FOIA: Project Blue Book Eglin Air Force Base Conference

Eglin_AFB_Briefing_1960.pdf
Project Blue Book Eglin Air Force Base Conference 1960
Mostly Good Scans of the written presentation by Dr. Hynek on the subject of UFO's to attendees of the Hypervelocity Impact Conference Banquet.
Document date: 1960-04-27
Department: USAF
Author: Dr. J. Allen Hynek
Document type: Written Presentation
pages: 40


Archivist's Notes: Very interesting read, but a few pages are unreadable. This is the written version of a talk presented by Dr. Hynek at Eglin AFB. In it he discusses background of UFO reports and UFO reporting in general as well as offering examples of UFO reports for critique as well as his own critique of the negative aspects of the UFO conventions.

This is an interesting report by Dr. J. Allen Hynek. He was the spokesperson for the US Government and Project Blue Book during this era, but he gives his own assessment of the situation that some people may be seeing things, and it may be a reaction to the nuclear age. He leaves the interpretation open to alternative ideas that we could in fact be visited by a species of another world. He is someone caught between the age of innocence and that of cynicism which he knew he was being drawn into being a part of. I think this report was a true part of him speaking that later leads him to found one of the leading UFO organizations of that time.

The report is almost a romantic interpretation of events that can’t be explained. I think that if I were part of this investigation that Mr. Hynek and I would have been good friends.On the other hand, I would have to put myself in the place of the government that is based on the assumption of trying to cover up this subject. Why would I let someone like J. Allen Hyneck be allowed to continue with this? Why would I consider his employment for yet another nine years before BB was shut down?

Maybe J. Allen Hyneck was the right man for the job at this time, and did what he could to bring about the truth. He saw that there was a connection with other countries on this subjet and because of that any government might consider this a threat.

This report is revealing to say the least. Look into what he is saying, instead of what is being said. Before it becomes illegible toward the end, you start to see that J. Allen Hyneck was beginning to believe that something was happening and this report does not describe what history will tell you.

That's what is saying in an interview:

During the years that I have been its consultant, the Air Force has consistently argued that UFO's were either hoaxes, hallucinations or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. For the most part I would agree with the Air Force. As a professional astronomer--I am chairman of the department of astronomy at Northwestern University--I have had no trouble explaining the vast majority of the reported sightings. But I cannot explain them all. Of the 15,000 cases that have come to my attention, several hundred are puzzling, and some of the puzzling incidents, perhaps one in 25, are bewildering. I have wanted to learn much more about these cases than I have been able to get from either the reports or the witnesses....Getting at the truth of "flying saucers" has been extraordinarily difficult because the subject automatically engenders such instantaneous reactions and passionate beliefs. Nearly all of my scientific colleagues, I regret to say, have scoffed at the reports of UFO's as so much balderdash, although this was a most unscientific reaction since virtually none of them had ever studied the evidence. Until recently my friends in the physical sciences wouldn't even discuss UFO's with me. The subject, in fact, rarely came up. My friends were obviously mystified as to how I, a scientist, could have gotten mixed up with "flying saucers" ---Saturday Evening Post: 1966


-- Dr. J. Allen Hynek: Professor emeritus and chairman of the astronomy department at Northwestern University. Earlier, he was director of the Lundheimer Astronomical Research Center at Northwestern. He has written astronomy books and articles that have appeared in numerous science journals, as well as an astronomy column for Science Digest magazine. He was chief scientist for NASA's satellite tracking program, and for twenty years was the scientific consultant to the United States Air Force in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. He is credited with coining the phrase "close encounters of the third kind" and was Steven Spielberg's technical consultant on the film of that name. Dr. Hynek died in April 1986.

Good post,Hyneck's case is certainly an interesting one.

It seems he was initialy sceptical about the UFO subject but,after years of impartialy studying credible military case files and using the scientifc tool of arriving at judgement 'after' dispassionately examining evidence, he reversed his position:

Dr. J. Allen Hynek speaking in the 1970s:

"Before I began my association with the air force, I had
joined my scientific colleagues in many a hearty guffaw
at the "psychological postwar craze" for flying saucers
that seemed to be sweeping the country and at the naivete
and gullibility of our fellow human beings who were being
taken in by such obvious "nonsense." It was almost in a
sense of sport that I accepted the invitation to have a
look at the flying saucer reports....."

"I had started out as an outright 'debunker,' taking
great joy in cracking what seemed at first to be puzzling
cases. I was the arch enemy of those 'flying saucer
groups and enthusiasts' who very dearly wanted UFOs to be
interplanetary. My own knowledge of those groups came
almost entirely from what I heard from Blue Book
personnel; they were all "crackpots and visionaries.'"

Dr. J. Allen Hynek speaking in the 1980s:

"Now, however, documentation which puts the UFO-
U.S. government controversy in quite a new light has
become available. The authors have made revealing use of
documents released through the mechanism of the Freedom
of Information Act and other data which have been made
available to them, often through private sources, which
show that the CIA and NSA protestations of innocence and
lack of interest in UFOs are nothing short of
prevarication."

"The reader must judge for himself or herself just
how far these implications extend, but certainly no one
can deny any longer that various intelligence agencies of
our government were long cognizant of UFOs and the global
extent of this phenomenon. Official dispatches from our
embassies and air bases in other countries to these
agencies, to the State Department, and even, on occasion,
to the White House, bear incontrovertible witness to
this."

"For the government to continue to maintain that
UFOs are nonexistent in the face of the documents already
released and of other cogent evidence presented in this
book is puerile and in a sense an insult to the American
people."

www.cohenufo.org...

This is all well and good however it still does not hold accountability towards the AF for the sightings that have been made by their air traffic controllers, accounts such as capturing on radar ships that move across the entire scope of hundreds of miles in mere seconds. Craft that has been seen by the controllers which are in excess of 20 miles long and 5 miles high.

And when these controllers attempt to make formal reports of these sightings, they simply go into debriefing for days, weeks even months at a time. Until the day they return to their barracks emaciated and mentally spun.

How many reports go unchecked, unreported to avoid such repercussions?

JAH was on the scene at a time when yes he was the right man for the job at the right time, but how much truth was withheld from him by the higher ups that he trusted? How many times was he given just enough to keep the secrets from being exposed? I believe in the end result he was simply a pawn in the larger scope of Government secrecy to keep the truth from being known to the public.

The truth and subsequent disclosure that so many in the general public have called upon for many years is long over due, it is time for the real reports to be handed uncensored to the general public and the validation and formal declaration of our otherworldly visitors common knowledge to all not just the privileged few.

The written version you linked is a good as redacted by CIA censors before release.....
The guts of it unintelligible .......unreadable , but very uniformative till the end where it says a "panel of scientists may see things in a different ight"Than the usual debunking babble offered for UFOs....
The real interesting parts are not ledgible however....only old cases are actually readable and the more sensitive latter part is not readable.......
I call this a "teaser" flashy but no real meat

I find it intriguing that at such a distinguished gathering as this I, an astronomer, should be asked to address you, not on the subject of satellite tracking -- my work for the past four years --

Wha? What --kind-- of satellites?

or as in the case of two FBI operatives I interviewed (quite a switch -- usually they interview me) who were scared witless (the word is witless) by a large version of a child's Christmas toy top, that buzzed them on a lonely road in South Carolina at 4:00am -- none of these reports had, at least in my mind, a ready explanation.

Wha? Thats really weird. And the FBI had Hynek interview them instead of keeping the matter internal. Which seems, "at least, in my mind," to confirm that Hynek was a highly clearanced intel insider. All along.
("Wright Field"..) (convenient)

[[CODE_1]]…