On June 25th, The Alien Cosmic Expo in Brantford Ontario will play host to the first ever international panel on the existence of UFOs and Extraterrestrials using primarily Canadian government documents; suggesting that Canada, along with many other nations, have and are studying the UFO phenomenon. This massive collection of government files, according to the Research and Development team behind this panel, allegedly claims Canada is well aware of the UFO issue and that some of the evidence suggests that these UFOs rely upon intelligent operation.

Ok, I may have a few concerns here...

​It was 9 years ago, almost to the day, that on April 23rd, 2007, Ray Bowyer and his passengers aboard flight A-Line 544 departed Southampton, England. It was a routine 45-minute flight in good weather and visibility- and as they neared their destination, they witnessed two large unidentified objects hovering over the English Channel for several minutes. This simple flight, flown hundreds and hundreds of times previously, threw Boywer and his passengers into the world of ufology, and their experience has been dubbed the 2007 Alderney UFO Sighting. 

In an article written for GeekWire.com, Alan Boyle, makes a fundamental connection between the upcoming X-Files mini-series and the "renewed attention" UFO's will be given by the general public.

Interestingly, he interviews a few names that pop up pretty regularly in the ufology field, including Seth Shostak of SETI and Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center. Boyle presents Davenport's "laissez faire" attitude towards shows like The X-Files. Boyle writes, "What Davenport can’t figure out is why it takes something like The X-Files to get the broader public interested in UFOs."

Davenport can not figure it out because he does not value the fundamental desires present in our collective cultural consciousness; that is, the broader public is interested in UFOs because of something like The X-Files.

Although the X-Files TV show went off the air in 2002, interest in the series has continued unabated. There have been books, a spin-off TV series and several graphic novels. A “tenth season” done as a comic book continued the series until 2015, and “season 11” has just started. But the X-Files fanbase was part of the reason that helped encourage the miniseries revival that will air beginning January 24, 2016.
 
The X-Files followed the exploits of “believer” Fox Mulder and “skeptic” Dana Scully as they investigated otherworldly events (not all of them related to aliens) and battled a secret group trying to prevent their discovering “the truth.” The X-Files partially drew on case reports of tens of thousands of UFO sightings worldwide and the widespread belief that aliens are visiting Earth, abducting humans and working in secret with government agencies desperate to cover-up the “truth.” Among the memes and themes recurring often in the series are the following...

A few months ago, Seth Shostak wrote a piece for the Huffington Post entitled "UFOs: The Trail is Stale" exploring why modern ufology is not delivering "the goods". In other words, why isn't there a modern Roswell incident or Rendlesham Forrest? Where have all the aliens gone? Why are the reports and evidence showing up for modern day cases so...blah. 

'The Illusion of Conspiracy and Disclosure"

I conclude my review, no, my exploration, of Hynek’s book by discussing the largest movement in modern ufology. I will undoubtedly do many posts on this topic, as it seems to be a juggernaut that requires further discussion. I will begin here- as this entire four part project has been about a return to the roots of UFO culture.
 
Hynek is, without a doubt, one of the earliest ufologists to touch on the idea of a government cover up. If you’ve been reading my earlier posts like a good little boy or girl, I wrote about “era” and “authority”. During Hynek’s heyday in the late forties and early fifties, when he was actively working for the Air Force, the suggestion that the military was working against the citizenry would have been undoubtedly taboo. The nation had just come out of a war, and not only that, a very successful war, which launched the United States, and many other western nations, out of a depression and into economic growth and prosperity. The idea of a cover up of any sort would have been absurd, as the military was regarded with deep respect, pride and gratitude. Looking back on his time with Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book, Hynek questions, in 1977 (the date he published this book we are reviewing), why many reports were never filed, were missing or never saw his office.

"Sightings and Reports"

​I’d like to expand on the first point mentioned in my previous post - the UFO reports submitted to the three respective projects in Hynek's book.
 
Hynek’s example reports typically go into great detail with regards to each sighting. The people who made these reports seem to have a good handle on directional information, speed and size information as well as providing detailed location data. More importantly, the reports are generally rich in detail and provide an in-depth understanding of what the person was doing at the time of the sighting. The majority of the reports in the book that were made by “non-experts” provide significant detail with nearly no assumptions as to what the object was (more on this later). There are nearly one hundred reports in his book, but a few personal favorites are Five Witness and Five Discs (p. 107), The Case of the Missing Report (p. 108), The Case of the Tricky Disc (p. 115), and UFOs at Oak Ridge (p. 142).
 
Note: These are titles that Hynek uses in his book, not official Blue Book names.
 
Let’s compare this to how cases are reported today. There are a handful of UFO reporting organizations and websites. The largest, and probably the one closest to holding a household name, is MUFON.

"A bit of background...so to speak."

The Hynek UFO Report begins where he began. He worked as a consultant for the Air Force on Project Sign, Grudge and the famous Project Blue Book studying the phenomenon of UFOs. Like his peers, his job was as a debunker and to propose natural reasons for any UFO sightings. As time went on, he began to realize that these sightings were more than just meteors, balloons or hallucinations. His account of Project Blue Book is steeped in criticism. According to Hynek, the commanding officers were typically low ranking junior officers who couldn’t requisition a car half the time to investigate a sighting. The filing and record keeping system was in such total disarray that a huge collection of the program’s files were missing. The most telling and sure sign for Hynek was the unwritten rule amongst Air Force Intelligence concerning a UFO sighting; as Hynek put it, “it can’t be, therefore it isn’t.” In simple terms, the three projects designed to investigate the phenomenon were lacking funding, integrity and proper scientific method and inquiry.