part of
 a parallel reality, slipping in and out of sequence with our own. This was
 a hypothesis that obviously pained him as an empirical scientist. Yet 
after 30 years of interviewing witnesses and investigating sighting 
reports… no other hypothesis seemed to make sense to him.

Dr. Hynek: “Another peculiarity is the alleged ability of certain UFOs to dematerialize... There are quite a few reported instances where two distinctly different UFOs hovering in a clear sky will converge and eventually merge into one object…"

Dr. Hynek and Dr. Vallee describe this strange behavior of UFOs in their
book, The Edge of Reality: “If UFOs are, indeed, somebody else’s ‘nuts
and bolts hardware,’ then we must still explain how such tangible
hardware can change shape before our eyes, vanish … seemingly melt
away in front of us, or apparently ‘materialize’ mysteriously before us
without apparent detection by persons nearby or in neighboring towns.

We must wonder, too, where UFOs are ‘hiding’ when not manifesting
themselves to human eyes.

www.scribd.com...

reply to post by The GUT

Thats a great excerpt ) Thank you very much for that and the link !

Originally posted by SaturnFX
I fully believe they exist...there is alot of supporting evidence for this.

Originally posted by fasteronfire
I agree with SaturnFX there is just too much evidence out there for this to be false.

Did you guys read the article? Where Hynek says: "The evidence for UFO's, then, was entirely without physical proof. "? Here's a lengthier excerpt (page 2):

We had many reports from people of good repute, yet we had no scientifically incontrovertible evidence--authenticated movies, spectrograms of reported lights, "hardware"--on which to make a judgment. There are no properly authenticated photographs to match any of the vivid prose descriptions of visual sightings. Some of the purported "photographs" are patent hoaxes. Others show little detail; they could be anything. Some show a considerable amount of detail, but cannot be substantiated.

The evidence for UFO's, then, was entirely without physical proof. But were all of the responsible citizens who made reports mistaken or victims of hallucinations? It was an intriguing scientific question, yet I couldn't find any scientists to discuss it with....

Not necessarily hallucinations, but sometimes misinterpretations of real objects as he would find out first hand:

Finally several squad cars met at an intersection. Men spilled out and pointed excitedly at the sky. "See--there it is! It's moving!"

But it wasn't moving. "It" was the star Arcturus, undeniably identified by its position in relation to the handle of the Big Dipper. A sobering demonstration for me.

So Hynek got to see firsthand how police officers identified what was clearly a star as a UFO, even including the claim that it was "moving". How much better demonstration does one need regarding the unreliability of eyewitness testimony? (in this case of police officers, who were not lying or hoaxing).

Originally posted by fasteronfire
It just seems so egotistical to think that we are alone in the universe.

Why do people say things like that? Nobody is saying we are alone in the universe. The universe may be teeming with life, but has any of it come to Earth? Even Sagan conceded there's likely much life elsewhere, and at some point it may have visited Earth, but he still pointed out there was no evidence that UFO sightings had anything to do with ET. Here's a clip of Sagan from 1966 (the same year as the Hynek article), and he's NOT denying the existence of ET:



As Hynek said: "The evidence for UFO's, then, was entirely without physical proof." I suspect what he means by that is there's no proof the UFOs are ET or as he later thought, interdimensional, because there is certainly ample proof that people see things in the sky all the time that they can't identify or understand (UFOs).

And almost half a century later, we have no more proof now of the ET nature of UFOs than we did then. As Hyneck said:

The entire history of the Air Force and the UFO's can be understood only if we realize that the Pentagon has never believed that UFO's could be anything novel, and it still doesn't. The working hypothesis of the Air Force has been that the stimulus behind every UFO report (apart from out and out hoaxes and a few hallucinations) is a misidentification of a conventional object or a natural phenomenon. It is just as simple as that.

I would add to that "black" or secret military projects, so secret, unconventional, but still manmade objects probably explain some UFO sightings.

Here's a paradox for you:

Why is it that as still and video cameras have proliferated the Earth, and we have more opportunities than ever to capture extraordinary objects on film, video, or LCD if there are any, that we still seem to lack the proof that Hynek said was lacking back in 1966? It's a paradox.

Or maybe it isn't.

Don’t forget James Harder

www.intuition.org...

and the profound secrecy of the most important items.

reply to post by bluemooone2
Thanks for posting such an interesting article. Jerry Cohen's site is crammed with articles and emails from researchers that aren't available anywhere else. I had reason to contact him this year and he's a good guy.

Hynek's article is more interesting than I expected and it adds some colour to the times he lived in. The panic, the excitement and the evasive behaviour of the authorities is all there. Whatever the UFO Enigma is, there's a very human side to it all. He must have used a crystal ball when he speaks of the notorious Robertson Panel findings...]

I was not asked to sign the report, but I would not have signed if I had been asked. I felt that the question was more complicated than the panel believed and that history might look back someday and say that the panel had acted hastily. The men took just four days to make a judgement upon a perplexing subject that I had studied for more than five years without being able to solve to my satisfaction.

link

I like how he honestly describes his growing bewilderment and fascination for a phenomena that the authorities wanted to go away or be explained away. My own fascination in the UFOs is diminishing through overkill, but the core mystery of what the hell was going on in those decades is stronger than it ever was. He was seen as a debunker whilst in reality he was only debunking the cases that were 'bunk.' Just like he underlines the BS conclusions and process of the Robertson Panel, he sees the future of the Project Blue Book too...

"I feel it is my responsibility to point out," I said, "that enough puzzling sightings have been reported by intelligent and often technically competent people to warrant closer attention than Project Blue Book can possible encompass at the present time."

link

Little did he know that the Condon Report would be the result! Their findings can be summarised in a single sentence...

Our general conclusion is that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge.

Condon Committee: Conclusions and recommendation

His explanation of the 'swamp gas' incident captures the moment really well. Previously, I'd only read the account through other researcher's eyes and in an article by Jacques Vallee. I know this video has been posted many times on ATS, but it never ceases to remind me that many witnesses are negatively affected by coming forward. The ridicule and frustration is part of the problem. When me and friends saw a UFO over the coast in 2003 we were totally laughed at. We were laughing too, but people just couldn't believe us. Anyway here's Frank Manner (at 7mins 57 seconds) wishing he'd never opened his mouth...



When Hynek finally distanced himself from the USAF, it was due to the growing damage his reputation was receiving. The Air Force was explaining away reports without consulting Hynek and this made him equally foolish in the eyes of researchers and public (!).

His summary of the 'four possible explanations' is pretty much the same way today. Yeah, we've added time travel and thrown in some added dimensions to the ETH, but it's essentially the same. It hasn't changed much since 1960. People are still claiming everything is misidentifications or that witnesses are thick hillbillies. Some guys elevate themselves above everyone else and espouse the notion that nobody but themselves is objective enough to make judgements. This type of UFO analysis has also been around since the early 40s. The 'top secret/black projects' argument is still as full of holes as it was when it was trotted out in the early 40s. Back then, the 'foo fighters' were considered some form of terrestrial advanced military technology.

I guess it could be another 60 some odd years and we'll be dead and gone, but these same discussions will still be happening. Maybe the world will get a repeat in the 2040s? I hope so, because I'm definitely scheduled to be alive then.

Deleted because I did posted in the wrong thread.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Some really good points. But the camera proliferation stuff is easy to explain. There are TONS more images and video captured of UFOs now than 50 years ago. But with most UFOs coming under the cover of night, you're never going to get a clear picture of them. Even the best cameras in the world are going to have trouble finding detail with any object over 500 feet away in darkness. And since most of these craft are more in the range of 5000 ft away or more, you're never going to get a good photo of one.

I think within the next 10 years though, it will happen. A mistake. A well-lit area. Close to the subjects. Someone ready with a high mexa-pixel camera. Ta-da. Indisputable evidence. Of course, it will be decried as CGI or a yacht. But we'll get it.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by SaturnFX
I fully believe they exist...there is alot of supporting evidence for this.

Originally posted by fasteronfire
I agree with SaturnFX there is just too much evidence out there for this to be false.

Did you guys read the article? Where Hynek says: "The evidence for UFO's, then, was entirely without physical proof. "? Here's a lengthier excerpt (page 2):

I have watched a few documentries from Hynek before (his work) and several others.
They are sort of the staplemark for the flying disk reading.

If there was solid proof, this would not be up for question of course.

Hynec was correct. The Swampghauscians are here to stay, except it

reply to post by bluemooone2


real

Originally posted by bluemooone2
Here is a very interesting piece from a 1966 cover feature that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and was written by Dr. J. Allen Hynek who served as Associate Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge during the project blue book days. Thanks to Springer for featuring it on the ATS live radio show tonight as I had not known about this. The UFO cases mentioned are fascinating .

www.cohenufo.org...


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edit on 18-12-2010 by bluemooone2 because: (no reason given)

 

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edit on 19/12/2010 by ArMaP because: (no reason given)

flying saucers are not real.

Originally posted by Immortalgemini527
flying saucers are not real.

Hyneck criticizes the scientists who take that position without doing the research

Hynek, from the OP article:

The general view of the scientists was that UFO's couldn't exist, therefore they didn't exist, therefore let's laugh off the idea. This, of course, is a violation of scientific principles, but the history of science is filled with such instances.

This scientist thinks he has an explanation for flying saucers:

Feynman - The Likelihood of Flying Saucers

Is he right? I'm sure Hynek would say he's not being very scientific.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I think you're misrepresenting Hynek's position. For instance in his book's The Hynek UFO Report he says

..I came to realise that inherent in the better UFO reports there was much more than "fooled the eye or deluded the fool." There was a phenomenon consisting of new empirical observations that demanded far more serious attention than Blue Book was giving it.

Indeed, as I pointed out before, he dismissed cases of misidentification from the UFO phenomenon altogether. His definition of a UFO report was precisely that which defied explanation after all possible mundane explanations had been considered.

It's not so that he thought the cases that remain unidentified would be solved if only there were more data. The opposite was true. These hard core of cases were so bewildering precisely because the data provided was so good and the witnesses so credible. We are talking about multi-witness radar-visual cases where the witnesses are technically trained (e.g. Air Traffic Controllers, pilots, scientists etc).

Hynek never went so far as to say what he thought was the cause of the phenomenon as that would be unscientific but he did consider UFO reports (i.e. not of misidentifications) to be real and a category of empiric observations that were entirely new to science.

Are Flying Saucers real? Unquestionably yes; I think so and so did Hynek. As to what they represent, that is the challenge for science to answer but one it has yet to take up because most scientists are frightened of looking a bit silly, even if privately they think there is something in it.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Spot on

Feynman's argument is cogent up to a point - his argument about possibilities is fair enough but he uses it as an excuse not to look at the data, which is unscientific.

When a scientific model and reality disagree then it should be the model that gets thrown out. However, much of the time the model becomes a sacred cow and hence reality is disregarded or rather ignored.