Dr Hynek continues:
I was aware that in order to interest scientists, hard-core data were needed, and, while the store of unquestionably puzzling reports from competent witnesses continued to grow the wherewithal to obtain such hard-core data which would, once and for all, clinch the matter, was not forthcoming. Thus my scientific reticence was based on a care-fully weighed decision.
In attempting analysis of the UFO problem today, I pay particular attention to reports containing large amounts of information which are made by several witnesses, if possible, who as far as I can ascertain, have unimpeachable reputations and are competent. For example, I might cite a detailed report I received from the associate director of one of the Nation's most important scientific laboratories, and his family.
Reports such as these are obviously in a different category from reports which, say, identify Venus as a hovering space ship, and thus add to the frustrating confusion.
On the other hand, when one or more obviously reliable persons reports - as has happened many times - that a brightly illuminated object hovered a few hundred feet above their automobile, and that during the incident their car motor stopped, the headlights dimmed or went out, and the radio stopped playing, only to have these functions return to normal after the disappearance of the UFO, it is clearly another matter.
By what right can we summarily ignore their testimony and imply that they are deluded or just plain liars? Would we so treat these same people if they were testifying in court, under oath, on more mundane matters?
Or, if it is reported, as it has been in many instances over the world by reputable and competent persons, that while they were sitting quietly at home they heard the barnyard animals behaving in a greatly disturbed and atypical manner and when, upon investigating, found not only the animals in a state of panic but reported a noiseless - or sometimes humming - brightly illuminated object hovering nearby, beaming a bright red light down onto the surroundings, then clearly we should pay attention. Something very important may be going on.
Now, when in any recognized field of science an outstanding event takes place, or a new phenomenon is discovered, an account of it is quickly presented at a scientific meeting or is published in a respected appropriate journal. But this is certainly not the case with unusual UFO reports made by competent witnesses.
There appears to be a scientific taboo on even the passive tabulation of UFO reports. Clearly no serious work can be undertaken until such taboos are removed. There should be a respectable mechanism for the publication, for instance, of a paper on reported occurrences of electromagnetic phenomena in UFO encounters.
It would be foolhardy to attempt to present such a paper on UFO's to the American Physical Society or to the American Astronomical Society. The paper would be laughed down, if all that could be presented as scientific data were the anecdotal, incomplete, and non quantitative reports available. Consequently reports of unexplainable UFO cases are likely to be found, if at all, in pulp magazines and paper backs, of which the sole purpose of many seems to be, apart from making a fast buck for the authors, to titillate the fancy of the credulous.
Indeed, in such newsstand publications three or four UFO reports are frequently sensationalized on one page with gross disregard for accuracy and documentation; the result is that a scientist - if he reads them at all - is very likely to suffer mental nausea and to relegate the whole subject to the trash heap.
This is the first problem a scientist encounters when he takes a look at the UFO phenomenon. His publicly available source material is almost certain to consist of sensational, undocumented accounts of what may have been an actual event. Such accounts are much akin, perhaps, to the account we might expect from an aborigine encountering a helicopter for the first time, or seeing a total eclipse of the sun. There is nowhere a serious scientist can turn for what he would consider meaningful, hard-core data - as hard core and quantitative as the phenomenon itself permits at present.
Here we come to the crux of the problem of the scientist and the UFO. The ultimate problem is, of course, what are UFO's; but the immediate and crucial problem is, how do we get data for proper scientific study? The problem has been made immensely more difficult by the supposition held by most scientists, on the basis of the poor data available to them, that there couldn't possibly be anything substantial to UFO reports in the first place, and hence that there is no point to wasting time or money investigating.
This strange, but under the circumstances understandable attitude, would be akin to saying, for instance, let us not build observatories and telescopes for the study of the stars because it is obvious that those twinkling points of light up there are just illusions in the upper atmosphere and do not represent physical things.
Fortunately, centuries ago there were a few curious men who did not easily accept the notion that stars were illusory lights on a crystalline celestial sphere and judged that the study of the stars insight be worthwhile though, to many, a seemingly impractical and nonsensical venture. The pursuit of that seemingly impractical and possibly unrewarding study of astronomy and related sciences, however, has given us the highly technological world we live in and the high standard of living we enjoy - a standard which would have been totally impossible in a peasant society whose eyes were never turned toward the skies.
Can we afford not to look toward the UFO skies; can we afford to overlook a potential
breakthrough of great significance? And even apart from that, the public is growing
impatient. The public does not want another 20 years of
UFO confusion. They want to know whether there really is something to this whole
UFO business - and I can tell you definitely that they are not satisfied with the
answers they have been getting. The public in general may be unsophisticated in
scientific matters, but they have an uncanny way of distinguishing between an honest
scientific approach and the method of ridicule and persiflage.
As scientists, we may honestly wish to see whether there is any scientific pay dirt in this international UFO phenomenon. But to discover this pay dirt we must devote serious study to UFO'S. To make serious study possible, however, requires recruiting competent scientists, engineers, and technical people, as well as psychologists and sociologists.
This in turn requires not only funds but a receptive scientific climate. Many scientists have expressed to me privately their interest in the problem and their desire to actively pursue UFO research as soon as the scientific stigma is removed. But as long as the unverified presumption is strongly entrenched that every UFO has a simple, rational everyday explanation, the required climate for a proper and definitive study will never develop.
I recall an encounter I had sometime ago with the then chief scientist at the Pentagon. He asked me just how much longer we were "going to look at this stuff." I reminded him that we hadn't really looked at it yet - that is, in the sense, say, that the FBI looks at a kidnapping, a bank robbery, or a narcotics ring.
Up to this point I have not discussed another major impediment to the acceptance of the UFO phenomenon as legitimate material for scientific study. I refer to the adoption of the UFO phenomenon by certain segments of the public for their own peculiar uses. From the very start there have been psychically unbalanced individuals and pseudo religious cultist groups - and they persist in force today - who found in the UFO picture an opportunity to further their own fanciful cosmic and religious beliefs and who find solace and hope in the pious belief that UFO's carry kindly space brothers whose sole aim is a mission of salvation.
Such people "couldn't care less" about documentation, scientific study, and careful critical consideration. The conventions and meetings these people hold, and the literature they purvey, can only be the subject of derisive laughter and, I must stress, it is a most serious mistake for anyone to confuse this unfortunate aspect of the total UFO phenomenon with the articulate reports made by people who are unmistakably serious and make their reports out of a sense of civic duty and an abiding desire to know the cause of their experience.
It may not be amiss here to remark in passing that the "true believers" I have just referred to are rarely the ones who make UFO reports. Their beliefs do not need factual support. The reporters of the truly baffling UFO's, on the other hand, are most frequently disinterested or even skeptical people who are taken by surprise by an experience they cannot understand.
Hopefully the time is not far off when the UFO phenomenon can have an adequate and definitive hearing, and when a scholarly paper on the nature of UFO reports can be presented before scientific bodies without prejudice. Despite the scientific attitude to this subject in the past, I nevertheless decided to present a short paper on UFO's to a scientific body in 1952, following a scientific hunch that in the UFO phenomenon we were dealing with a subject of great possible importance.