The J. Allen Hynek UFO Picture

Did you know the Godfather of ufology had a close encounter with a UFO ?!

Professor J. Allen Hynek

Dr. Josef Allen Hynek (May 1, 1910 – April 27, 1986) was a United States astronomer, professor, and ufologist.[1] He is perhaps best remembered for his UFO research. Hynek acted as scientific adviser to UFO studies undertaken by the U.S. Air Force under three consecutive names: Project Sign (1947–1949), Project Grudge (1949–1952), and Project Blue Book (1952 to 1969). For decades afterwards, he conducted his own independent UFO research, and is widely considered the father of the concept of scientific analysis of both reports and, especially, trace evidence purportedly left by UFOs

en.wikipedia.org...

According to the story, Hynek was a passenger onboard an Airline flight and noticed a unidentified flying object outside the window and was able to take pictures of the UFO !

Allen was aboard an airliner when he suddenly noticed a white object at his altitude, seemingly flying at the same speed as the plane. He made sure it wasnt a reflection and he convinced himself it must be some faraway cloud with an unusual shape. He pulled out his camera to see how fast he could snap pictures. In all he took two pairs of stereoscopic photographs and gave it no more thought.

Picture of UFO taken by J. Allen Hynek

The photographs themselves appeared in a book authored by Hynek and Vallee in 1975, The Edge of Reality. They may or may not be of a flying saucer, but they are certainly not clouds. The importance of stereoscopic photographs cannot be overemphasized. Such a camera is of outstanding evidentiary value. Hynek, in effect, had captured a possible Holy Grail on film.

Full Image



keyholepublishing.com...
dbarkertv.com...
www.cohenufo.org...

If the story is being reported accurately,
then I believe we can rule out reflections, clouds and film anomalies ?
So what can it be ? what do the members of ATS think this object is ?

Obviously, it's some kind of huge reflective bug that mixed with swamp gas and now glows that was used in chinese lanterns. And it's all seen through a raindrop on the lens with a camera flare...

I don't know WHAT that thing is.

reply to post by easynow


I knew Allen Hynek had a sighting but was unaware of the existence of the photograph , thanks for posting this

reply to post by easynow


it is what he say it is... a UFO, as in Unidentified Flying Object...

Remember what UFO stands for... alot of people instant think of little green men.. if I throw a banana up in the air and you cant identify it... guess what it is to you. a UFO !

GIVE THIS MAN A BANANA !

I've read this somewhere before, though not as well structured as this, so S+F!

It's an interesting sighting from a well respected Ufologist, so dont expect too many debunkers on this one!

Having said that it would be nice to know if his original photograph is still floating around and whether it has been tested for authenticity. Though I dont see a reason for him faking something like this unless it was to help add to the confusion and cover-up of secret military aircraft. Money talks afterall

Anyway, I'll be watching this closely to see what peoples conclusions are...

Nice find!

hi op
that would not suprise me
he was also mentioned in berlitz/moore book the philadelphia experiment
maybe he was and got his ideas from the encounter
speculation?
probably
cheers op
regards
dave

Goll, for as long and indepth my involvement in ufology, I never knew this. (The picture). Cool!

Im kinda confused about something and maybe someone can clarify for me. I had thought Hynek was working for the Air Force to "research" the UFO's being reported, but was in fact really there to debunk them and to basically poo poo on any of the reports he was told to go look at. Did he in fact come to the conclusion that UFOs were more than his flimsy explanations seemed to be? Did he have a change of heart? I had always imagined Hynek to be the ultimate skeptic. Am I wrong in that assumption?

reply to post by dreadphil


oh and btw the pics posted by the OP are very interesting looking. Id liek to hear what some of the more expert UFOlogists have to say.

reply to post by easynow
Nice find Easy, I've never seen the image before and it's a pity he lost much of the evidence of his photos. He wrote about it in his book, The UFO Experience...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/460be09c0ec4.jpg[/atsimg]
Free download pdf

I wonder if he really did lose the negatives or just didn't want to put himself in the spotlight as a believer? Imagine a scenario whereby his object was demonstrated to be a weather balloon? He'd have caught some serious flack and be ridiculed by the usual suspects.

It's possible that he looked at the shots and realised that, without any context, they were meaningless apart from being a record of his own subjective experience. In essence, he found himself in the same shoes as every witness, before and since, who came to find that photographic evidence isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Originally posted by dreadphil
Did he in fact come to the conclusion that UFOs were more than his flimsy explanations seemed to be? Did he have a change of heart? I had always imagined Hynek to be the ultimate skeptic. Am I wrong in that assumption?

That's basically correct. After researching many UFO sightings and encounters, he came to the conclusion that there was something to them. He didn't exactly know what, but something. They couldn't all be debunked.

Personally, I always suspected him of being part of whatever they were calling Majestic 12 at the time. The UFO Working Group, or whatever. His particular background and media access would have made him perfect for the job.

Wow , does anybody know of any other copies of that photo that he is holding? I would love to see the full sized picture.
Also , here is the cover of an old interview that J. Allen did many years ago. Springer has an original copy of this and he has said that all the online versions of the text have it wrong. I hope he will scan and post the article here someday.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a8b4b3904505.gif[/atsimg]

reply to post by dreadphil

Yes, Hynek did start out to debunk UFOs for the Air Force, but as he saw more and more evidence that couldn't be easily discounted he realized that this is a real phenomenon. He didn't really think that they were nuts and bolts craft though by the end of his research. He was more inclined to think that they had a spiritual or extra-dimentional reality.

Originally posted by bluemooone2
Wow , does anybody know of any other copies of that photo that he is holding? I would love to see the full sized picture.

That's a photo of the George Adamski UFO. The one that supposedly took Adamski to Venus and Jupiter.

Thanks everyone for the great replies

"That's a photo of the George Adamski UFO"

Yes I believe that is correct.

I apologize for any confusion with the first image, I should have given that one some context and mentioned it was from a press conference during the "The Great Michigan UFO Chase of 1966"

For anyone interested you can see Dr. Hynek holding up that picture at the press briefing @ the 4:23 mark in this video here....

Yes, Dr. Hynek did start out being very skeptical of the UFO phenomenon, but his research led him to believe that under a vast mountain of everyday things seen under extra-ordinary circumstances, just plain ignorance of basic astronomy and a lot of deliberate hoaxes there remained a kernel of 1% of sightings that were both genuine and mysterious. He carried the stereoscopic camera specifically to rule out the possibility of any UFO he did photograph being a lens flare. (Nibiru hunters take note!) He still had the negative in his possession back in the 1970's when I met him. He passed away several years ago.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Thanks Kandinsky for the book link

"I wonder if he really did lose the negatives or just didn't want to put himself in the spotlight as a believer?"

That's a good question and speculating about it is sorta difficult because I don't really know when or what year the sighting occurred. The date of the sighting might be important because if project Blue Book was still operating at the time of the incident, then he may have lost them on purpose or was told to lose them ?

It sure would be ironic to have one of the lead investigators for the U.S. Air Force show pictures to the public of something he photographed and couldn't explain !?

I dunno but I've been staring at the picture for a couple years now and I still have no idea what it could be !

reply to post by easynow


Its so obvious, its the Enterprise.

I must admit, that I do have a chip on my shoulder, concerning the written reply Dr. J Allen Hynek sent to me, in response to my alien picture's-one is: [ Space alien hiding behind a fossil rock- on you tube] that I had sent too him.

Hynek claimed it was not a space alien but "just another rock."

After Hynek passed away, his replacement- as president of the society dealing with UFO sightings- Wrote to me that he heard that I had pictures of aliens from outer space; and requested that I mail him the photos of the ET's.

That request was for the same ET pictures that I had sent too Hynek before. What did Hynek do to my ET pictures?

My guess that either, Hynek thru my ET pictures in the trash, took my pictures to the grave with him or sent them to the halls of spookdoom: known as the CIA.

I never responded to Hyneks replacement.

With an honest and forthright opinion on Hyneks UFO picture that he took- I cannot come to the conclusion that it is a real ET Starship. As usual, you have to take a grain of salt, that is presented by any CIA hired Spook- Such as the former J. Allen Hynek.

Foofighter's

Erno86

reply to post by easynow
For what it's worth, I've more doubts about Vallee than Hynek. He's added a lot of commentary about Hynek's motivations and thoughts after he died.

If anyone has the original hardback (Hello Mr Koi), I wonder if the images are attributed to Hynek in the book I linked to above? If they are, it's fair enough. If they aren't, it's an apocryphal account by Vallee.