Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Dr. J. Allen Hynek was a pioneering scientist

who developed smart weapons,

optical tracking systems

and space satellites.

But his passion was studying unidentified flying objects.

LUIS ELIZONDO: J. Allen Hynek was

this very highly trained scientist

that was convinced that there was

something to this phenomenon.

NARRATOR: Dr. Hynek revolutionized

how UFOs are studied.

TRAVIS TAYLOR: J. Allen Hynek took the scientific method

to the UFO-UAP problem, and he says,

"We need to take it serious."

That changed the community forever.

NARRATOR: And as far as UFO researchers are concerned,

he helped to establish that there is a presence

in our skies that is not of this world.

HYNEK: I'm quite certain there is a real phenomenon.

It is not all nonsense.

NARRATOR: In the 1940s,

people around the world became aware

of a startling new phenomenon: flying saucers.

Over the next several decades,

a highly renowned astronomer, astrophysicist and professor

became the leading proponent for the study of flying saucers

and other unidentified flying objects.

His name was Dr. J. Allen Hynek.

Even the grossest skeptic can't deny

that the UFO reports not only exist, but persist.

We have reports from 133 different countries,

and the same pattern exists around the world.

Many of the reports come

from highly, highly credible,

technically trained people, you see.

NARRATOR: At a time when the government, the military

and nearly the entire academic community mocked

and shunned anyone who spoke about UFOs,

Hynek had the courage to treat the topic seriously.

And as far as ufologists are concerned,

Dr. J. Allen Hynek was the ideal person

to advocate that UFOs are a real phenomenon,

because he started off as a skeptic,

hired by the U.S. Air Force to debunk reports of UFOs.

J. Allen Hynek is really the cornerstone,

I believe, of modern ufology.

He was a very serious and credentialed academic

brought in by the government to debunk the UAP topic,

only to be immersed in the topic

and realize that it's real.

DAVID CHILDRESS: Hynek was really viewed

as the king of ufology.

He was the one who was saying

that there's something going on out there,

and it's worthy of scientific study.

TAYLOR: J. Allen Hynek actually took the scientific method

to the UFO-UAP problem.

And I think that's the first time

someone actually started taking the UFO situation seriously

and applying methods that would enable us

to actually figure out what it is.

Dr. Allen Hynek, who is the leading expert

on UFOs in this country and probably in the world.

It's a very, very real phenomenon

of some sort is going on.

This all calls for some very real research,

and no real research has been done.

MICHIO KAKU: Dr. Hynek was fearless,

saying, "I believe in science,

"I believe in testability,

I believe in pushing the boundaries of science."

It is my growing feeling across the years

that the UFO phenomenon, not-not any hypothesis,

but the phenomenon itself is signaling,

I think, a coming change in the scientific paradigm.

He is one of the, if not the, founding father

of modern-day ufology.

I'm not sure we'd be here if it wasn't for Hynek.

NARRATOR: While Dr. Hynek's focus

was the modern-day UFO phenomenon,

ancient astronaut theorists point out

that he was also intrigued by the theories posed

by Erich von DƤniken in his groundbreaking book,

Chariots of the Gods.

PHIL IMBROGNO: Dr. Hynek did mention Von DƤniken

a number of times.

He said, "There are things

that can't be explained from a historical point of view,"

and that we have to consider

that extraterrestrials came here a long time ago

and interfered or helped human beings

develop their civilization.

He said, "You can't rule it out."

NARRATOR: But how did a world-renowned scientist,

hired by the military to put an end

to the so-called "flying disc craze,"

end up becoming a champion for the study of UFOs?

Joseph Allen Hynek is born into a working-class family

of Czechoslovakian immigrants.

As a young boy, he's stricken with scarlet fever,

which leads to a formative moment in his life.

ROXANE HYNEK: In those days,

one of the treatments was to keep the child in bed.

So it was almost a year, something like that.

So, his mom got him a book on astronomy.

And that's what set the whole thing in motion.

NARRATOR: By the time he was a teenager,

Hynek had also developed an interest in mysticism,

theosophy and Rosicrucianism--

an ancient society of mystics and philosophers.

PAUL HYNEK: He thought there was something implicit underneath

and perhaps behind the stars.

I think that's what drove him to look there,

and astronomy was the method for him to sort of reconcile

to take a flashlight to the dim edges

of mainstream science

and shine a bit of light out there

and find the magic in the universe.

NARRATOR: Hynek earned his PhD in astrophysics

at the University of Chicago in 1935,

and quickly gained fame as a highly respected scientist.

He helped develop the world's first smart weapons

during World War II,

worked on technology for space telescopes,

and pioneered satellite tracking.

JACQUES VALLEE: He was on the cover

of Life magazine after Sputnik

because he had been the man

to really build the entire

American tracking system from scratch

with special telescopes that could move very quickly,

could track an object in the sky.

And it was also the administration

of a worldwide network of observing stations.

Dr. Hynek had managed all that.

NARRATOR: By his mid-30s,

J. Allen Hynek had already made a name for himself

as an astronomer and astrophysicist.

But a series of extraordinary events

would dramatically change the trajectory of his career.

In June 1947,

pilot Kenneth Arnold

reported seeing nine disc-shaped objects

flying near Mount Rainier in Washington.

Less than a month later,

there is a report of a flying saucer

crashing outside the town of Roswell, New Mexico.

And in January 1948,

Army Captain Thomas Mantell tragically died in a plane crash

while chasing a UFO over Kentucky.

The U.S. Air Force was really put on the spot

to have some kind of public engagement with this phenomenon.

People wanted to know about it.

And they created in 1948,

something known as "Project Sign."

NARRATOR: Project Sign was the very first

government investigation into UFOs.

To lead the scientific side of the project,

they chose Dr. Hynek.

These three Air Force officers came by,

and for about a half an hour, we just talked

about the weather and this and that.

JOEL HYNEK: My father liked to say

that he was like the innocent bystander that got shot.

He had no idea what he was in for,

but he thought he should help the Air Force calm the public,

you know, after the war, so,

that's why he did it.

CHILDRESS: Hynek would explain all these UFO reports

as meteors, as comets, as reflections off clouds,

as stars that were bright in the sky,

or the planet Venus.

Anything that would explain this activity

as other than flying saucers or UFOs.

NARRATOR: Hynek served as the scientific advisor

for Project Sign, which lasted less than a year.

It was followed by another UFO investigation

called "Project Grudge," which was terminated so quickly,

Hynek never had a chance to join it.

But reports of UFOs only continued to increase,

prompting the government to launch

a much more substantial initiative

to study, and ultimately debunk, UFOs,

called "Project Blue Book."

But the longer Dr. Hynek studied the UFO phenomenon,

the more convinced he became that it could not be dismissed.

NARRATOR: In the aftermath of World War II,

the United States has become engaged

in a Cold War with the Soviet Union.

There has also been an increase in reports

of unidentified flying objects,

and some fear the UFOs could be Soviet aircraft.

But with extraterrestrials becoming a popular theme

in 1950s science fiction,

many others are genuinely concerned

about an alien invasion.

After the war, there were strange sightings

of things in the sky,

and people began to wonder what's up there?

People were afraid of aliens in outer space.

And so, Project Blue Book was created as a consequence.

NARRATOR: Project Blue Book was the Air Force's third

and most significant investigation

into the UFO phenomenon.

And once again, they looked to Dr. J. Allen Hynek

to be the scientific face of the project.

MARK O'CONNELL: The Air Force said,

"We keep getting these reports. It's still a problem.

"In fact, it's a bigger problem than it was

"the last time we talked to you.

Would you be willing to come back and help us with this?"

So Hynek agrees.

KAKU: The military wanted to squash any of this speculation

about aliens from outer space or what have you.

You see, the government wanted to control the agenda,

and flying saucers did not fit with that agenda.

We were in a race with Russia.

It was the McCarthy period.

Anyone who deviated from this agenda

would put their scientific reputation on the line.

JOEL: I think being patriotic is part of why

he worked for the Air Force 'cause that was, uh,

you know, after the war, and everybody was very

gung ho and let's help the government and the country.

You see, there's nothing more cocky

than a relatively young PhD, just coming out of...

NARRATOR: But shortly after joining Project Blue Book,

Hynek's notion

that UFOs were nonsense would be seriously challenged.

An air traffic controller at Washington National Airport

is alarmed when he picks up seven strange objects

on his radar screen, and he quickly determines

they are unlike any man-made aircraft he has ever seen.

PAUL: These objects that were spherical shaped were

moving up to 7,000 miles per hour

in very unconventional fashion.

We scrambled fighter jets after them,

but as soon as the jets got aloft, the objects disappeared.

NARRATOR: One week later, the strange objects appeared

over the nation's capital again.

POPE: There was a press conference at the Pentagon

which was the biggest single press conference

that had been held since the end of the Second World War.

Hynek got to see the various reports.

The debunking explanation was that these were mirages

sometimes caused by a temperature inversion.

In other words, a layer of particularly dense air.

NARRATOR: While Hynek publicly supported

the Air Force's explanation

for the Washington UFO sightings,

privately he was conflicted

about the investigation's findings.

The official conclusion

that an optical illusion was the source

of the alarming events caused Hynek to begin to question

his colleague, Dr. Donald H. Menzel,

Director of the Harvard Observatory.

VALLEE: Dr. Hynek disagreed with Dr. Menzel.

Dr. Menzel had "explained,"

when people were seeing those lights,

there was a temperature inversion over Washington,

and that's why the radar was reflected.

I looked at that later, and I met someone

who had been in that radar room.

And he left the room to see, well,

if he could see something in the sky.

And he could see the UFOs.

So, this was a visual sighting.

It wasn't just radar, which meant

that the Menzel explanation

didn't make any sense scientifically.

It was wrong scientifically.

NARRATOR: Project Blue Book had just gotten underway,

but already, Hynek was beginning to think

UFOs could be something more than just natural phenomena.

NARRATOR: Over the years,

Hynek would become increasingly conflicted

about his role on Project Blue Book.

I remember one time driving up to Canada in the family car,

and I think I was about 15,

and I noticed he's fidgeting with his hair,

and... and I said, "Dad, what's going on?"

He said, "Well, I'm-I'm on the fence."

I mean, he was on the fence.

Having to toe the party line

of the Air Force's that there's nothing going on here,

that it's all explainable, took a toll on him.

CHILDRESS: The Air Force continually insisted that every

UFO incident had some natural explanation.

And Hynek knew that that was untrue,

that while many UFO reports could be explained naturally,

there were some that couldn't,

but the Air Force wouldn't allow him to go that direction.

GIORGIO A. TSOUKALOS: The more he did his research,

and the more people he interviewed,

the more he realized, "Wait a second.

Not all of these eyewitnesses are crazy."

In many cases, these eyewitnesses were not alone

when they experienced their encounters,

or when they saw something.

IMBROGNO: He began to realize how long--

and these are his exact words--

"How long am I gonna call these people

"crazy or incompetent?

"Some of them were seeing something

"very, very unexplainable,

and it should be investigated further."

NARRATOR: For more than a decade,

Dr. Hynek helped the Air Force carry out its agenda,

assuring the public that UFOs

were nothing to be concerned about.

But that would begin to change in 1963,

when Hynek gained a fierce ally in his pursuit

to make the government take the study of UFOs more seriously:

Dr. Jacques Vallee.

NARRATOR: J. Allen Hynek is entering his 11th year

as the scientific advisor to Project Blue Book,

and is now also the chair

of Northwestern University's astronomy department.

In the spring,

the 53-year-old professor meets a young French astronomer

and computer science student named Jacques Vallee.

One of the most important meetings

that Hynek had in his life was when he first

came across Jacques Vallee.

Jacques Vallee was himself an astronomer,

an astrophysicist really,

and he was also an early computer pioneer.

NARRATOR: While working as an astronomer

at the Paris Observatory,

Vallee had conducted extensive research

about UFO activity throughout Europe.

Hynek was eager to see Vallee's research,

but what impressed him the most

was that Vallee had created a computer database

to analyze all of the data.

VALLEE: What I found

in developing a catalogue of sightings were a number

of patterns that were interesting.

And in late '63, I traveled to Chicago

and met with Dr. Hynek and started to compare notes

to see if those patterns in Europe are the same

as were patterns in the United States.

TSOUKALOS: When Jacques Vallee came into the picture,

a dynamic duo was formed that was unstoppable,

because Vallee helped Hynek computerize everything.

That was the next level in UFO research.

HENRY: Vallee has a very scientific orientation

towards the study of this.

Together, they both have an intuition

that this is an extraterrestrial phenomena,

and it needs to be treated as such.

VALLEE: We started to look at patterns in the behavior

of UFO phenomena,

and we started finding things

that had not been published before,

had not been understood before.

IMBROGNO: Dr. Hynek said, "This fellow is brilliant.

"He's respected in the scientific world,

"and he's coming out

with these ideas that I would like to explore more."

And I think when Jacques Vallee said, "This is what I believe,

and I'm not afraid to say this," Hynek felt relieved.

PAUL: Jacques was a-a very frequent guest,

along with his wife and kids, at our house.

He had a great passion for astronomy.

He saw a fascinating phenomena,

and he wanted to go where the science led them.

I could see this special fondness and reverence

my father had for Jacques.

NARRATOR: Working with Vallee and his database,

Hynek encountered more and more UFO sightings

that could not be easily explained.

But perhaps the most compelling case

he would investigate not only had a report

of an object in the sky, but evidence...

on the ground.

Dr. Hynek is summoned to the small town

of Socorro, New Mexico.

When he arrives, he is told

that local police officer Lonnie Zamora encountered a UFO

on the outskirts of the city.

RICHARD DOLAN: April 24, Lonnie Zamora is chasing a speeder

when he sees this thing zoom across the sky

and go over a hill and possibly crash.

He stops the chase, gets out of his car,

goes up on foot to this hill,

and he sees this perfect, egg-shaped thing

with landing gear and everything.

ELIZONDO: Lonnie Zamora recalls

seeing what he describes

as a-a... some sort of vehicle craft

that would appear to be in distress.

And even perhaps little beings,

what we now refer to as "NHI, non-human intelligence."

And in his report, they very quickly

and hurriedly get into the aircraft and flew away.

NARRATOR: According to Zamora's report,

the brush was burning in several places,

and there were four perpendicular impressions

left on the ground.

PAUL: When Project Blue Book got word of the Socorro case,

they sent my father there to explain it away.

But when my father got there,

he found it to be a very compelling case.

There was Zamora, who clearly seemed to be traumatized.

HYNEK: I visited Socorro a number of times,

trying, frankly, to break down the man's character

to try to find out whether he's capable

of the hoax... and whether...

what his gravitation is like, and I've inquired

of, uh, people who have known him all his life,

and even some parents of some of my students happen

to live in Socorro, and I roundabout tried that.

And he, Zamora, has always held up.

His character has simply held up as a solid American citizen cop.

ELIZONDO: J. Allen Hynek realized

that Lonnie Zamora was not a fabricator,

that what he was saying was an experience

that he believed he actually experienced.

(camera shutter clicks)

And that may have had something to do

with J. Allen Hynek perhaps starting

to come around the corner

and change his position on the topic.

PAUL: Jacques told me that it was this case

that was more or less the straw that broke the camel's back,

to make my father feel comfortable

talking about UFO reports

with sightings of aliens.

VALLEE: This was the first case where he said,

"Yes, these were creatures,"

because there were traces of footsteps there

that were not human footsteps.

It was a turning point because there was no question

something had happened,

and he had to take landings seriously.

NARRATOR: Despite the evidence collected in New Mexico,

the Air Force insisted that Hynek toe the company line,

and he dropped the investigation.

Hynek's frustration with the military's policy

of denial was at an all-time high,

and when another extraordinary UFO event occurred

two years later,

the acclaimed astronomer would no longer stay quiet.

NARRATOR: J. Allen Hynek, now in his 14th year

with Project Blue Book, is at home

when he catches a curious segment on the evening news.

According to the report,

a farmer in rural Michigan named Frank Manor

witnessed a UFO flying above his property.

I looked north of me, and, uh, there were...

It looked like a falling star, or...

It was red and kind of coming down and...

And, uh, when it got to the top of the trees, it stopped.

And a... a blue and a white light come on.

And, uh, I looked at it, and I thought I was seeing things.

NARRATOR: In addition to Frank Manor,

many other residents across southern Michigan

saw the UFO, including a member

of law enforcement: Sheriff's Sergeant Newell Snyder,

who drew a sketch of the flying craft.

SNYDER: It, uh, moved very rapidly at any speed,

or rather, any direction it wanted to go.

REPORTER: What do you think it was?

SNYDER: Well, if they call it a flying saucer,

that's what it is.

NARRATOR: Over the next few nights,

dozens more UFO sightings were reported.

CHILDRESS: The 1966

UFO flap over Michigan happened over several days.

And hundreds of witnesses saw

these weird flying saucer lights in the sky.

It was big news at the time.

O'CONNELL: Dr. Hynek calls his boss at Project Blue Book,

and he says, "Hey, something big is going on in Michigan."

And his boss says, "You go to Michigan,

wipe out the whole thing. Make it like it never happened."

NARRATOR: Hynek traveled to Michigan

to investigate the sightings,

and on March 25, he released his conclusions to the press.

He claimed that the most likely cause

of the lights seen by witnesses

was not extraterrestrial activity,

but marsh gas.

I cannot prove in a court of law

that marsh gas is the full explanation of these sightings,

but it does appear to me extremely likely.

REPORTER: Are you saying, Doctor,

that Michigan is now producing non-existent saucers?

(laughs) Well, it's, uh,

one way of putting it, I suppose.

NARRATOR: Hynek's conclusion sparked outrage nationwide.

He was ridiculed by pundits, op-ed columnists and cartoonists

who viewed him as the ultimate government pawn.

DOLAN: It's an absolute embarrassing debacle for him.

No one believed this.

So, this became the national joke.

JOEL: Michigan-- that was a tough moment for him.

He really didn't know what to make of it, uh,

but he was under a lot of pressure to say something, and

he went with that.

ROXANE: I remember the swamp gas incident.

I remember actually seeing him on TV.

And I-I could just see in his face that it was just

not something he wanted to do.

NARRATOR: After his disastrous press conference,

Hynek was summoned to Washington, D.C.

to testify before Congress.

And for the first time,

he defied his superiors on Project Blue Book

and revealed his true thoughts on the UFO phenomenon.

CHILDRESS: Hynek gets in front of this committee

and says to them,

"UFOs are a worthy study,

and it needs scientific investigation."

TAYLOR: He's had enough, and he says,

"No, there's a scientific problem

"with UFOs.

We need to take it serious."

IMBROGNO: Hynek said

that when he made his official statement

about how he felt about UFOs, he got into serious trouble

with the Air Force.

I don't think they did much of anything to him,

but they cut him off

from support is what they did.

NARRATOR: After Hynek's controversial testimony,

the Air Force opened an investigation

into Project Blue Book

chaired by physicist Edward Condon,

called "the Condon Committee."

By the end of 1969,

the Condon Committee terminated Project Blue Book,

and J. Allen Hynek was finally free to speak openly about UFOs.

In my association with Project Blue Book, I know,

and I know very well that it was not a scientific project.

I also know that they never, never would notify the media

when an interesting case came up.

They did everything they could to...

REPORTER: Keep it down. -...push it, keep it down.

TSOUKALOS: J. Allen Hynek became

a well-known figure on television,

on radio, talking about aerial phenomena.

And in doing so, he became, well, Mr. UFO,

I guess the first one there ever was.

And he really took this whole research topic to another level.

ROXANE: My parents were a bit concerned about his

mainstream reputation being damaged.

It was so different than it is now as far as

if somebody talked about UFOs, they could lose their careers,

their kids could be hounded at school.

So, there was a real stigma back then.

But I don't think it slowed my father down.

It was a brave thing to do.

NARRATOR: After spending more than 20 years

helping the U.S. government convince the public

that there is nothing mysterious in our skies,

Hynek was now leading the charge to legitimize the study of UFOs.

And he would soon reach a larger audience

than ever before with the help...

of Steven Spielberg.

NARRATOR: After investigating UFOs for more than 24 years,

J. Allen Hynek publishes his first book

on the phenomenon-- The UFO Experience.

HENRY: It's an instant bestseller, mega bestseller.

One of the key elements in the book is

the "close encounter" classification.

This becomes a framework

for people to categorize their UFO experience.

Is it a close encounter of the first kind?

In other words, did you see something

less than 500 feet away?

Close encounter of the second kind--

was there a physical effect that was felt?

Was there a burn mark?

Is there physical evidence left

by perhaps a landing of the craft?

And then the close encounter of the third kind,

which is the sighting of an animated figure,

be it a humanoid being or perhaps a robot

within or near that craft.

NARRATOR: Today,

more than five decades after he introduced it,

Hynek's close encounters classification system

remains the standard by which UFO reports are defined.

But even more influential was the research facility

he launched in Evanston, Illinois

just one year after the publication

of his first book, called "The Center for UFO Studies."

TSOUKALOS: It essentially became a global hub

for anyone to go and report their UFO sightings.

But he couldn't do it by himself,

so he raised a whole bunch of money,

and all of a sudden, had staff.

He was able to do a lot more research

than he had ever been able to do before.

JOEL: My father felt it was important

to set up a 1-800 number,

and he was very free giving his phone number,

the-the home phone number.

(phone ringing) -And so in those days,

the phone was always ringing off the hook.

But he was always happy to, you know, take the call.

What motivated him was the idea

that UFOs could open up a whole new domain of physics,

that it could increase our understanding of reality.

That really propelled him.

PAUL: My father traveled more than anybody I've ever met.

And so, my mom was left

to take care of the kids to a great deal.

She was fiercely independent, very strong.

And at first, I think, she must have been hesitant

to have my father go off on these

wild-goose chases for flying saucers,

but after a while, she caught the bug, too,

and became an active participant in the Center for UFO Studies.

And I think she really helped comfort a lot of people,

gently coaxing them into talking a little bit more

about what could be a very traumatic topic.

ROXANE: It seemed a really exciting time for my father,

a blossoming time.

I remember coming home, and our house had been transformed.

My bedroom was no longer my bedroom, and the same

with most of the others, so it was this hubbub.

And files and papers and phones,

and it was just... it was an exciting time,

and I think he really enjoyed that a lot.

NARRATOR: Ufologist Phil Imbrogno worked with Dr. Hynek

in the early 1980s investigating UFO sightings

in New York's Hudson Valley.

According to him, Hynek's passion

for investigating the phenomenon was unmatched.

IMBROGNO: If he thought that the sightings were worth value

to give UFOs more credibility and more attention

in the scientific world, he was there.

And his energy was unbelievable in the field.

I was only

30-something years old there, and he was in his 70s,

and I was exhausted before he was.

And he just kept on going.

And when interviewing witnesses,

he made them feel so comfortable

that they just opened up to him.

NARRATOR: Three years

after launching The Center for UFO Studies,

J. Allen Hynek received a phone call

from Hollywood's hottest new director: Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg wanted the distinguished Dr. Hynek

to consult on his new film,

called Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

JOEL: Our father was all for it,

being a technical advisor

on Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

And people were taking it seriously,

and that's what he loved about it.

POPE: Hynek even has a cameo role.

Right at the end of it, the climactic scene

where the mothership comes down, you can see

there's one guy with a goatee and a pipe, and that's Hynek.

ROXANE: I still, when I see it,

I always get a... just sort of a... (gasps)

...when he comes on for his-his cameo.

NARRATOR: Close Encounters of the Third Kind premiered

on November 15, 1977,

and went on to become a box office smash

and a critical success.

But perhaps most important to Hynek

was the fact that the movie established the UFO phenomenon

in the mainstream.

PAUL: The movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind

was truly a watershed moment in the phenomena.

The movie did so much service

for people who felt they'd had sightings,

in legitimizing them to come forward.

The movie raised public awareness

of the UFO phenomenon to new heights.

One of the offshoots of the popularity of this movie was

Hynek was able to persuade Spielberg to print

the contact information for his Center for UFO Studies

on every single movie poster

for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Bottom corner of the poster,

there's gonna be a little notation,

"If you've seen anything unusual, contact CUFOS."

NARRATOR: Shortly after the release of the film,

Hynek retired from teaching,

and eventually relocated The Center for UFO Studies

to Phoenix, Arizona.

In his final years, he continued

to travel the world investigating UFOs,

and proposed profound new possibilities

for what might be behind the phenomenon.

NARRATOR: In 1981,

the residents of this small mountain village

began reporting strange lights

of various colors, sizes and shapes.

Intrigued by the phenomenon,

Norwegian electrical engineer Erling Strand

started a research project to investigate it.

And on a whim, he reached out

to the world's foremost authority

on the UFO phenomenon: Dr. J. Allen Hynek.

To his surprise, Hynek was not only receptive,

but in 1985, at 74 years old,

he traveled to Hessdalen

to witness the phenomenon for himself.

STRAND: Everyone

in Scandinavia knew who he was.

When he came to visit us out in the field in Norway,

that inspired us very much.

Such a great man.

Now the fact that they actually saw those lights

against the mountain, I think is very important.

NARRATOR: Most of the video from Hynek's visit has been lost,

but the fragments that have survived

represent the last footage ever shot

of the pioneering scientist and ufologist.

In it, he reveals that in his final assessment

of the UFO phenomenon,

an extraterrestrial intelligence is just one

of numerous profound possibilities.

ROXANE: One of the things I really love, loved,

love about my dad is that

he was open to entertaining things that weren't just

a fixed solution.

He didn't have to wrap things up

so that you couldn't continue exploring.

I-I... love that aspect of my dad.

NARRATOR: Dr. J. Allen Hynek passed away

from a malignant brain tumor in 1986,

as Halley's Comet was passing by the planet.

It was the first time the comet had been visible

from Earth since 1910, the year Hynek was born.

He came and went with Halley's Comet,

which is a really nice kind of comforting,

cosmological bookend for a grieving son.

JOEL: I'm very proud of my father.

He was a serious scientist looking into UFOs.

And it was not cool for a scientist to be doing that

on this silly subject.

So, he battled that a lot,

and I think he will be appreciated by UFO advocates

and serious scientists.

PAUL: My father's legacy is that he was a very believable figure.

He was the archetypal professor.

And if this guy says there's something happening here,

maybe it's okay if I believe that, too.

So I think he was able to put the world on his back

and bring us just a little bit closer to accepting the idea

that we are not alone.

VALLEE: Dr. Hynek used to say

that what's important in science is the exception.

So much of science

and scientific discovery is based on an exception

for the things that breaks a rule.

And I think that's why UFOs are important.

Because they break the rule.

ELIZONDO: It's because of J. Allen Hynek

I think we are where we are today in this topic.

J. Allen Hynek was the right person at the right time.

NARRATOR: From a young boy fascinated with astronomy,

to a government UFO debunker,

to a founding father of ufology,

J. Allen Hynek lived his life

with one foot planted in hard science

and the other in the unknown.

And in the end, his investigations,

both in the academic world and the world of UFOs,

led him to conclude that whether it's extraterrestrial,

interdimensional,

or something we have yet to imagine,

there is likely a non-human intelligence on planet Earth.

Perhaps someday in the very near future,

we will discover that Hynek was right

and come face-to-face with our alien ancestors.

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