July 2, 2017 — Mark O'Connell with Curtis Collins

[Gene Steinberg]

Former MUFON investigator Mark O'Connell did an amazing job researching the life and times of Dr. J. Allen Hynek. Having met Dr. Hynek a few times in the 1970s, I found him one of my favorite people in the field, always with his feet on the ground and his head screwed on straight.

We talk further about Dr. Hynek's impact on the field during this week's episode of After The Paracast, featuring very special guests Greg Bishop and Paul Kimball.

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[wwkirk]

Hynek was a great figure in he history of ufology. O'Connell did a great job researching his life, as you said.

 

[Greers Meeting Planner]

Really enjoyed this show, great to learn a little more about Hynek.

And I add an extra star of approval for the lack of telling us how to think about gender, race, climate etc

 

[Randall]

Yes. Good show. I'd like to add a comment on the topic of classification when it comes to close encounters. In The UFO Experience, A Scientific Enquiry, a Close Encounter is defined as, a UFO sighting where the object is close enough to show appreciable angular extension and considerable detail, in which stereoscopic vision is effective and physical contact with the object is considered a real possibility.

However, strictly speaking, human stereoscopic vision is limited to a range of about 3 meters. Therefore a close encounter would mean that the object would have been within 3 meters of the observer. If that were a hard and fast rule, it would arbitrarily exclude a number of CE cases Therefore as was suggested on the show, it is generally accepted that the object would be within a few hundred feet of the observer.

However I would take this a step further and work within the spirit of Hynek's definition, which seems to me to create a class in which there are enough visual cues by which to gauge the size and distance of the object with reasonable accuracy, and that would include cases where the object passes between the observer and a landmark of known size and distance.

For example, if a UFO crosses the road in front of a vehicle where both the object and the background such as trees, buildings, power lines or some such familiar thing are clearly determined to be behind the object, then measurements can be made and the object's size and distance calculated with fair precision. This condition would seem to be applicable to nearly all CE type cases and eliminate anything ambiguous at the same time.

The only exception might be where the background object is much more distant e.g. the Moon. But for objects on or near the Earth, it works out well enough to be the most significant factor in demarcating the difference between CE cases and other types of cases ( AN, MA, FB ).

 

[wwkirk]

Not much discussion. I wonder why?

 

[Gene Steinberg]

No disagreements, and nobody on the show made a two-sentence comment about climate change or something to cause major freak-outs.

Oh well, wait till we get that libertarian on.

 

[William Strathmann]

I enjoyed the show a great deal.

In the meantime, I found another audio recording of Hynek, of 30 secs, in which he downplays ETH in favor of "another realm" as the source of UFOs. The audio file is attached.

For the sake of completeness, below is the other comment I posted, here, about Hynek's interest in the occult and his comment on live radio about the source of UFOs.

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Jerome "Jerry" Clark, an associate of J. Allen Hynek, had this to say about Hynek's views
(retrieved by Jerry Cohen, from 1998, Errol Bruce-Knapp's UFO Updates mailing list):

[Hynek's] longtime closet occultism explains why at the end he had moved into extremely speculative approaches. He once confided to me his belief that "elementals" (nature spirits, for the occult-unread out there) are behind the UFO phenomenon.​

Obviously, this is not a vote for the ETH. Moreover, Clark's comment about Hynek's acceptance of the occult aligns with Hynek's 1978 appearance on a Canadian CBC TV program Beyond Reason, where an astrologer, a psychic and a clairvoyant tried to guess Hynek's identity, in a kind of paranormal "What's My Line?" The clairvoyant did identify Hynek, as seen here. So Hynek did not shun the paranormal.

Also around that time Hynek made a TV appearance on "The Amazing Kreskin" show, another Canadian production. Hynek said that he'd like to start a Kreskin-Hynek foundation to investigate the parapsychological, i.e. poltergeist phenomena that accompanies some UFO events.

On Tom Snyder's Tomorrow Show, Hynek specifically stated that assuming that UFOs are visitors from outer space is "putting the cart before the horse." In other words, Hynek and his investigative associates did not assume the ETH. They investigated evidence that could be interpreted in various ways.

This, by the way, agrees with Hynek's comment in one of his earliest books, The UFO Experience, A Scientific Inquiry (1972, reprint 1974), pg 20:

Clearly, flying saucers, whether defined as extraterrestrial craft, misperceptions, or highly mission-oriented carriers of cosmic knowledge to "contactees", obviously do not satisfy the definition of UFOs since all of these definitions presuppose, a priori, the origin and nature of flying saucers.​

Beyond all the above, I happened to hear a live radio interview of Hynek on the Ed Busch Show, somewhere between 1979-1981. When the phone lines were opened, one of the callers asked Hynek where he thought UFOs come from. Hynek said he thought UFOs come from a realm akin to that of God and the angels. That is what he said on live radio. One of the next callers simply launched into a solid minute barrage of caustic ad hominem against Hynek for delegitimizing the "scientific" study of UFOs by his suggestion of their association with God and angels. Hynek politely put up with the attack, but didn't back down. After the show, I decided to write a letter to Hynek (back when you actually had to use a piece of paper and a pen) and I thanked him, someone with great expertise in the matter, that he was willing to call it as he sees it, despite the emotional responses of many people who are highly invested in the subject. I was surprised when a few weeks later I received a courteous response from Hynek. (Sorry, I lost that letter a long time ago.)

[I wrote to CUFOS to see if perhaps my letter is still there. Probably not, but who knows.]