A Quote by J. Allen Hynek
Over the past eighteen years I have acted as a scientific consultant to the U.S. Air Force on the subject of unidentified flying objects - UFO's. As a consequence of my work on the voluminous air force files and, to a greater extent, of personal investigation of many puzzling cases and interviews with witnesses of good repute, I have long been aware that the subject of UFO's could not be dismissed as mere nonsense.
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After years of study and personal on-site investigation of UFO reports, I am certain that there is more than ample high-quality observational evidence from highly trained and reliable lay witnesses to indicate that there are unidentified machine-like objects under intelligent control operating in our atmosphere. Such evidence in some cases is supported by anomalous physical effects upon the witnesses, electrical devices, and the environment, as well as by instrumentation such as radar and Geiger counters.
In the firm belief that the American public deserves a better explanation than that thus far given by the Air Force, I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena. I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs, and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment of the subject.
I feel that the Air Force has not been giving out all the available information on the Unidentified Flying Objects. You cannot disregard so many unimpeachable sources.
It is time for the truth to be brought out... Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about the UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense... I urge immediate Congressional action to reduce the dangers from secrecy about Unidentified Flying Objects
During my long investigation of these strange objects, I have seen many reports verified by Air Force Intelligence, detailed accounts by Air Force pilots, radar operators, and other trained observers proving the UFOs are high-speed craft superior to anything built on Earth.
I examined a lot of CIA declassified UFO files, which are fascinating, because there was a huge UFO craze going on in America. There still is today, but it certainly started in '47. And by the '50s, it was in full force.
It is true that I was denied access to a facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, because I never got in. I can't tell you what was inside. We both know about the rumors concerning a captured UFO and crew members. I have never seen what I would call a UFO, but I have intelligent friends who have.
Air Force interceptors still pursue Unidentified Flying Objects as a matter of national security to this country and to determine technical aspects involved.
I must admit that any favorable mention of the flying saucers by a scientist amounts to extreme heresy and places the one making the statement in danger of excommunication by the scientific theocracy. Nevertheless, in recent years I have investigated the story of the unidentified flying object (UFO), and I am no longer able to dismiss the idea lightly.
If every UFO report could be convincingly credited to some conventional astronomical or atmospheric phenomenon, there would be no UFO mystery. It is precisely because so many UFO reports cannot logically be blamed on stars, planets, satellites, airplanes, balloons, etc., that a UFO mystery has existed since at least the mid-1940s.
Since UFO stands for "unidentified flying object", the word ufology means approximately "knowledge about unknown flying objects", and is therefore a "science" whose content is void by definition. Similar considerations hold for parapsychology.
This report has been difficult to write because it involves something that doesn't officially exist. It is well known that ever since the first flying saucer was reported in June 1947 the Air Force has officially said that there is no proof that such a thing as an interplanetary spaceship exists. But what is not well known is that this conclusion is far from being unanimous among the military and their scientific advisors because of the one word, proof; so the UFO investigations continue.
Among the hundreds of so-called "UFO reports" each year, a sizable fraction of those clearly observed by reputable witnesses remain unexplained-and difficult to explain in conventional terms. There is a modicum of physical evidence, radar cases, residual effects, and some films-and photographs in support of the unexplained cases. Collectively, these cases constitute a genuine scientific mystery, badly in need of well-supported, systematic investigation.
After a lifetime in this subject, I have concluded that the extraterrestrial hypothesis is one reasonable tentative approach to putting the best-documented and most puzzling UFO reports into a scientifically defensible conceptual framework. By such reports I mean those with credible multiple or independent witnesses, instrumented observations, and physical evidence.
Hundreds of thousands of UFO sightings have been made by persons in all walks of life, in all parts of the world. Tens of thousands of UFO reports have been made to governmental and private agencies in the past 55 years. Thousands of these reports have withstood careful scrutiny and appear to represent real objects having a novel nature.
I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don't know about--and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them.
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